Someday we will look back and interpret the Constitution as having called for unconditional basic income all along
A blog post by Grant Cordone was brought to my attention recently to which I replied on LinkedIn. To summarize what he wrote, it was an argument that basic income is not in the Constitution of the United States, and is thus anti-freedom and a terrible idea because people should be pulling on their bootstraps like he did instead of being enslaved by government-provided income. My reply was promptly removed by Grant, and so I post it now here in its entirety as originally posted.
First of all, the US Constitution doesn't talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of Independence does. The fact you got even that wrong says to me a quite a lot about just how much thought and research you've put into forming your opinion about the idea of basic income - virtually none.
Let me ask you this one question, and this one is actually from the Constitution. Why did we form the United States?
The answer is in the Preamble:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Now imagine Grant Cordone was a country of one person. Would he be free? Or would Grant Cordone be at the whims of those with the power to tell Grant Cordone what to do?
Here's the thing. Liberty requires nondomination. Escaping domination is possible only to the extent that we are able to occupy a protected position and are empowered against such control on the part of others. Our freedom exists in that protected and empowered status. Our founding fathers recognized this, and so they got together to provide for the common defense and promote the general Welfare (with a capital W), so as to secure liberty. They knew that liberty doesn't just happen. We have to MAKE IT HAPPEN. That's also why the 2nd Amendment exists by the way, to make sure individual citizens are able to maintain a protected position to be empowered against the control of others.
This is exactly how you need to understand unconditional basic income. UBI is required so as to provide all citizens a protected position of nondomination, in the same way our military exists to protect us from foreign domination.
I recommend reading Philip Pettit's entire paper, " A Republican Right to Basic Income", but if you choose not to, here's just one excerpt of great importance.
"The argument is straightforward. Others will control me, if only in the merely invigilatory fashion, only to the extent that the division of powers between us means that they can interfere with me at will – that is, without prevention – and at tolerable cost, i.e. with a degree of impunity. If I am not assured a basic income, there will be many areas where the wealthier could interfere with me at tolerable cost, without their being confronted by legal prevention of that interference.
Suppose there are just a few employers and many available employees, and that times are hard. In those conditions I and those who like me will not be able to command a decent wage: a wage that will enable us to function properly in society. And in those conditions it will be equally true that we would be defenseless against our employers’ petty abuse or their power to arbitrarily dismiss us. Other protections, such as those that strong trade unions might provide, are possible against such alien control. But the most effective of all protections, and one that should complement other measures available, would be one’s ability to leave employment and fall back on a basic wage available unconditionally from the state.
Next suppose that you live in conditions where you, and perhaps your children, depend financially on your husband. In such conditions he is likely to control you, even though he never resorts to violence or other abuse. He may let you act as you please within certain limits, while being disposed to stop you – at the limit, by leaving you – if you breach those limits. You would live under your husband’s control, almost certainly straining to keep within his restrictions, unless there is an effective, financially viable alternative such as that which a basic income would provide. Other protections may be available here as in the first case – for example, he may be legally required to provide maintenance should you separate – but these are unlikely to be equally effective and in any case they will be powerfully supplemented by a basic income.
Such examples show it to be entirely plausible that promoting the resilient, republican possession of basic liberties argues for establishing a legal right to a basic income. Such a right would mean that people had adequate income for functioning properly in society. And that income would mean that people would not have to beg the favor of the powerful, or even of the counter-clerk."
So you see, those without access to sufficient money are at the whims of others. They must accept anything because they do not have the power to refuse the domination of others. If your choice is starvation or being someone's slave, you'll be their slave. This is also why minimum wage exists by the way. People are willing to work for poverty wages because it's better than nothing. People underbid each other in a race to the bottom. The government then has to come in and manipulate the labor market through an enforced wage floor. Now imagine we just simply make sure everyone has the power to refuse insufficient wages by providing them a wage independent of work sufficient for their basic needs, aka basic income? Well, now we don't need minimum wages anymore, because people have individual bargaining power. In other words, UBI creates a truly free market for labor, where all employment is purely voluntary thanks to everyone having the freedom to refuse the domination of others.
Alaska has provided every resident of Alaska a cash dividend since 1982. Are they less free? Are they somehow dominated by the state of Alaska because unlike other states that provide no cash independent of work, they are more dependent on the state? Of course not. That's not how it works at all. Ask any resident of Alaska if they feel their dividend makes them more free or less free. I doubt you would find a single person who would say their dividend decreases their liberty. Instead, it better enables them to save for emergencies, avoid debt, start businesses, be a customer at businesses, and be a bit less stressed thanks to a bit more economic security.
Look at Social Security. Are all seniors less free thanks to receiving a monthly check from the government than they would be if they received nothing and were instead forced to work until they died? Of course not. In fact seniors are the segment of the population that votes in higher numbers and government seems to cater to more than others. Seniors aren't afraid of the government. The government is afraid of seniors.
Now look at our welfare system built on conditions, where people must jump through bureaucratic hoops like good little circus animals, and where instead of cash they are given housing, and instead of cash they are given vouchers that can only be spent on certain types of food that have been approved by the government, not hot food mind you, or fancy foods like fish, etc. Meanwhile, welfare punishes work by being withdrawn with earned income. This creates a trap where people are better off unemployed, and where their decisions are being made for them by the state. That's not freedom.
