Some people complain about welfare recipients and deride some of them as people who ‘think the state owes them a living.’

But you know what? Perhaps it does! And here’s why:

Historically, people used to be able to make a living from the land. They were free to harvest the bounty of nature. They went foraging. They hunted. They went fishing. They planted their own crops. They grazed animals on common land. They chopped wood in the forest.

It was the state that took away our freedoms to support ourselves in these traditional ways. It allowed and encouraged land to be sectioned off and divided amongst a relatively small section of society. A small number of people become wealthy landowners. Almost everyone else was demoted to being dependent on those wealthy landowners for access to the land and to the food supply.

Wealth continues to be concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people. The state, through its laws, police, courts and officials, supports this status quo — even though the uneven distribution of wealth is largely an accident of history, rather than any sort of fair reflection of merit.

There are understandable reasons why the state acts as it does in respect of protecting property rights. Most ordinary people want stability — and so does the state.

Nevertheless, it is the state that denies people the right to farm the land, grow crops and raise animals — unless, that is, you own land that very few can afford. So, in return, doesn’t it have a clear moral duty to provide everyone with the means to live by? Isn’t that the least we ought to be able to demand, given that our natural freedom to live off the land has been taken away from us?

We ought to stop acting as if the state is doing us a favour whenever it hands out modest amounts in welfare payments.

The state should be there to serve us. We’re the ones who are doing the state a favour — by allowing it to exist, by allowing our lands and properties and incomes to be taxed, by allowing our lives to be restricted by state laws and regulations and state-appointed officials.

We don’t owe the state anything. Everything the state owns, we own. We should have the right to tell the state what to do with its property, its assets, its tax revenues — because that is our property and those are our assets and our tax revenues.

The right to make your own living was taken away by the state. Today, people have to rely on employers. The employer decides whether to offer you a living — you cannot make them do so. Even if you are self-employed, you rely on customers. You cannot make people buy your products, even if your products are far superior to those available elsewhere. There is no fundamental right to earn your own living, as there used to be.

It can, of course, be argued that the development of the modern state and the privatisation of most land and other property is, on the whole, beneficial. But, by denying people the right to live off the land, the state picks up a responsibility to those people — a responsibility to provide for their basic needs. A Basic Income could help the state fulfil its moral obligations and meet that responsibility.

Not only is Basic Income a perfectly ethical idea. At least in the case of any reasonably wealthy country, I suggest that it can reasonably be argued that it would be unethical for the state NOT to provide each of us with a Basic Income.

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