[poster123]

Where does this basic income come from? If everyone is entitled to a basic income as a matter of right, that means others must be coerced into handing over the fruits of their labor. When the government no longer serves to defend people and their property rights but becomes primarily a means of redistribution, I think it loses its legitimacy.

[GavinMcG]

They're "coerced" into handing over the fruits of labor exploitation.

Money and power accrete more money and power. Government must serve as a redistributive force, to some degree, unless we're all-in on exploitation.

[rukittenme]

I personally am against UBI but...

> If everyone is entitled to a basic income as a matter of right, that means others must be coerced into handing over the fruits of their labor.

...is not an approrpiate response. Just because the government is funded through income at present doesn't mean its the only way to fund government. You could fund the government (and UBI) with a land-value-tax, for example.

[contravariant]

What is government if not a system for redistributing labour and resources?

[skookumchuck]

A government is for protecting our inalienable rights.

[kwhitefoot]

> our inalienable rights.

I take it that you have a universal definition of 'inalienable rights'.

[jnwatson]

The USA crossed that bridge a long time ago. This just adds a bit more.

[qwerty456127]

Saying simple it comes from the same place where jobs eliminated by automation go.

[alexandercrohde]

That's one way to look at the world.

Here's another - the whole world (all the land in the world) was claimed by people just because they were born before me (and had guns). Those people who were born before then arbitrarily hand that land/resources to other people, with really no objective justification outside of tradition.

Of course, we treat these traditions are nonsense when it's convenient -- if we really believed them then we'd give back most of the land in America to native Americans.

[tomohawk]

If you really believe this, do you lock your car? Your house? Do you let people just walk into where you live and eat your food and use your stuff?

Isn't it just arbitrary that you're excluding others from enjoying these things? What right do you have to have exclusive use of anything?

[alexandercrohde]

Yes, it is arbitrary. The idea of "ownership" is just an construct/idea self-aware matter (i.e. humans) happened to come up with because it worked well at that phase in our evolution.

[sago]

> others must be coerced into handing over the fruits of their labor

This is exactly taxation of all kinds. And your framing presupposes that these fruits that would be obtainable without the social structure that those payments support.

Not to mention that, 'fruits of their labor' is a highly tendentious way of talking about a capitalist system. The fruits of their capital, perhaps. By and large, capital owners already extract a very large proportion of the 'fruits' of their employees labor.

I think it is a very dubious argument whether basic income would all balance out, but it is no different in kind from any other social collectivism.

[quxbar]

Do you think the government can protect the right of people by buying more missiles and tanks? Subsidizing more gentrified neighborhoods and private prisons? I think within a few decades UBI will be the cheaper road to go down. A doctor can administer a vaccine, and this is 'pathogen redistribution'.

[aklemm]

I hear this a lot but haven't seen enough evidence that fruits of labor (more like fruits of capital) aren't ill-gotten.