Catholic arguments against Universal Basic Income

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JonNC said:
Minimum wage is not a matter of justice. It is a matter of interference by government with the contractual arrangements between free citizens. What is worse, minimum wages act as much as a ceiling as they do a floor, and systematically eliminate youth employment.

Jon
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Yes, and this would require expanding an already big government (or so, one can argue) big time. This seems like an interference in a natural social structure that developed because of our unique, peculiar (being free, that is) circumstances.
 
JonNC said:
Minimum wage is not a matter of justice. It is a matter of interference by government with the contractual arrangements between free citizens. What is worse, minimum wages act as much as a ceiling as they do a floor, and systematically eliminate youth employment.

Jon
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There are countries where there is no Minimum wage and it works because there are unions that have negotiated agreements directly with employers. In Ireland, where I live, that system wouldn’t work. If the Irish Government abolished minimum wage, I’m confident that many employers would reduce the wage to the lowest level they could get away with.
 
“So I know you told us to feed the hungry, give the thirsty something to drink, and invite strangers into our homes. And sure, we could have done all that–heck we could have made sure everyone had food, water, shelter, and even education and healthcare. But Jesus, if we did do that stuff, then we would have gotten to keep less of our profits for ourselves (not to mention the poor are only poor cuz they lack our work ethic). And, well if I had to live like that, then I’d just assume be poor cuz what’s the point in working if you can’t keep as much as possible.”
 
AdamPeter said:
There are countries where there is no Minimum wage and it works because there are unions that have negotiated agreements directly with employers. In Ireland, where I live, that system wouldn’t work. If the Irish Government abolished minimum wage, I’m confident that many employers would reduce the wage to the lowest level they could get away with.
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Wages should always reflect and be based on the productivity of the job and worker, not a dictate from government. Labor unions and collective bargaining play a role in this, but government shouldn’t.

Jon
 
jesucated said:
“So I know you told us to feed the hungry, give the thirsty something to drink, and invite strangers into our homes. And sure, we could have done all that–heck we could have made sure everyone had food, water, shelter, and even education and healthcare. But Jesus, if we did do that stuff, then we would have gotten to keep less of our profits for ourselves (not to mention the poor are only poor cuz they lack our work ethic). And, well if I had to live like that, then I’d just assume be poor cuz what’s the point in working if you can’t keep as much as possible.”
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Jesus never said require others by government power and confiscation of property to do these things. He said we should, individually, and through the charitable giving we do. Taxes are not charitable giving.

Jon
 
Wesrock said:
Taxation and social support is not a penalty to the wealthy. Public education is not a penalty to the wealthy. Public roads are not a penalty to the wealthy. Supporting the military is not a penalty to the wealthy. Taxation is not some penal system, and public goods and services are not robbery. The USA essentially stands completely alone in the world in considering universal healthcare to be some unthinkable violation, and is supported by wealthy alike in nations that have these systems, not to mention many business owners in the USA, for example, would love to see this, as it could lower costs for them.

This does not mean the nation has a moral imperative to provide it, or that it’s an essential human right to the dignity of a person. But the state has the just authority to tax and spend accordingly. Taxation and public goods and services are not a violation of any human dignity. It is not robbery or a penalty. And as a society’s wealth grows, there’s no law stating that the ability of that nation to provide social support cannot grow as well.

And before someone decides to brush this all under the rug of communism, that’s a black and white mentality. You may as well call all theists, hindus, and muslims Catholic if you’re seeking that level of accuracy simply because they believe in God, as if creed and specific doctrines on the ideas of implementation and human rights is irrelevant. You may as well call “public roads” communism under such a large brush.
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There’s a bit of a difference between public roads and UBI, in fairness.

UBI is based on the idea that the state is responsible for looking after everyone’s basic needs. Food, clothing, health, etc. One of my objections to it is that it is based on an atheistic vision of the human person. That if a man has all he needs, he will automatically decide to go out and better himself. Yeah, sure, some people will do that. But some people will decide that they can live off the system and end up contributing little to society.

The state has the authority to tax, but that doesn’t mean that all taxes are just or fair. If the state increased taxes to pay for free abortions, that would hardly be just.
 
Wesrock said:
*Social support programs may vary by nation.
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If UBI is a universal, why limit it to nation? Or, why on the flipside, expand it to nation and not limit it to State or even municipality/township?
 
