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“Why should anyone be guaranteed an income when they make no market contribution to society?”

Sometimes conservatives lose sight of the underlying principle that forms the basis of a conservative position. Then it becomes merely dogma.

We are against things like high taxes and government dolling out benefits, not only because these things do not work out economically, but also because they are immoral due to violating the principle of ownership.

People have a right to enjoy the fruits of their labors and to be secure in their possessions.

However, society as an organizational structure requires some compromises. For example, if we are neighbors and both have oil under our property, and it turns out to be the same reservoir, how much belongs to whom? What happens if one person discovers oil long before the other?

If a river runs through both of our properties, can I create a dam to harvest electricity even though it disrupts the flow of the water to your property?

You see, things are not always so cut and dry.

Must small children “contribute” to society in order to be provided for? What about disabled children that require extraordinary care and expenses? The left would just say to abort them before they are born. Some on the right say this is not a responsibility of society as a whole and should be left entirely to the generosity of others to voluntarily support these children.

The existence of law and order that forms the cohesive bond between citizens in a nation create an infrastructure that everyone benefits from. This is how we have freeways, roads, electricity, running water, sewage systems, etc.

Our society is advanced and prospers because of this infrastructure. We have the opportunity to earn much more and have a much higher standard of living than most of the people on the planet. It does not belong to any one person. It collectively belongs to the citizenry.

It is our heritage. In some places the natural resources, like oil, are nationalized. Venezuela is a very bad example of this because the leaders treat it as their own. Kuwait has done a fairly good job of distributing the income generated by their oil reserves to its citizens. There are consequences of doing this, such as no citizens wanting to work menial jobs and having to import such laborers. However, it does illustrate that it is economically feasible to do so.

Nations CAN implement policies that result in a net gain in GDP without regard to how much or little its citizens work.

Intellectual property rights are another excellent example. Natural law dictates that innovations be treated in a way that everyone benefits from. That is, there is no intrinsic right for an inventor to prevent anyone else from making the same innovations independently. Before IP law, inventors could only protect their inventions as trade secrets which is sufficient to protect some innovations but not all. You cannot protect films or music this way. And even most physical inventions can be reverse engineered.

So we make such inventions and works of art profitable to encourage innovation, but we do so artificially by arbitrary law. Much of this law is outdated and has lost sight of the original concepts of natural law.

That being said, Apple enjoys massive profits because its innovations are protected by national laws and international treaties. Same applies to most big companies. But the government that empowers them to make such profits is owned by, guess who? We the people.

There are some things in life we are entitled to have, not because we “contribute to society” but because we are human beings, made in the image of God, born into this world, not by any choice of our own, but divinely ordained. It is the duty of society to enable its members, including those who are weak, frail, and defenseless, to survive and even thrive.

But progressive taxation is for progressives, not conservatives. Why should a person who makes a little bit of money pay a smaller percentage than someone who makes a lot? If the percentage is fixed, then the poor will already pay little, and the rich will already pay a lot. There is no justification for different rates of taxation.

The same applies to housing subsidies, food subsidies, and similar government programs. Means-testing (i.e. based on a person’s income or marketable skills) is innately unfair to those who work hard and/or work smart (i.e. innovators).

But, if subsidies are given equally to all citizens, then there is at least a potential for equity and fairness. I am not saying it is automatically fair, just that it could be. However, means testing creates government bureaucracy and red tape, encourages fraud, and is unfair to those who work hard so others can be lazy.

Help for specific disabilities is not means testing. That is a legitimate basis for including some but not others. For example, if a person was crippled by polio, government funds could provide wheel chairs, etc. A person who does not need a wheel chair would not get one. The difference here is that it would not be based on whether the family had enough money to buy a wheel chair.

The only real test for most government “help” should be whether someone is a citizen. Instead we hand out money to illegals and legal non-citizens like it is going out of style.

Fix this and we can all prosper.

I am not advocating a “basic income”, but simply pointing out that it is not intrinsically anti-conservative. The important thing is to protect ownership rights and encourage work, innovation, and the exploitation of natural resources. This is how wealth is made.