Today I had a lecture that introduced an interesting idea, one I think worth sharing and discussing–universal basic income (hereafter referred to as UBI). UBI is a radical alternative to the present welfare system existent in most western countries. In most societies, welfare is conditional on a demonstration of effort to gain employment–it has a work requirement. UBI proposes that the work requirement be scrapped and that welfare be provided to all citizens irrespective of need so that everyone has a sufficient standard of living such that employment becomes a life choice rather than a life requirement.
Author: Benjamin Studebaker
Why the Welfare State?
There’s a set of institutions that most western countries have that we collectively call “the welfare state” and, in the drive to shrink budget deficits, it has come under attack. But why do we have a welfare state in the first place? What is its function, and what are we putting at risk when we cut funding for it? That is today’s point of inquiry.
The State’s Role in Investment and Innovation
It is often said that the state spends money inefficiently–or at least, less efficiently than the private sector spends it. The old Hamiltonian argument, in favour of the state as an investor, an engine of growth, technological development, and innovation, often falls on deaf ears as the opposition points to Solyndra, the “crony capitalism” of investment centred states like France or Japan, and so on down the line. Today, I would like to challenge this dismissal for being much too flippant and much too anti-historical.
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Libertarian Party Platform
Some of the reaction to yesterday’s post, “Intellectual Hipsters: Libertarians” made the argument that yes, libertarianism has many defects in its theoretical intellectual foundation, but that perhaps real world libertarians are not deriving their policies strictly from that foundation, or that the policies of the Libertarian Party in America remain useful for other, non-libertarian reasons. I agree that this is a proposition worth considering, and so this post exists as a companion piece to yesterday’s–examining libertarian policy in practise to go along with yesterdays’ examination of libertarian political theory.
Intellectual Hipsters: Libertarians
There’s another upstart group of intellectual hipsters in addition to the sceptics and the lovers of Nietzsche–the libertarians. You’ve definitely met these hipsters before. They wax romantically about Ron Paul, some of them voted for Gary Johnson, they tend to like theorists like Nozick and Locke, and some of them are Ayn Rand-embracing objectivists. You know the type. Like all hipsters, their ideas are much less sophisticated and clever than they imagine, and their position is neither novel nor socially helpful. Of course, I cannot merely assert these things, I have to prove them. Let’s go.
Benjamin Studebaker 