I think every Mom should stay at home and take care of the kids, at least until they get into school. But I have also seen how women get pregnant with no father in the home just so they can get various income subsidies. To me, that's playing the system, and there are a lot of people playing the system. I think you'd agree with most of Beard's book, and you might give it a read.
We should not be providing an incentive for laziness or anti-social behavior such as addictions to drugs, alcohol, and perverted lifestyles.
Agree 100 percent, but we already have people who play the system. What I object to are the able-bodied who are capable of work, but don't. I think a guaranteed income would simply compound the problem. There's just too much evidence to show that would be the case.
“I think a guaranteed income would simply compound the problem. There’s just too much evidence to show that would be the case.”
It might not be the best solution, however it is better than what we have now which are incentives to not work, have kids out of wedlock, fraud, etc.
In Kuwait it creates some problems, but ultimately, since everyone is getting paid, if you want to better yourself you have to get an education and work hard or smart or both.
If a universal income for citizens were implemented to REPLACE current handouts, most people would want to work because the amount would be too small to be comfortable. The idea is to cover bare essentials. No fine dining. No luxury homes. Just survival.
We know the effect of a minimum wage is to drive up the cost of living and squeeze the middle class. The effect of a universal income is the same. We can see that in Kuwait.
I don’t know if a universal income is viable. I do not know if it could or would work. However, I do think we need to distinguish it from socialism and communism.
If money is distributed to citizens that correlates to taxes, levies, etc. on intellectual property, then this falls well within the realm of conservatism. And it might work.
The whole idea of the government granting a limited monopoly to inventors is to encourage innovation for everyone’s benefit. Since citizens are being deprived of natural rights in exchange for this Constitutional legal principle, it is quite justified for citizens to be compensated for these lost rights.