BjornP wrote:Having alot of leisure time, not having to worry about starving, freezing to death in the streets, or your personal security naturally frees one up for other pursuits.
Most elites throughout history didn't have to work the field from five AM to eight PM, and had plenty of time to write great works of philosophy and law as a result. The logic that a society that has the same amount of time to spend on simply pondering life beyond the next meal, is also a society that will have a higher percentage of people able to reach the same level of power as the nobility, kings and upper classes of old. It is sound logic.
But it is not an absolute truth. After all, kings, and at least some nobles and elites worked several hours as well. Not as much as a medieval peasant, but they still worked. But there would naturally also be nobles, who simply enjoyed their arisocratic privileges and drank, fucked and partied till they died.
A welfare system that wants to tolerate or incentivize people in not trying to better themselves, is an unsustainable welfare system. UBI is welfare for everyone, without having any expectations in return. An ideal welfare state uses tax money to invest in society, to invest in people so as to make them independent of the welfare benefits. Is globalization and increased robotization (?) going to cut jobs in the future? Invest in measures that improve or retrain the skillsets of those about to lose their jobs. Or at least give tax breaks to private entities that can offer the same. Welfare means excatly that, faring well, prosperity. Not just materially speaking. Invest just as much in social workers, cultural worker and tax breaks for anyone who can help train the soon to be "redundant" workforce.
Didn't want your points to suffer from bottom-of-the-page overlook.
You've stated a truth that should be apparent (but for some reason isn't) with -
"A welfare system that wants to tolerate or incentivize people in not trying to better themselves, is an unsustainable welfare system. UBI is welfare for everyone, without having any expectations in return."
Obvious, right? But apparently it bears spelling out in this forum. Hopefully others will grasp the simple truism.
Though the track record for grasping simple truths ain't exactly what I'd call stellar in the place.