It is the duty of society to enable its members, including those who are weak, frail, and defenseless, to survive and even thrive.
is not who I was referring to in my post. I stated specifically the "productive" members of society. If you are not weak, frail, defenseless, or otherwise handicapped, you should be working to contribute to that society. We have far too many parasites in this system which finds over 50% paying no income taxes at all. Such a system cannot survive.
At the instance, a guaranteed annual income is Socialism and at the extreme, Communism. Both have been tried and neither has survived in the long run. The path of History is strewn with the wreckage of such social experiments. I would rather see our system survive, warts and all, than favor a system that doles out money to unproductive members because history shows that such a system is doomed.
“If you are not weak, frail, defenseless, or otherwise handicapped, you should be working to contribute to that society.”
How about full-time moms who stay home and raise the children? Should the government force them to enter the work force and “contribute”. Maybe it is not really the job of government to determine how much or little a person should work and “contribute”. Maybe the government is ill equipped to monitor such things.
Obviously we need fiscal policies that benefit us as a society. We should not be providing an incentive for laziness or anti-social behavior such as addictions to drugs, alcohol, and perverted lifestyles.
“At the instance, a guaranteed annual income is Socialism and at the extreme, Communism. Both have been tried and neither has survived in the long run.”
As I pointed out in my other response, a basic income is not necessarily socialistic or communistic. Kuwait has done it for many years fairly successfully. There certainly are consequences. And since their economy is entirely based on oil, they are fairly vulnerable to the impact of oil prices.
I suggest that the primary source of revenue to support a basic income could be derived from intellectual property rights. Such rights are not intrinsic or rights based on natural law. They essentially are derived by the government appropriating and restricting the natural rights of free citizens. Therefore it is wholly moral and just to compensate free citizens for the protections afforded by our government which is of the people and by the people.