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politics and politicians Title: Three Problems for Libertarian Supporters of a Basic Income ... Today The Atlantic published an article on the Basic Income Guarantee, with special focus on the work of Scott Santens to crowdfund a basic income on a voluntary basis. And last week, Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute published a terrific policy analysis assessing both the strengths and weaknesses of various sorts of BIG and related-policies. I’ve written a few pieces defending a BIG from both a pragmatic and a more principled perspective. But it’s never been an issue about which I’ve felt absolutely settled. The idea of implementing a BIG as a replacement for our current welfare state faces some serious difficulties. And lately – especially after reading Tanner’s piece – those difficulties have been worrying me a bit more than they used to. Here, then, are what I take to be three of the more pressing problems facing libertarian supporters of a BIG: I’m pretty opposed to paternalism as a general principle. But there’s something to the argument that people like Barbara Bergmann (and Tyler Cowen) make: people have lots of different and very specific needs, and simply giving people cash isn’t always a more effective way of helping them then trying to meet those needs directly. Whatever cash grant the BIG provides might not be enough to meet their needs. And if people perceive (rightly or wrongly) that the BIG isn’t meeting people’s needs, they are likely to support political measures to amend it, adding add-ons for this, exceptions for that, and so on. A BIG that replaces all or much of the existing welfare state might thus not only be insufficient; it might very well be politically unstable. Now, the force of these problems depends to some degree on what one’s rationale is for supporting a BIG. And different libertarians have different rationales. Libertarians who take a pragmatic approach to defending a BIG, for instance, are going to find all three of these points especially troubling. If the point of a BIG is to meet people needs more effectively or more cheaply than the current welfare state, than the fact that it wouldn’t meet their needs, or that it wouldn’t be cheap, is going to be a pretty big problem. On the other hand, most libertarians don’t believe that people have a right to get all of their needs met by others as a matter of justice. If, then, the point of a BIG isn’t to meet people’s needs, but rather to compensate for past injustice, or to redistribute the undeserved economic rent held by owners of natural resources, then the fact that the BIG doesn’t meet all of everybody’s needs isn’t really a problem after all. On this view, the point of the BIG is to give you the economic resources to which you’re entitled, and what you’re entitled to and what you need might be two entirely different things. I think this response goes some way to addressing the worry raised by the first two arguments above. But then again, I’m so much of a hard-nosed deontologist that the consequences of the policy don’t matter to me. So if there are better responses to these problems, I’d love to hear them. What do you say, readers? Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
#1. To: Gatlin, fake libertarian strawman (#0)
No libertarian supports BIG, they're fake like you.
There is absolutely nothing fake in that proclamation.
And now we see the real reason for posting the article - to troll.
Like your articles, only different.
There are no replies to Comment # 5. End Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
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