AdamPeter said:
UBI is based on the idea that the state is responsible for looking after everyone’s basic needs. Food, clothing, health, etc. One of my objections to it is that it is based on an atheistic vision of the human person. That if a man has all he needs, he will automatically decide to go out and better himself. Yeah, sure, some people will do that. But some people will decide that they can live off the system and end up contributing little to society.
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This view is challenged by the role of a child in a family. A child is given all of his basic needs by his parents. That includes food, clothing, health care. No decent person expects a child to go out and get a job to buy these things. I child is expected to make his own provisions only for extras, like money for fun events. So if we are to apply your analysis to a child, we would be saying that children, by their very nature, will be lazy and not try to better themselves if we provide for a their basic needs. This is ridiculous. So if it is ridiculous to apply this the children, why is it sensible to apply it to adults? If the basic needs provided truly are “basic”, not “luxurious”, even adults have that same incentive they had when they were children to strive for something better. A better house. A better car. A boat. Travel. This incentive is further confirmed by the fact that those who can excel in life generally do. But if your analysis of human motivation were true, a millionaire real-estate tycoon would stop at a million, since that is enough to meet his “basic” needs, and simply live off the proceeds of his already-successful life. He would not go on to become a multi-millionaire. Yet those that are capable of that generally do.

So we have kids who don’t act as you propose, and moderately successful adults who do not act as you propose. It seems the only people that do actually act as you propose (in your universe) are the poor who are not getting their basic needs met. That leads me to wonder if the flaw is in human nature, or in a uncharitable view of the nature of the poor.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
This view is challenged by the role of a child in a family. A child is given all of his basic needs by his parents. That includes food, clothing, health care. No decent person expects a child to go out and get a job to buy these things. I child is expected to make his own provisions only for extras, like money for fun events. So if we are to apply your analysis to a child, we would be saying that children, by their very nature, will be lazy and not try to better themselves if we provide for a their basic needs. This is ridiculous. So if it is ridiculous to apply this the children, why is it sensible to apply it to adults? If the basic needs provided truly are “basic”, not “luxurious”, even adults have that same incentive they had when they were children to strive for something better. A better house. A better car. A boat. Travel. This incentive is further confirmed by the fact that those who can excel in life generally do. But if your analysis of human motivation were true, a millionaire real-estate tycoon would stop at a million, since that is enough to meet his “basic” needs, and simply live off the proceeds of his already-successful life. He would not go on to become a multi-millionaire. Yet those that are capable of that generally do.

So we have kids who don’t act as you propose, and moderately successful adults who do not act as you propose. It seems the only people that do actually act as you propose (in your universe) are the poor who are not getting their basic needs met. That leads me to wonder if the flaw is in human nature, or in a uncharitable view of the nature of the poor.
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The only flaw in this argument is that a child is not given any income whatsoever to decide how and when he wants to spend it. If UBI were to be implemented, it would have to strictly be controlled on what cash can be spent on. Calling it a burden later would give free rein to individual abuse.
The problem of implementation and at which level remains.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
This view is challenged by the role of a child in a family. A child is given all of his basic needs by his parents. That includes food, clothing, health care. No decent person expects a child to go out and get a job to buy these things. I child is expected to make his own provisions only for extras, like money for fun events. So if we are to apply your analysis to a child, we would be saying that children, by their very nature, will be lazy and not try to better themselves if we provide for a their basic needs. This is ridiculous. So if it is ridiculous to apply this the children, why is it sensible to apply it to adults? If the basic needs provided truly are “basic”, not “luxurious”, even adults have that same incentive they had when they were children to strive for something better. A better house. A better car. A boat. Travel. This incentive is further confirmed by the fact that those who can excel in life generally do. But if your analysis of human motivation were true, a millionaire real-estate tycoon would stop at a million, since that is enough to meet his “basic” needs, and simply live off the proceeds of his already-successful life. He would not go on to become a multi-millionaire. Yet those that are capable of that generally do.

So we have kids who don’t act as you propose, and moderately successful adults who do not act as you propose. It seems the only people that do actually act as you propose (in your universe) are the poor who are not getting their basic needs met. That leads me to wonder if the flaw is in human nature, or in a uncharitable view of the nature of the poor.
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Drops mic, walks away. 👍
 
SyroMalankara said:
The only flaw in this argument is that a child is not given any income whatsoever to decide how and when he wants to spend it. If UBI were to be implemented, it would have to strictly be controlled on what cash can be spent on. Calling it a burden later would give free rein to individual abuse.
The problem of implementation and at which level remains.
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I agree that implementation is a huge problem, and for this reason it is probably not workable. But let’s remember the problem is with the implementation - not with the basic concept.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
I agree that implementation is a huge problem, and for this reason it is probably not workable. But let’s remember the problem is with the implementation - not with the basic concept.
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I think there is a problem with the basic concept. Why should people be automatically entitled to money even if they make no effort to earn or contribute to their own welfare?
 
