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by logicchains 4308 days ago
They are indirectly forcing people to follow their idea of how life should be, by forcing everyone to give them money to spend on sniffing petrol and drinking booze. They are indirectly harming people; if you trade with someone else without giving a portion of the proceeds of your trade to the non-workers, they'll throw you in jail, or kill you if you resist.

Somebody has to make the petrol and booze. If you say the people making these products should give them to the non-workers against their will, you're telling them to live their lives how you want them to, not how they want to.

2 comments

To whoever downvoted, care to present a rebuttal? I understand there are arguments that coercive redistribution by the state is necessary in the name of some 'greater good' or utilitarian outcome, but I have never encountered a cogent argument that redistribution doesn't involve any coercion.
In a hypothetical future world with basic income, machines would be the ones making the petrol and booze and indeed most of the things someone on basic income would be able to afford.