
The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income - caramiadare
https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/libertarian-case-basic-income
======
DanAndersen
>Furthermore, the Swiss proposal seems to involve implementing a basic income
in addition to their currently existing welfare system. Few libertarians would
be willing to sign up for that deal. But as a replacement for traditional
welfare programs, there is a lot for libertarians to like about a basic
income.

Is there any conceivable political world in which UBI is set up as a
replacement for the current costly welfare system, and _stays that way for
more than two weeks_?

Imagine the headlines:

\- This poor single mother spent her UBI on lottery tickets, now her four kids
are starving!

\- He got hit by a car. Now this man has to choose between hospital bills and
food!

\- You won't believe which filthy-rich billionaire is pocketing his UBI check
instead of donating it to charity!

It's hard to envision an outcome in which the public isn't immediately
clamoring for adjustments, deductions, and exceptions to try to tweak the UBI
system to be more fair.

I'm sympathetic to the concept of UBI, especially the method of reducing waste
as described in the article. But I can't help but feel that these "UBI will
replace the welfare system" articles are inherently dishonest by promising an
unstable house-of-cards outcome to a political bloc just to get their support
for something that they wouldn't support otherwise.

~~~
sp332
If a single mother is spending all her money on lottery tickets, the amount of
money she has is not the problem. As for billionaires, the policies should be
made up on the tax side, not the distribution side. We already have a system
for auditing and enforcing tax laws, and that lets us keep the distribution
part very simple, and cheap.

I don't really know how the current system treats people with high hospital
bills, but I think guaranteeing an income from which they could pay a
consistent amount every month for the foreseeable future would probably let
them come to some arrangement with the hospital.

------
cheeseomlit
I get the sense that these self-styled "bleeding heart libertarians" can just
drop the "libertarian" piece and it'd be a bit more honest. these are not
libertarian arguments (they basically amount to "well it's not as bad as the
current welfare system") and basic income goes against fundamental libertarian
principles.

~~~
thatswrong0
You can steer society more towards your philosophy by compromising. Or you can
stamp your feet and try the all or nothing approach.

Without a supermajority control of the legislative branch, the latter is
pretty much useless.

~~~
mindslight
The problem is that compromise essentially happens based around what's
profitable for entrenched interests. So _every_ political movement is rooted
in the inherent desire of people to be left alone, but mostly succeeds at
applying its philosophy where it can enable enslavement.

------
k__
15% of the population having an IQ below 85 should be reason enough.

------
sp332
I don't think the last objection was stated very well. If fewer people are in
desperate poverty, that will create more economic growth, not less.

------
cgore
Basic Income is literally taking money from people by force of law (and
therefore, threat of violence) and giving it to other people, against the
first person's will. It is communism and completely antithetical to any
reasonable definition of libertarianism. An argument that it's less bad than
other forms of government-sponsored theft isn't exactly a solid libertarian
argument.

~~~
mindslight
And yet continual rent for a place to sleep (whether paid to banks and cities,
or abstracted to private landlords) is also literally taking money from people
by force of law.

I'm personally against BI in that pouring more gasoline on the inflationary
fire is not going to put it out, but deflationary economics have never been
popular - trying to get people to stop partying while they're having a good
time is impossible, but so is bringing up the topic when they're hungover!

So long as the overriding monetary environment remains a biased towards
centralized extraction, there most certainly is a libertarian argument in that
those who wish to distance themselves from that technology should be able to,
rather than being forced to cope within it.

~~~
jrs235
> And yet continual rent for a place to sleep (whether paid to banks and
> cities, or abstracted to private landlords) is also literally taking money
> from people by force of law.

I concur. And we, IMO, ought to have a CIVIL way of determining land rights
lest we go back to tribalism and might makes right determinations (individual
violence).

>So long as the overriding monetary environment remains a biased towards
centralized extraction

And how do we pay for the resources needed to civilly determine and enforce
the outcomes of claims to land? Whatever government oversees the process,
local, county, state, or federal will need a way to extract something of value
from those governed which is why we have fiat currency and why taxes must be
paid in the form of currency controlled and dictated by said governments.

>I'm personally against BI in that pouring more gasoline on the inflationary
fire is not going to put it out, but deflationary economics have never been
popular

I agree with you. Rather than collect taxes to force value extraction the
government could just inflate the money supply by paying those that operate it
with newly created dollars. No taxation needed. I think this is a worse
solution as it's easy for loose money policies to snowball. People at least
feel the pinch and pain of taxes to help restrain and reign in the cost(s) of
government.

>there most certainly is a libertarian argument in that those who wish to
distance themselves from that technology should be able to, rather than being
forced to cope within it.

I believe people should be allowed to conduct business using whatever currency
they wish except for paying taxes. They'll need to obtain or convert their
currency into the fiat currency of choice.

I heard there's a Libertarian paradise East of Ethiopia and Kenya for those
purists that can't accept compromise.

~~~
mindslight
I don't see how purporting to agree while then stating the direct opposite
_or_ talking past someone with a bunch of strawman would ever be productive.

~~~
jrs235
See POTUS.

~~~
mindslight
I meant for productive _conversation_.

Sure, a person can employ a combative communication style to get ahead in the
monkeysphere. But still, the road to being a shithead president doesn't start
off with being a shithead forum commenter.

~~~
jrs235
Fair enough.

I failed to understand your stance from your reply to cgore. I took your
response to be "agreeing while pulling back a bit on cgore's position.

I am interested in your thoughts on how to address "taking money from people
by force of law (gunpoint)" You pointed out the parallel between cgore's point
the BI is no different than rent on land.

It appears you're against inflationary policies and pouring gas (BI) onto the
situation adds to it (unless money is taken out of supply via taxes, however
the symptom of inflation is still likely to appear: an overall increase in
prices.). Inflation of prices is a symptom of inflation of the money supply.
But an overall increase in prices does not necessarily mean there is inflation
(of the money supply).

I am also interested in your thoughts on how should we pay for the civilized
framework (government) that sorts out disputes?

~~~
mindslight
It's disagreement, but based on _emphasis_ not axioms.

Singularly focusing on the tax aspect while ignoring the rest of the
government-created conditions produces a biased conclusion. Basic Income seems
to have gained appeal because of people's need to meet rent. But said rent is
itself almost entirely due to government created conditions - the natural cost
of building and keeping up dwellings is a small part of their budget.

Similarly while I do agree that taxes are inherently theft, applying this
condemnation to any specific topic will just gain legs or not based on who
stands to benefit. Condemning any new proposed program based on spending
(rather than considering it in the context of rearrangement) is fallacious,
and more befitting conservatism rather than libertarianism. I would be in
favor of generally disbanding USG. But I'll be damned if such a push is going
to result in cuts to eg NPS, NSF, NIH, EPA, NASA, and even USPS, while leaving
eg NSA, FBI, ATF, DEA, and Raytheon intact.

FWIW, This is my specific critique of BI:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12782244](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12782244)

Regarding taxes and jurisdiction, there really is little point in going back
and forth between wildly differing perspectives, and I've stopped asserting
that I have _the_ answer. I will say that I've come to view libertarianism
heuristically (as opposed to axiomatically), and things like the federal
government collecting lots of money just to dole it back out to the states
with strings attached can still be pointed at as decidedly broken.