Unconditional basic income is never withdrawn. Therefore, earned income is rewarded. With welfare it's possible for those not working to be better off not working, and better off than those working, but with UBI, everyone working is ALWAYS BETTER OFF than not working and those not working. Welfare is a ceiling. UBI is a floor, a foundation, a launchpad. Welfare is controlling. UBI is not controlling. It's cash that can be spent on anything. It's about agency, and yes, it's about freedom.
Actual freedom... REAL freedom... TRUE FREEDOM requires the power to say "NO" to those who would control us based on control of the resources we need to live. Just as We the People got together to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity", thereby creating entities like the military to protect us from the domination of others, and the right to bear arms to protect us from the domination of others, we must recognize the need for an unconditional basic income to further protect us from the domination of others.
One of our Founding Fathers specifically recognized this by the way. His name was Thomas Paine. And he said:
"It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race… it is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is in individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community a ground-rent for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue."
The fact the Earth is owned through a system of private property we created that creates the non-natural condition where those born on the Earth must pay to live on it, and therefore must work for those who own the Earth in exchange for money to live on it, that rent must be paid by those who own the Earth, and that rent must be paid to everyone.
If freedom and liberty are important to us, then we must ensure it to each other, and if we are to ensure it to each other in a world where existence has a price, that price must be guaranteed to all as a starting point on which to build our lives as free men and women. That price is unconditional basic income.
Just as we reinterpreted the Constitution to mean all people are created equally, not just white land-owning men, decades from now we will look back and interpret the Constitution as having called for basic income all along, so as to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
The constitution does nothing but give faith in false authority to justify some people to hurt others.
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.” ― Lysander Spooner
All very good points. I also think that there are lots of issues to sort through. For example, with unconditional basic income, you could trigger rent increases in poor districts. Other unintended consequences also would occur. But I think that UBI is basically a necessity. If for no other reason, to mitigate the suffering and violence that will result from the massive loss of middle class income that will result from machine learning and automation. In other posts here I talk about zero employment and zero cost of living. It is unpredictable and counter-intuitive. We shall see...
A rent increase in a low cost of living area of say $100 per month still leaves someone $900 per month better off with a $1,000 per month UBI. And that's for a person living alone. Two people living together would be $950 per month better off each.
Rising costs are a common concern among people who first hear about UBI. I recommend reading this next to address those concerns in-depth.
For a whole slew of other common concerns and questions, I also just posted this FAQ here today.
Cheers!
The article says that printing massive amounts of money doesn't cause much inflation, and that we want a small amount of inflation-
If inflation is a good thing, or non-existent (the article implies both), let's base UBI payments on the cost of goods in say, 1920. That way, UBI payments would much cheaper like $80 a month, instead of $1,000. If not, you'll have to admit that as the supply of money has increased, price inflation has infarct occurred on a dramatic scale, and that it would logically also occur following UBI payments.
Interesting Point
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I'm going to set aside the messy idea of a basic income and just say something about a phrase that makes me want to burn off the face of anyone who says it... "interpret the Constitution" This very phase drive me up the wall. Interpretation is for vague use of language or translation between languages where there is no a one-to-one correlation between word meanings. The Constitution doesn't need "interpretation" because it's written in basic English, the very same language I'm using right now. Word for word the definitions are no different from their meaning today as when it was written. Sorry, but the very idea of saying "interpretation" to a native fluent speaker/thinker is insulting, belittling, arrogant, and stupid. Sorry, about the rant. End.
If documents like the Constitution didn't need interpretation, lawyers wouldn't exist, and neither would there be any point for the Supreme Court because meanings would be so obvious so as to never require any debate whatsoever.
Sorry, but your rant shows a simplicity of thinking in the context of complexity. It would be great if language was akin to mathematics, but it just isn't. Language is non-Aristotelian, meaning A does not always equal A.
Example: Apple = Apple. That seems to be pretty obvious right? But apples can be quite different from each other. They can be different sizes, shapes, and colors. They can also vary according to a temporal dimension. An apple right now is not going to be the same apple in a year.
Definitions also drift with time. A word right now is not going to necessarily mean the same thing 100 years from now. Definitions are not set in stone.
So yeah, the words we use require actual thinking.
Nonsense. Lawyers only exist because most systems have redundancies and parasites, and Lawyers could be seen as both. Blurring definitions with rhetoric is the con that lawyers use to parasitize the system. Good thing lawyers will soon be replaced by AI systems.
"Apple" noun 1. the round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin red or green skin and crisp flesh. Many varieties have been developed as dessert or cooking fruit or for making cider. 2. the tree which bears apples.
So yeah, words require dictionaries.
ggrks
You are right about that. There is also plenty of other writings by the authors supporting Their meanings and intent. Any 'interpretation' is normally meant to give more power to the government, which they would have obviously been against.
I have no problem with UBI and I actually think it is a great idea! The problem I do have is forcing someone to pay for it. I think if we can find a way to do it that would not require theft or coercion (through taxation) It could be a great system.
Taxation is theft! The UBI supporters lose the moral high ground when they propose to fund charity via violent coercion.
So the only way to be free is to make slaves out of some to pay for UBI? Can you imagine the founding father's likely response to this? They fought a war of rebellion to NOT be taxed.