Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Basic Income is the idea that everyone pays everyone else to set home doing nothing. It's the perpetual motion machine of politics coming to life through democracy, for as long as it lasts anyway... Even the most basic questions about Basic Income generate basic questions: Who decides how much? Do people with more needs get more, for example, people who live in more expensive areas? Do wealthy people get it? Do people who don't need it because they live conscientious & frugal lives but would technically be considered “poor” get it? Is there charity on top of Basic Income, for example, if someone blows their monthly income on partying & raucous living, with nothing left over for housing, food & medicine? If I have more than I need & someone else has less, am I obligated to give them my excess?

The very idea of Basic Income is antithetical to liberty, the concept that people reap the rewards or suffer the consequences of their own actions, because Basic Income rewards people for inaction. Proponents make the argument that liberty requires opportunity & Basic Income provides opportunity, but they are ignoring the consequences to other people, the second most basic tenet of liberty: you are free to do as you please as long as it doesn't affect the liberty of others. They also argue that if a majority of people want it then that overrules individual liberty, but that violates the allies aspect of liberty: if someone else must be enslaved to perpetuate your liberty, that is a tenuous contract indeed. Liberty is higher on the importance scale than democracy: there are other ways of making decisions but liberty is a fragile flame, easily extinguished.