4 ms·
That's an interesting bit of history, but bread for the poor is welfare, not UBI. It's not universal, and it's not really income in the sense of something that
by mmahemoff 7y ago
That's an interesting bit of history, but bread for the poor is welfare, not UBI.
It's not universal, and it's not really income in the sense of something that the holder can easily exchange as they see fit. That limits how much we can learn from societies having traditional welfare when it comes to UBI.
- gen220 7y agoI agree that this isn't UBI. I still think that it holds lessons that carry weight in a UBI discussion. To be clear, the point I was trying to make was that the "free $STUFF", where peoples' lives depended on $STUFF, worked great while the times were great. But it didn't work so well when times were not so great, and $STUFF was hard to come by. I think that, even with STUFF=money, we would face similar challenges, and need to be prepared for those challenges, with answers. I think that the "I" part makes it better, since at least that gives us monetary tools, and we might be mature enough at this point to be able to manipulate to our advantage. It's much easier to make money grow in Washington than it is to make wheat grow in climates it wasn't built for.