Death of Democracy: Basic Problem with Basic Income

"It's not economic. It's strictly political!" This video explores the benefits of a basic income as well as gets to the heart of what is the basic problem with basic income, specifically Andrew Yang's "Freedom Dividend".Show more

I’m a minimalist so I love the idea of slashing government bureaucracy and replacing it with a clean, simple basic income. I also recognize that automation is slaughtering low-skilled work and so not every truck driver can become an engineer. And thirdly, in a world so rich why must we work so hard for so little? There are so many empty mansions and unused yachts.

Maybe we should restructure our economy so automation doesn’t primarily benefit the 1% at the expense of the middle class?

For these reasons, I’ve been sympathetic to a UBI longer than nearly all of its current proponents (wrote in 2014 how we could give $1K a month to every American), but with that said only a Crash Test Dummy would want to impose such a radical proposal on the largest, strongest economy in the world with little to no evidence.

And it’s not like imposing economic policies that sound good on paper has ever worked out poorly in the past for a large nation?

So whether you are pro or anti UBI, we should all agree that it is EXTREMELY premature for anyone to be running for President of the United States on its immediate implementation.
Andrew Yang should have had the humility to FIRST get funding to test out his experiment on a much smaller population (but then again Finland didn’t even think it was worth the money to continue their experiment) or he should have at the very least run for the governorship of a state and tried a version of it there.
But putting evidence aside and entering the realm of theory, my basic problem with basic income is not economic. It’s political!

My problem isn’t so much economic because as I said before I like the idea of putting money into people’s pockets so everyone can afford to buy into a market-based healthcare, housing, and education system rather than for everyone to be forced into a government-run system where we just become another number to some bored bureaucrat in DC whose boss primarily cares about how his hair looks on TV.
My problem is primarily political because I do not believe you can live in a country that has both a UBI and a Democracy. I believe you must choose one or the other.
This is because if a UBI passes then in order for a politician to win reelection he must promise to raise the UBI. universal basic income problems

I googled if Andrew Yang has ever responded to this concern and I saw Ben Shapiro posed the question…
“If it was to start at $1000 a month how quickly does this become $3000 a month because that’s a popular pitch? How do we prevent it from eating up the rest of government? What is the limiting principle?”
Andrew Yang’s response…
“This is a big leap, but we will have to trust that future legislators will be responsible.”
I almost drank water… just so I had something to spit out. universal basic income problems
Andrew Yang may understand basic income, but he doesn’t understand political incentives. If he had some legislative experience (or just turned on the TV) then he would see how absolutely ridiculous his statement is.
He then went on to say…
“Well, Alaska pegged it to a certain resource [oil] and the resource we should peg it to is technology.”
But for him to suggest “technology” is a limiting factor is to be either EXTREMELY dishonest or EXTREMELY stupid.
Because how do you quantify “technology”?
It’s so subjective because anything man thinks up can be called a “technology” therefore what is the limiting factor? Politicians can keep raising the VAT tax in order to pay for an ever rising basic income.
And then he likes to call his basic income a “Freedom Dividend”, but this is doublespeak. universal basic income problems

He’s a smart marketer to chose a title that undercuts UBI’s central criticism, but I believe a more accurate title is a “Slavery Handout”.
Because unlike a dividend, 400 million Americans would receive $1000 a month NO MATTER WHAT whereas, for example, in the case of the 640,000 Alaskans who get a modest yearly sum from the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation the amount they receive is based on the price of oil and the performance of the stock, which incentivizes politicians to not tamper with it too much.
And then as per the freedom part — those who currently support UBI can’t even agree on what the amount should be.
Some say the beauty of $1000 is that it is not enough for people to be able to stop working. And then some say the problem with $1000 is that it is not enough for people to be able to stop working, but regardless of what supporters think, the amount will not be dictated by a cold calculating mathematician politician, but instead it’ll be dictated by the emotional masses whose appetite for more has no limit.

universal basic income problems