I have recently gotten into a conversation with someone regarding Universal Basic Income and whether it is more or less socialism than what we currently have in place.
The person I spoke to said, and I quote "If it involves a drastic
reduction of the size of government, and a stripping away of the
mentality of "the state will be responsible to care for you regardless
of what you do" and simultaneously of that idea that "you have to jump
through hoops determined by the state to be eligible for state-care", it
is in many respects less socialist than the current welfare-state."
My question to him was, how is giving everyone a basic income for just being alive not the governement taking care of everyone regardless of what you do? It's the same type of socialism in a different form.
Socialism doesn't work. History has proven that. We do need to make changes in our governement and cut back on the waste but we need to make people more independent so they depend on the government less, not more. What scares me more is this person's profession is a historian so they should know better.
How would Universal Basic Income not allow the government into our lives more than they already are? What's to say they won't make conditions on what we can and can't spend the UBI money on? What if they say "You can't buy alcohol or drugs or junk food" with UBI? Do you want to give the government another way to dictate what we can and can't do with our lives?
Capitalism works but there needs to be tweaks to make sure certain people aren't allowed to abuse it.
UBI simply put is more socialism and we have too much socialism in our lives as it is and we should reject it wholesale.
Do you think UBI is more or less socialism? Comment and let me know what you think.
"Socialism doesn't work. History has proven that."
ReplyDeleteSocialism fails when done wrong, just like capitalism. Sweden is an easy example of successful socialism. It has high taxes, free education, and universal healthcare. It also has a robust private sector, strong GDP per capita, and excellent credit.
"What's to say they won't make conditions on what we can and can't spend the UBI money on?"
If you put conditions on it, it's not UBI. That was the whole point of the post. UBI is a wealth redistribution scheme with minimal bureaucracy. The government mails everybody a check for $1000 each month, no strings attached. This system would be highly efficient, and would allow for the dissolution of Social Security, TANF, SNAP, unemployment benefits, and many other programs.
Wealth redistribution is a bad thing and I can't see why anyone would suggest it's what should happen. So you punish the successful for being successful by taking their money away and give it to the people who are lazy and can't apply themselves, or think they are above doing a certain type of work.
ReplyDeleteUBI is doomed to fail and if this were ever suggested in the US I would do everything I could to stop it.
We need less socialism not more. We need to stop rewarding the lazy and get them to actually contribute to society, not reward them and pay them for doing nothing.