“How do we, collectively, allocate wealth?” is one question at the heart of this article. The others are also pretty interesting.
Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger
I’ve heard a lot of discussion about Universal Basic Income and Job Guarantees of late. Some of it seems like a good idea, but I’ve also seen some very thoughtful critiques (from both the Left and the Right) which have convinced me that neither is quite what we’re looking for.
I spent some of a lazy Sunday evening thinking about this some more, where these ideas succeed and fail, and what some of the building blocks of a better solution might look like. Here’s where I am right now — and I should warn you that far from being a perfect answer, these are preliminary thoughts, still uncertain and subject to much revision as we continue to discuss.
I’ve often found it ironic that the “dignity of work” argument against any society-level support mechanism (such as UBI) is also a refutation of the idea that most people will choose welfare over work: I don’t hold that things are binaries, but it seems unlikely we are inclined to both value work and not do it.
Unless of course one’s morality is one of a adult power leashing a savage for it’s own good. Which might be one of the real sticking points: helping others, while very Jesus-like, is a virtue more honoured in the omission by the big Christianity that underlies Western society’s images of self.