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The rich have no reason to resent the system, they've done quite well through it, and the vast majority will treat any new tax as simply a cost to minimize. Fr

The rich have no reason to resent the system, they've done quite well through it, and the vast majority will treat any new tax as simply a cost to minimize. From a game-theory POV, they act predictably. In contrast, low-income locales often do not act logically: https://thefederalist.com/2015/12/01/why-poor-locales-vote-for-people-who-promise-to-slash-welfare/ https://thefederalist.com/2015/12/01/why-poor-locales-vote-f... The working poor resent the non-working poor for being lazy and freeloading. As you mentioned, bigotry also plays a role in this. Both groups often resent the government for giving them just enough to subsist but not enough to lift their communities out of poverty. I don't see UBI as changing any of that. Eliminating the threshold is good, but it won't address this underlying resentment.

lidHanteyk 7y ago
Politely, I don't think that you're actually talking to anybody in "the [non-]working poor". The article you linked commits a dire mistake: They claim that a government that took care of its lazy and poor would encourage the poor to be lazier and the lazy to be poorer, but when has there ever been such a government that actually does care for its lazy and poor? Their claim is without evidence and based upon a style of governance that hasn't yet been tried. In other words, their claim is anti-inductive and generates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your last two paragraphs are in conflict. UBI would lift people out of poverty in ways that existing welfare programs don't, and it's via the same effect I pointed out before: UBI's effects taper off slowly as people improve their situations, rather than producing more all-or-nothing thresholds which trap people. The bigotry that I am complaining about is the bigotry that you exhibit: That of putting words and actions in the mouths of the poor. I wonder whether you have ever lived below the poverty line.
- aeternum 7y ago
  Interesting points, thanks for the response. I haven't had the experience of living below the poverty line.

lidHanteyk 7y ago

Politely, I don't think that you're actually talking to anybody in "the [non-]working poor". The article you linked commits a dire mistake: They claim that a government that took care of its lazy and poor would encourage the poor to be lazier and the lazy to be poorer, but when has there ever been such a government that actually does care for its lazy and poor? Their claim is without evidence and based upon a style of governance that hasn't yet been tried. In other words, their claim is anti-inductive and generates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your last two paragraphs are in conflict. UBI would lift people out of poverty in ways that existing welfare programs don't, and it's via the same effect I pointed out before: UBI's effects taper off slowly as people improve their situations, rather than producing more all-or-nothing thresholds which trap people. The bigotry that I am complaining about is the bigotry that you exhibit: That of putting words and actions in the mouths of the poor. I wonder whether you have ever lived below the poverty line.

aeternum 7y ago
Interesting points, thanks for the response. I haven't had the experience of living below the poverty line.