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SNAP, section 8 housing, disability, and other programs are still necessary under UBI unless UBI is absurdly high. If is that high, then the sick/elderly/disabl

• specialist 9y ago
  When you say "entitlement", I hear "progressive wealth redistribution". Government is the source of all wealth. So administering cashectomies is a fine way to mitigate hoarding. Once our Ginni coefficient is dragged back into the "democracy promoting" realm, we can talk about liberal over reach.
  • dahdum 9y ago
    > Government is the source of all wealth. So administering cashectomies is a fine way to mitigate hoarding. Labor is the source of all wealth, not government. > Once our Ginni coefficient is dragged back into the "democracy promoting" realm, we can talk about liberal over reach What exactly is the democracy promoting range? How does it promote democracy exactly? The richest Americans are nearly split between democrats/republicans, so this isn't a 1 party issue. I don't think UBI is over reach, I think it's bad policy.
    • Suncho 9y ago
      > Labor is the source of all wealth, not government. Neither labor nor government is the source of all wealth. There is no one source of all wealth. Not all wealth is produced in the economy, but for the wealth that is, the source of that wealth is all of the resources (including labor) that collectively go into the production of that wealth. Furthermore, we wouldn't produce wealth if people weren't able to buy it. So in a sense, you could say that the source of wealth is spending. And in the sense that the government funds spending (through a basic income or otherwise), the government is the source of wealth. Depending on your perspective, wealth can have different sources. But figuring out the source of wealth isn't really that important when we know how to maximize people's wealth regardless of its theoretical source. There's a lecture I really like by economist Steve Keen where he describes his own theory for the source of wealth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H1LIr2NMbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H1LIr2NMbE His answer is that energy (a.k.a. the sun) is the source of all wealth. That's certainly a reasonable way of looking at it that you can't really argue with. But it doesn't tell us how to improve human prosperity. My favorite quote from the lecture: "The theory of production has got nothing to do with the theory of remuneration." Basically this means that how much you get paid has very little if anything to do with how much you contribute. And that's exactly the way it's supposed to be. Markets determine the prices of various forms of labor and that's fine. Let supply meet demand and don't worry about whether wages happen to line up with individual incomes that are optimal for the economy. Getting individual incomes to prosperity-maximizing levels what basic income is for.
      • fuzzfactor 9y ago
        Natural resources are the original source of all wealth. Labor can only add value. Government can only take value away. If what government takes is significant, the amount must be bearable relative to the remaining resources and productivity of the labor, or collapse will be inevitable. A benevolent government is sustainable. A greedy or destructive government is not sustainable, even though the resulting collapse may be beyond any person's or institution's living time frame or vision. This can be exploited by design.
      • dahdum 9y ago
        "So in a sense, you could say that the source of wealth is spending." The currency you're trying to build is based on that model, and I just can't agree with it. You do have intriguing points but I think we're coming at the issue from a far divide.