{"id":37851,"date":"2017-03-27T04:00:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T08:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=37851"},"modified":"2017-03-26T13:23:22","modified_gmt":"2017-03-26T17:23:22","slug":"ubi-as-trust-fundism-writ-large","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/03\/27\/ubi-as-trust-fundism-writ-large\/","title":{"rendered":"UBI as &#8220;trust-fundism&#8221; writ large"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <em>City Journal<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/html\/ubis-parent-trap-15066.html\" target=\"_blank\">Oren Cass<\/a> discusses the suggested Universal Basic Income:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The UBI\u2019s implications are clear from a family perspective. Imagine promising your child a basic income beginning at age 18. This is not just providing <em>support<\/em> \u2014 most parents already do that. Within the constraints of their own resources, they may give their young-adult children assistance with educational costs and even the down-payment on a first home; other government programs already seek to offer such support to those with lower incomes. But the UBI goes well beyond that, to an unconditional, irrevocable right to receive the cash for meeting basic needs: basically, the ultimate handout, not a hand up. A child would not receive payments himself, but he would grow up expecting them in a culture that endorsed them.<\/p>\n<p>So if a parent wants the UBI experience for his children, he should not only promise the payments but also envision having \u201cthe UBI talk\u201d with each one at least once a year, beginning no later than age 10. It could go something like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Son, it is important to me that you not feel obligated to support yourself. That\u2019s my job. Nor should you feel a duty to be a productive member of society. It is a central principle of this family, rather, that you feel entitled to everything you need.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I hope you will get a job, because I think you will find it fulfilling, and it will allow you to buy nicer things. I also hope my support will encourage you to take some extra risks and pursue a challenging career, or become an entrepreneur, or dedicate yourself to helping those less fortunate. But none of that is a condition of my support. You can also backpack through Europe indefinitely or just sit in the basement smoking pot. In fact, as soon as we are done with this talk, let\u2019s go watch one of the many movies Hollywood has produced recently in which they show the enormous benefits of those choices and viciously mock anyone who frowns on them.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>If you find a girlfriend, I\u2019ll be happy to double your payment. If you have kids, the payment will increase further. But lest you feel tied down, rest assured that you can break up, abandon the kids, and I\u2019ll continue making payments anyway. And we\u2019ll start those payments as soon as you turn 18, at a critical inflection point in your future.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course, some parents do provide their children with a system of automatic support. We call the result a \u201ctrust-fund baby.\u201d The term is not usually synonymous with \u201ckind, well-adjusted, productive member of society.\u201d The day when parents embrace trust-fundism as a child-rearing ideal is the day when the UBI will gain mainstream traction as a public policy.<\/p>\n<p>If the UBI\u2019s advocates really believe in the policy, they should start with their own children. Granted, the \u201cwhat about your own kids?\u201d argument is usually a cheap rhetorical ploy. Advocates of foreign intervention don\u2019t eagerly send their children into battle, nor do advocates of higher taxes voluntarily pay higher taxes themselves; they don\u2019t claim that fighting wars or paying taxes <em>benefits the individual<\/em>, but rather that society as a whole would benefit. A policymaker might rationally enroll his children in private school while pursuing a public school model of education reform, or sign up his family for better health insurance than he believes the government should guarantee to all, without necessarily being hypocritical. What\u2019s best for one\u2019s own child need not align with the public policy one believes most appropriate for the government to adopt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In City Journal, Oren Cass discusses the suggested Universal Basic Income: The UBI\u2019s implications are clear from a family perspective. Imagine promising your child a basic income beginning at age 18. This is not just providing support \u2014 most parents already do that. Within the constraints of their own resources, they may give their young-adult [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,13],"tags":[262,480,504,1091],"class_list":["post-37851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-usa","tag-culture","tag-hypocrisy","tag-teenagers","tag-ubi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9Qv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37852,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37851\/revisions\/37852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}