"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
The Town Where Everyone Got Free Money
Submitted by TheMPP on Tue, 2015-02-17 02:00
Between 1974 and 1979, the Canadian government tested the idea of a basic income guarantee (BIG) across an entire town, giving people enough money to survive in a way that no other place in North America has before or since.
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Comments
The idea of a guaranteed income is seductive, and it's not necessarily a bad idea. The problem is implementing it via coercive government; implementing it without violating the non-aggression principle. Government is force, and so attracts and is ultimately run by people who like the idea of using force against others, which is why EVERY wonderful and warm/fuzzy idea government carries out turns to corruption and violence. Like all of those ideas (today's welfare, the War on Drugs, our World-Cop Foreign Policy, the FDA, and everything else), a guaranteed income WILL become a vehicle for corruption and control, lining the pockets of the rich (major banks make big bucks "administering" food stamps, or SNAP, for instance), empowering minor sociopaths in bureaucratic mazes, and ultimately keeping the poor in a state of poverty and ever-more under the thumb of the elite, just as today's welfare schemes do.
Do a guranteed income without government -- via a church or some other voluntary group -- and it might work long-term, but even then I doubt it. Might be worth a try, though. But with government running things -- especially with the current American oligarchy / crime syndicate in place -- this will have all the Statist goodness of Obamacare. Government NEVER does things the way YOU think they will or should be done.