| I agree very strongly with you, but I don't think that's where the parent poster was going. Imagine we have a UBI, and we do all kinds of other smart things -- end the War on Drugs, establish Bismarck-style national healthcare[1], all that. Let's do a thought experiment. What happens when Alice blows all of her UBI on Lady Lee Vodka and Oxy. Nothing left for rent, food, the rest. Nobody else in the picture to help: no relatives, nada. If we look at UBI as the only social assistance program, Alice dies on the street. That's the reality, and we need to accept that. Alternatively, we would need some sort of "backup" reserved for people that are not capable of caring for themselves. Maybe something like restarting the mental hospitals that Reagan closed in the 80's after Geraldo -- and the rest of Our Friends In The News -- ran wild with the scandal of how awful those government-run mental hospitals were, with the end result being that a bunch of mentally ill folks got chucked out on the street. Now, I don't know what the answer is. I really don't. My concern is that I see a lot of people talking up only the benefits, and not in any way addressing the failure cases. [1] Yields better results than single-payer, and is better at controlling costs. |
My position would be that you still need assistance programs as well as the UBI for people like the above, but I'd treat it as a health issue rather than a poverty issue.
I think this is where you really do need a paternalistic government for people who need the guidance, but it should be the exception, not the rule. Let's respect peoples choices for themselves and only step in if necessary.
I'd argue that Alice is either addicted or mentally ill, and supported living facilities or similar would be the way to go. She would still be entitled to her UBI, which would be her route out of the system once she no longer needs to spend it on drugs.
So I'd say that UBI will never completely replace all government programs, but it should be the default and go a long way to reducing the need for existing programs.
If I were implementing it, I'd start with a low amount (well below the cost of living) and increase it over time. I'd leave the current support programs in place. The current programs are means tested anyway, so the hope would be that as UBI increases, use of the current programs would reduce, and we would have time to reorganise them as needed.
This would also give us a chance to measure the effects and get real world data as to the impacts on society and government incoming/spending.
I guess the real question would be how much it would all cost. My gut feeling is that short term it would decrease productivity as people wouldn't feel the need to work so hard, but long term it would increase productivity as people will be able to invest more in themselves.