Re:Free Money: The Surprising Effects of a Basic Income Supp...
by gumby on Monday November 13, 2017 @02:20PM
(#15689291)
> My problem with basic income is that once you start, there will always be a demand to increase it, and enormous political pressure to increase it...
Edmund Burke famously made this argument in the 18th century as an example of a problem with universal franchise (letting non-property owners vote). Supposedly the "masses" would vote for more and more handouts.
Personally, I think the universal franchise has worked out pretty well overall, and this problem has, if anything, gone the wrong way even during the big bouts of progressivism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
And even when they went overboard as they did in the UK, they recovered, perhaps over-recovered. But in the long run it seems to converge fine.
Edmund Burke famously made this argument in the 18th century as an example of a problem with universal franchise (letting non-property owners vote). Supposedly the "masses" would vote for more and more handouts.
Personally, I think the universal franchise has worked out pretty well overall, and this problem has, if anything, gone the wrong way even during the big bouts of progressivism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
And even when they went overboard as they did in the UK, they recovered, perhaps over-recovered. But in the long run it seems to converge fine.