<
https://scottsantens.substack.com/p/the-universality-argument-for-basic-income-ubi>
"Imagine a room with a thousand people. You know that 999 of them need
something to survive, and one of them doesn’t. You have two options. Option
one: give the same thing to all 1,000 people, and when they leave through a
door where everyone’s income is already being checked, take a bit more from the
one person who didn’t need it. Option two: before giving anything to anyone,
set up an additional checkpoint inside the room, hire people to run it, create
paperwork, establish eligibility rules, and test all 1,000 people — knowing
that the test will incorrectly fail dozens if not hundreds of people who
actually need help — all to avoid giving something to one person for whom the
amount is a rounding error.
That is the choice between universal basic income and means-tested anything.
When you frame it honestly, the answer is obvious. But we don’t frame it
honestly. We frame it as responsible budgeting versus reckless spending. We
frame it as helping the deserving versus subsidizing the rich. We frame it in
ways that serve the interests of the people who benefit most from the
means-tested version. And those people, as I’ll explain, are not the poor.
I have been making this argument for over a decade. I am going to make it one
more time, and I am going to make it so thoroughly that I never have to make it
again. If you believe basic income should exclude those with high incomes, I am
asking you to read this entire article before you decide I’m wrong."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
