Economists warn that the UBI destroys the incentive to work
Posted on 11/25/2020 6:28:34 PM PST by ebb tide
VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - Pope Francis is calling for a universal basic income (UBI) — a proposal denounced by a top Catholic economist as "a radical innovation in Catholic teaching without any obvious roots."
In an extended interview barely mentioning persecuted Uighurs, Rohingya and Yazidi peoples, the pontiff attacks populist leaders and coronavirus lockdown demonstrators while voicing his support for George Floyd Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests.
Francis' controversial reflections, published in a new book Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, records exchanges between the pope and his hagiographer Austen Ivereigh.
The 150-page book, to be published Dec. 1, closes with Francis pushing UBI in a post-Wuhan pandemic world as the means to a more equitable economy.
"I believe it is time to explore concepts like the universal basic income (UBI), also known as 'the negative income tax': an unconditional flat payment to all citizens, which could be dispersed through the tax system," Francis asserts.
Francis urges governments to hand out "an unconditional lump-sum payment to all citizens, which could be paid through the tax system" while criticizing "the false assumption of the infamous trickle-down theory that a growing economy will make us all richer."
"Universal basic income could reshape labor market relations by guaranteeing people the dignity to refuse employment conditions that lock them into poverty," the pope insists.
However, secular and Catholic economists have derided the pontiff's pursuit of "misguided ideals ... as idealistic as they are simplistic."
"Of course, needless to say, this is just an awful idea by Francis, at once impractical and impossible," political theorist Paul Kengor told Church Militant. "It betrays a fundamental ignorance of basic economics and how economies function."
Emphasizing this is "not how to best help the poor, quite the contrary," Professor Kengor, a distinguished papal biographer and expert on communism, labeled Francis' proposal "quite embarrassing."
"It will again put us Catholics in the bind of trying to explain to non-Catholics another ridiculously bad idea from a pope who's again speaking way outside of his expertise and purpose," Kengor comments. "It most certainly will further fuel the perception that Francis is a socialist."
The author of the newly published The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism's Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration pleads:
What we need right now, desperately, is a pope who can courageously and eloquently speak to the world about timeless truths involving the family, marriage, gender, sexuality and unborn human life — i.e., the enduring moral order — not a pope who engages in class-based sophistry about "universal basic income." I'm so sorry if this sounds disrespectful, but I am enormously frustrated and disheartened by repeated statements like this from this pope. I'm worn out.
Francis argues UBI will compensate unpaid caretakers and "informal workers," allow people to refuse undignified work and so reshape labor relations, remove "the stigma of welfarism" while allowing people to combine work with community service.
I'm so sorry if this sounds disrespectful, but I am enormously frustrated and disheartened by repeated statements like this from this pope. I'm worn out.Tweet
However, Philip Booth, senior academic fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs and professor of Finance, Public Policy and Ethics at St. Mary's University, Twickenham, writes: "It is difficult to square this with Catholic social teaching on the importance of work."
Responding to Francis' previous pontifical letter calling for UBI, Booth says the idea has its origins in "Robespierre, Montesquieu, Thomas Paine and Thomas Spence, none of whom were exactly friends of organized religion. In the modern era, Bertrand Russell popularized the concept."
Pope Francis hosts at the Vatican BLM-supporting NBA players
In April, Francis said it "may be the time to consider a universal basic wage," but the Vatican clarified that the pope did not mean "universal basic income."
In the tradition of Catholic social teaching, "the starting point should be that those earning money within the household share their resources with family members who are not earning," writes Booth.
Those on the Left who support a basic income are keen to pursue a cultural agenda which removes the family from public discourse and social policy.Tweet
"A universal basic income does interfere in the family by taxing some families who may not be well off in order to provide an income to individuals who may have no market income but who may live in well-off families," Booth explains.
Citing Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum on capital and labor and warning against Francis' "radical innovation," Booth argues that "Catholic social teaching has never suggested that the state should go beyond providing contingent help to families in need or beyond supporting welfare institutions within civil society that do the same."
Economists warn that the UBI destroys the incentive to work
Catholic scholars also quote St. Paul's "command" from 2 Thessalonians 3:10: "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat."
Booth warns:
It can reasonably be suspected that those on the Left who support a basic income are keen to pursue a cultural agenda which removes the family from public discourse and social policy. They also seek another cultural change. If everybody receives an income from the state, we are all, to some extent, reliant upon the state. People will come to see the state as the first provider rather than as the last resort.
Meanwhile, China's foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said Francis' remarks on the persecution of Uighur Muslims had "no factual basis at all."
"People of all ethnic groups enjoy the full rights of survival, development and freedom of religious belief," Lijian said at a Tuesday briefing.
Francis fleetingly mentions the persecuted Muslim minority in his interview: "I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor Uighurs, the Yazidi."
The pontiff, however, speaks at length about anti-lockdown protestors, calling them "victims only in their own imagination — those who claim, for example, that being forced to wear a mask is an unwarranted imposition by the State, yet who forget or do not care about those who cannot rely, for example, on social security or who have lost their jobs."
