10 ms·

I have never heard of a libertarian in favor of a government-based social safety net. Could you expand on what a libertarian social safety net would look like?

stickfigure 8y ago
UBI is quite popular in some libertarian circles. In theory, it would have minimal administrative overhead and distort the market less than the present regime of labor laws.
nv-vn 8y ago
I've heard many libertarians who are in favor of universal basic income, because it solves many of the problems that current welfare systems introduce. Also, there are some who are in favor of universal healthcare. There are indeed a wide range of views in the libertarian spectrum.
- meshr 8y ago
  They are impostors. True libertarians protect the right not to pay for other. You can support whatever you want only after you get this right.
- sintaxi 8y ago
  Coerced wealth redistribution is about the furthest thing there is to libertarianism.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
seibelj 8y ago
In broad strokes, my ideal safety net would be means tested (if you are poorer you get more) but gradually phase out as income increases in order to incentivize working, be a cash transfer to let people spend however they want without layers of make-work bureaucracy and political lobbying (farm lobby pushing food stamps, etc.), and be actually funded rather than through deficit spending.
- pvg 8y ago
  That sounds a lot like food stamps, if you scrape the ideological patina off it.
  - seibelj 8y ago
    No, this is nothing like foodstamps. Foodstamps can only be used for approved products in the food category. This encourages certain industries, such as farmers, to lobby for increased welfare dollars to flow to foodstamps. It also requires an enormous bureaucracy to manage the foodstamp program and creates a political agenda and interest groups around it. We should eliminate existing welfare programs, of which there are many, and turn it into a simple cash transfer to the recipient's bank account. If society wants to give $X in welfare to person Y, then let's give $X to person Y and not have all of the other drama and waste around it.
    - zjaffee 8y ago
      The reason why food stamps work and wealth transfers don't is that increasing food production to match the demand that food stamps add isn't all that difficult, especially given that so much food already goes to waste. A direct transfer of money that could then be spent on things like housing or healthcare doesn't result in an increased production of those goods as it stands today since it won't result in a rapid increase in the number of doctors or the amount of housing available at lower price points. I keep seeing conservative/libertarian groups propose things such as negative income taxes and UBI, but feeding the beast that is capitalism wont necessarily provide individuals substantially better conditions than exist today without additional major policy changes.
      - seibelj 8y ago
        A free market is the most efficient way to distribute resources and it does this via price signals. Quantifying welfare as a single number, paid for in dollars, is maximally efficient. What you are arguing for is to split welfare into buckets, such as the food bucket (SNAP) and the housing bucket (rent control), but still let individuals spend freely within that bucket. It’s an argument, but I think the simple solution is just to have one bucket and trust that individuals know what they need to spend money on best. The twist you have, that food is a unique resource we grow too much of and SNAP is essentially free because we use food that would be wasted, is very strange and I haven’t heard it before. I don’t think government purchasers buy food from the trash pile, it all comes from the market.
benjohnson 8y ago
As a (soft)libertarian I have to acknowledge that social spending can be such a great value that it's almost imperative - for example if we were to drop taxpayer funding of education, it would put our country at a severe disadvantage to other countries. Those more economically successful countries could over the long term buy our assets. Public-health vaccinations also come to mind.

stickfigure 8y ago

UBI is quite popular in some libertarian circles. In theory, it would have minimal administrative overhead and distort the market less than the present regime of labor laws.

nv-vn 8y ago

I've heard many libertarians who are in favor of universal basic income, because it solves many of the problems that current welfare systems introduce. Also, there are some who are in favor of universal healthcare. There are indeed a wide range of views in the libertarian spectrum.

meshr 8y ago
They are impostors. True libertarians protect the right not to pay for other. You can support whatever you want only after you get this right.
sintaxi 8y ago
Coerced wealth redistribution is about the furthest thing there is to libertarianism.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

seibelj 8y ago

In broad strokes, my ideal safety net would be means tested (if you are poorer you get more) but gradually phase out as income increases in order to incentivize working, be a cash transfer to let people spend however they want without layers of make-work bureaucracy and political lobbying (farm lobby pushing food stamps, etc.), and be actually funded rather than through deficit spending.

pvg 8y ago
That sounds a lot like food stamps, if you scrape the ideological patina off it.
- seibelj 8y ago
  No, this is nothing like foodstamps. Foodstamps can only be used for approved products in the food category. This encourages certain industries, such as farmers, to lobby for increased welfare dollars to flow to foodstamps. It also requires an enormous bureaucracy to manage the foodstamp program and creates a political agenda and interest groups around it. We should eliminate existing welfare programs, of which there are many, and turn it into a simple cash transfer to the recipient's bank account. If society wants to give $X in welfare to person Y, then let's give $X to person Y and not have all of the other drama and waste around it.
  - zjaffee 8y ago
    The reason why food stamps work and wealth transfers don't is that increasing food production to match the demand that food stamps add isn't all that difficult, especially given that so much food already goes to waste. A direct transfer of money that could then be spent on things like housing or healthcare doesn't result in an increased production of those goods as it stands today since it won't result in a rapid increase in the number of doctors or the amount of housing available at lower price points. I keep seeing conservative/libertarian groups propose things such as negative income taxes and UBI, but feeding the beast that is capitalism wont necessarily provide individuals substantially better conditions than exist today without additional major policy changes.
    - seibelj 8y ago
      A free market is the most efficient way to distribute resources and it does this via price signals. Quantifying welfare as a single number, paid for in dollars, is maximally efficient. What you are arguing for is to split welfare into buckets, such as the food bucket (SNAP) and the housing bucket (rent control), but still let individuals spend freely within that bucket. It’s an argument, but I think the simple solution is just to have one bucket and trust that individuals know what they need to spend money on best. The twist you have, that food is a unique resource we grow too much of and SNAP is essentially free because we use food that would be wasted, is very strange and I haven’t heard it before. I don’t think government purchasers buy food from the trash pile, it all comes from the market.

benjohnson 8y ago

As a (soft)libertarian I have to acknowledge that social spending can be such a great value that it's almost imperative - for example if we were to drop taxpayer funding of education, it would put our country at a severe disadvantage to other countries. Those more economically successful countries could over the long term buy our assets. Public-health vaccinations also come to mind.