AdamPeter said:
I think there is a problem with the basic concept. Why should people be automatically entitled to money even if they make no effort to earn or contribute to their own welfare?
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I answered that in post 29. Why don’t you reply to that one? (Obviously I disagree that people will not make any effort to contribute to their own welfare.)
 
  1. The idea is not inherently bad, I think in elementary or middle school we all craft these ideas at some point when we know not real things. The issue is it is with the exception of if God comes to rule impossible to implement without dire consequences that would create evils outweighing goods.
  2. As someone said about children, in a sense there is some truth that we can care for people and as such temporary unemployment, welfare etc are good and even those are well abused. (I was denied Unemployment because my year of military service didn’t count because of the way the orders were broken up. A woman there quit walmart for making her have to show up and got approved with little rambling of “reason”).
But children get chores and get both figuratively and often literally “weaned off the teet” in that they are slowly taught to fend for themselves. They get chores and begin to have their spend money related to it etc.

The children that do not, well 2 simple examples:
  1. The stereotypical trust fund baby, the one lacking in any motivations/responsibilities etc.
  2. The Billy Joel song comes to mind “You’re 23 and still your mother makes your bed, and that’s too long”
But to combine the two of course things like temporary welfare, unemployment, and disabilty etc can be good, and if like the child there is teet weaning, can make good citizens.

I would actually not mind maybe upping welfares even, but to induce a positive need for labor and job hunts. Imagine on unemployment or welfare for abled bodied people getting paid, doing community work around the towns, cities etc. Possibly gaining new resume experience especially filling in at a vacany gov office job or such. And having to spend an hour or more of their work day filling out applications.

Ah Utopia!

Also we should fix the much help to no help situations, where someone is too rich for help but poorer than the person getting help in real life 😦 or stop loss helps in better evaluations.

Like a cancer patient who was too rich for help, he had to lose everything over a couple years before he got help, now a permanent ward of the state. But in good business model fashion, helping him a bit earlier could have had him set in a situation to not need help forever, and further maybe even pay back or foward the help 😦
 
JackVk said:
St. John Chrysostom pointed out that confiscating the wealth of the rich and giving it to the poor will a) cause the rich to become bitter and resentful of their stolen goods, and b) the poor will not appreciate the gift, since it comes from bureaucratic demands instead of loving, voluntary giving.

Also, anyone who has studied economics knows that the minimum wage does not lift anyone out of poverty. In fact, all it does is artificially increase the cost of employment, leading to a labor surplus (aka unemployment).
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I agree with all of this. Providing an entitlement like “universal basic income” will not actually help a large portion if not most people.

The institutions of man, namely government, are so riddled with corruption.

Now, historically Catholic teaching and thinking has been holistic, meaning that we see things beyond just the feel-good, and it would seem very prudent for Catholics to support policies in the secular realm that are best for the majority economically, but also not to forget the poor and lame and have appropriate services for them.

A microcosm of universal basic health care are development projects. In hydrology, for example, over 70% of these projects in the developing world fail because a lot of the people implementing do not understand sustainability nor do they understand incentives.

That is not holistic thinking, it just amounts to routine feel-good measures that in the end accomplish little to nothing.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
I agree that implementation is a huge problem, and for this reason it is probably not workable. But let’s remember the problem is with the implementation - not with the basic concept.
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Interestingly enough, with the right polices (free markets and free enterprise) most of the population will be able to make a good living. As one political science professor I know would say “Having an unemployment rate of 4% or so means everyone who wants a job has one”.

From that, we can look at the marginal aspects of society and how to help them. Private charities competing in the marketplace would be able to provide the best service, and local and state government if we are talking USA is more effective and sustainable than federal approaches.

So in a lot of ways, the idea of “basic income” can be solved without some kind of top-down ordinance.
 
SuperLuigi said:
I agree with all of this. Providing an entitlement like “universal basic income” will not actually help… In hydrology, for example, over 70% of these projects in the developing world fail because a lot of the people implementing do not understand sustainability nor do they understand incentives. .
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That is a very uncharitable thing to say about those in the developing world. They probably understand incentives as well as you do. What they don’t understand is the technology.
 
SuperLuigi said:
Interestingly enough, with the right polices (free markets and free enterprise) most of the population will be able to make a good living. As one political science professor I know would say “Having an unemployment rate of 4% or so means everyone who wants a job has one”.

From that, we can look at the marginal aspects of society and how to help them. Private charities competing in the marketplace would be able to provide the best service, and local and state government if we are talking USA is more effective and sustainable than federal approaches.

So in a lot of ways, the idea of “basic income” can be solved without some kind of top-down ordinance.
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“Can be solved” and “will be solved” are two different things.
 
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