"You'll never find such people protesting the death of George Floyd, or joining a demonstration because there are shantytowns where children lack water or education, or because there are whole families who have lost their income," Francis rails, calling anti-lockdown protestors "incapable of moving outside of their own little world of interests."
On Monday, Pope Francis hosted a delegation of five National Basketball Association (NBA) players — nearly all BLM supporters — and several officials from the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) to discuss their work on racial and social justice issues.
He and Karl Marx would make a good pair.
worst Pope ever....communist!!!
Pope John Paul II is turning in his grave, all of the wonderful work he did for the Lord and against Communism being undone by a Marxist Atheist and his fellow traveling Cardinals...
Don’t worry - he’s the communist elitist - he NEEDS that money to live in wealth for the work he’s doing for the poor!
Wife and I had big fight over Pope Socialist Jesuit asshat, well not that big we have been married a long time and have neutral corners in the house. Anyway, since we have been married I go to Catholic church with her. I am Missouri Synod Lutheran, but hey anything for a little peace in the house. Well I told her I will not set foot in a Catholic Church again until the Pope is gone and “good” Catholics stop putting anti-abortion stickers on their cars but vote for pro-death democrats. I called them pocket book Catholics. She did not find that comment so funny. Well apparently the Catholics are up to their old $hit and blamed a Jewish reporter for misrepresenting the Popes comments. Things got really heated at that point something about my comment that Catholics have always been closet anti-semites. There is an old parable, Maimonides told this one I think, it tells us that God knew men were impulsive so he put a button in their brain. Whenever we are about to say something stupid to our wives, we can push the button and stop ourselves. Problem is God has a sense of humor so he hide the button. Sometime we find it and sometimes we don’t. I could not find it today. I messed with my wife for years. I would look at her and say “found the button.” She had no idea what it meant until my daughter told her!
I think it will take ground-shaking intercession from Our Lord Himself.
This guy really needs to go.
Boy will this papa be surprised someday, when he learns God is real, and He “is a rewarder of those who seek Him”.
A Catholic in a Catholic-Protestant Facebook group I post in answered the question “how can Catholics depose an apostate Pope” in this way:
“Traditionally we poison them.”
lol
Yeah, that has happened. This fake and non-canonical pope will act in such a public and egregious way that even Our Lord will say, “Git a rope.”
Pope Francis Karl Marx is the perfect Pope for the New World Order’s Great Reset!
One, Missouri Synod Lutherans are my favorite Protestants. Two, many of us Catholics detest this Pope AND voted for Trump twice. So, start going back to church with your wife. We need you!
I have always called him Pope FranSoros.
As a replacement of welfare and other cash benefits that does not increase according to any means test. With no demanding more once it is spent. “It’s gone? Too bad. Get a job.” I am fine with the idea. But Leftist would make it in addition to welfare and claim the amount would have to fluctuate according to a means test. I figure a direct payment that did not involve multiple government agencies would end up saving taxpayers money. It might also encourage people to find work if they realize it is not intended to live off of. Current welfare discourages people from seeking work.
UBI is only acceptable in the following conditions:
(1) Find the UBI dollar amount as follows: sum all domestic welfare and redistribution transfer programs and payments (minus Social Security and Medicare), divide by the number of citizens over 18, and transfer that dollar amount to every adult’s bank account as taxable income; except 20% is to be used as a healthcare voucher tax-free.
(2) End all the programs above. All the bureaucrats fired.
(3) In the following year, this becomes the responsibility of each state to fund and distribute.
Question: Who won’t decide to stop working and just freeload? Only suckers will still want a job.
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Worked 38 of my 55 years on this planet, until March and the Great Furlough of 2020. Can’t find a new job for anything - due to the absolute domination of Indian H1B scum in software engineering and IT, as well as the media/entertainment industry being shut since March.
Damned right I’m going to be a freeloading leech as much as I can from now on, especially if Beijing Biden and Kolkata Harris steal the election.
I can not and will not do degrading part-time entry-level minimum wage manual labor. 30 years ago, yes. Now? I’d rather freeload.
the priests DO get a UBI. Note that Francis is daft to bring up economic matters - he’s not an economist.
Where has socialism and UBI WORKED? It’s worked in kibbutzes and in monasteries - in closed, small communities that essentially act as one giant individual.
UBI does not work. I ran some scenarios and also looked at Finland’s actual live experiment with UBI (which they ended). It demonstrably doesn’t work — it may sound nice, but it does not work.
have you tried freelancer.com or elancer.com?
UBI was tried in a limited fashion as an experiment in Finland (you can google it). It failed and was wound down.
This was a well done experiment and removed my doubts about UBI - it is demonstrably not workable, even in limited areas (at state or even county level)
Note - the Church is bigger than individuals in it, even if they are bishops of Rome.
The most important is who is the High Priest at Mass and present at every Eucharist? Our High Priest, Jesus.
Francis can let loose his hot air, but the key thing for me is always to focus on
Nope, Frankie is the worst. He’s leading the world into the great apostasy and a one world religion. Past Popes may have been scoundrels, but they never publicly denied the basics of Christianity like this one does on a nearly daily basis.
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