[Josh Martin]
Frank voices a few objections to Zwolinski’s original post on the basic income at Cato Unbound. Frank agrees that a basic income would be preferable to the current system, but he fears that a basic income that raises a family out of poverty would never be politically sustainable. Hardworking taxpayers might soon hear about others who live off of their basic incomes and create animosity between the two groups. However, Frank does not write off a basic income entirely. Instead, he advocates a basic income that is not a livable amount paired with public work opportunities at sub-minimum wage levels. This would make poverty effectively a choice in his eyes, since everybody could find work that would raise them above the poverty line.
Robert Frank, “Let’s Try a Basic Income and Public Work”, Cato Unbound, 11 August 2014.
Cato Unbound is hosting a month-long discussion on "The Basic Income and the Welfare State"
If everyone gets a basic income, then no one need be jealous. So what if someone decides to live entirely off of basic income while you slave away (and get basic income) at a job you hate? Every argument made against basic income falls flat on its nose because they fail to address the true nature of human beings – when we are free to choose without fear of consequence, we are happier and more productive. In other words, we can be who we want to be, work where we want and no longer have to pretend that we like doing something we hate. Now, that’s something I can live with – can you?
If Basic Income works, that is, if it is sustainable, then the only people who should pay for it are the people who want it for themselves and others — people who believe in it.
But how do you do that? We all live trapped in a global State, which is a power structure that (violently) enacts more or less uniform laws (civil laws, economic laws, …) over broad swathes of land. Over *land*, and they apply to anybody on that piece of land. You travel a bit and suddenly it works a little bit different over there. You pass a law for UBI, you apply it inevitably to people who want it and to people who don’t want it.
UBI can try to sell itself to the geopolitical State(s) we have, or it can place itself above geopolitical statism.
In fact, if you step backwards from UBI you’ll discover a new, core ethical system, common to every other movement for good on this planet. That is above statism as we know it and replaces it. If you step forward again from that core, you may realize you’re no longer talking about “income” even, though the core reasons that led you to pursue the topic of BI are there, realized.
What we refer to as “UBI” is, in its essence, the desire of some humans to live with other humans in a society that believes in itself and is not constantly worried about “where is ma hard work going to?? get off my lawn!”
A society where we work because we want to, not a society where a force is exerted on us to “serve”, and then we’re constantly worried whether our work is being “stolen” or whether it is being applied towards a (fake, empty) social project that’s been sold to us.
This post is another move in the neverending struggle between different people forced under a single society, under single rule, to decide what the rules will be and what everyone in it should be doing.
I think having our State(s) forced into forcing others into UBI is good for everyone, but that kind of victory is bitter because I do not want people who don’t want to be part of it to be forced into being part of it.
Instead, why don’t State(s) work on laws that allow a person to choose some sort of “economic category”? Corporate “persons” can do it — they can choose how the state will treat them. Why don’t humans? Why can’t I choose whether I am an UBI-supporting human person, and pay (and benefit from) UBI, and then people who don’t want it can stay away from it?
Or maybe we can start private UBI “overlay” societies, deal with membership ourselves, and interface with the old structures until they are completely emptied?