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> People choose to spend more or less on food, eat different things, etc. Don't overlook the basic part in the term. The goal is not to provide all the food th
by munificent 7y ago
> People choose to spend more or less on food, eat different things, etc.
Don't overlook the basic part in the term. The goal is not to provide all the food that everyone wants to eat. It would be to provide basic access to the baseline food needed to be healthy and functioning.
If you want more than that, great. Now you have an incentive to work. That's good, because we must incentivize people to be productive members of society otherwise the whole system collapses.
The intent with providing basic services or income is not to lower the total productive output of a society by removing incentives to work. Its to raise the total productivity by removing the inefficiencies caused when people are too poor, unhealthy, or afraid to work hard or be entrepreneurial.
- hyperpape 7y agoI get the premise, and agree that UBI should leave people with an incentive to work. Still, there are pretty divergent needs, and I think money is best. In the latter two years of grad school, my wife and I ate very cheaply. I was always at home or at the office with a fridge and microwave, had time to make bread and things like that. But there are working poor people work places where that's not easy to do, and so they end up spending a good bit more on food. It's bin-packing. If people have different needs, making each bin big enough for all of them is gonna cost more than giving them money that they can move between their various bins.
- munificent 7y agoFair. I'm not entirely convinced SNAP is better than UBI for food. I am entirely convinced that universal healthcare should happen well before we start worrying about UBI.