Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income? An answer to a growing question of the 21st century … What would you do? So what exactly would you do, if you were guaranteed $1,000 per month for the rest of your life? And yes, that's around what the amount would most likely be here in the United States, at least at first. So think about that amount for a moment, and don't think about what others might do with it, think about what you would do with it. Perhaps you would do more of what you enjoy. So what is that? – Medium.com

Dominant Social Theme: There is nothing wrong with government and people need its support … and a regular income.

Free-Market Analysis: The libertarian media has been extraordinarily successful in this era of the Internet because freedom is the default preference of most people. Ask individuals if they want to pay high taxes, have their movements restricted by a plethora of passports and visas, or face the threat of SWAT teams knocking down their doors by mistake, and they will probably say, "No, thanks."

But those who endlessly perfect the meme of "necessary government" are continuously counter-attacking. From the shadows of the Internet creep ancient, anti-Semitic ideas of "usury free" economic systems and ever-popular claims that free-markets are prone to "failure." Always the solution is government: Its benevolence justifies force; its bloody history is to be sanitized by the implementation of technocracy.

If only the "people" could run government, then problems would be minimized, prosperity maximized. This isn't true, of course. The power of the "people" will always be repossessed by the power elite – and in fact, this why globalists sponsor these sorts of movements. So long as government in some form, in some way, can be justified, then the opportunity to continue to control society behind the scenes remains.

Yet big governments murdered some 150 million or more in the 20th century, according to publications such as "Black Book," and those sorts of governments, along with justifications for their continued existence and expansion, continue today. The most recent – pernicious – pro-government meme to be launched is surely the "unconditional basic income."

It's an increasingly popular topic on the socialist/corporatist discussion website Reddit and the benefits of such a facility are increasingly discussed on other 'Net facilities such as activist (leftist) blogs as well.

Here's more from the article excerpted above:

How do we [improve] capitalistic markets? With unconditional basic income (UBI). By guaranteeing everyone has at the very least, the minimum amount of voice with which to speak in the marketplace for basic goods and services, we can make sure that the basics needs of life – those specific and universally important to all goods and services like food and shelter – are being created and distributed more efficiently.

… A system cannot exist in perpetuity that is designed for one-way flow. Thomas Piketty has recently demonstrated in his sweeping Capital in the 21st Century that our current system is exactly that – one way. It is up to us to create a true circulatory system for the engine of capitalism.

… So why should you support unconditional basic income? Why should you have supported the abolition of slavery back in the late 19th century? Why should you have supported the right for people other than rich white men to vote? Why should you have supported our landing on the Moon? Why should you have supported the ending of the Vietnam war, or the beginning of LBJ's war on poverty?

Because you want to make our world a better place. That's why.

This argument is a philosophical one – and philosophically speaking, the world will NOT be better off with an Unconditional Basic Income. (Nor will people be any better off in a "usury-free" economic system if they are to be marched off to jail for attempting to lend at interest.)

You can see our Thomas Piketty rebuttal here: Corporatism Finds Its Pied Piper?

A UBI is redistributionist. Theoretically speaking, it does not make the world a better place to force some people – under the threat of incarceration or worse – to hand over yet more of their wealth to others who have less. If these people want to do so voluntarily, via charity, that is something else entirely. Charity is a generous instinct. A UBI, ultimately, is an additional tax.

Yet the biggest mistake made by proponents of a UBI has to do with assertions of market failure that only "government" can remedy.

In fact, the two main engines of the modern economic scene are monopoly central banking and corporate personhood. Get rid of these two state-inflicted capitalist building blocks and the marketplace will become far more equitable and sane. Multi-national corporations will wither without corporate personhood. Industrial centralization and political authoritarianism will collapse without state-mandated monopoly central banking.

What else? Control will return to local communities. People will begin to be in charge of their own destinies again. Agrarian entrepreneurialism will blossom. Most importantly, shrinking government will do away with the mercantilist tools of the power elite. The constant efforts at further globalization will be minimized. The control that has accrued to only a handful will fracture.

Unfortunately, the common-sense remedy of reducing big government is being partially obscured by proponents of such schemes as the UBI. The remedies of the anti-usury crowd are equally pernicious.

Both anti-usurists and UBI redistributionists ignore the economic and monetary questions posed by their advocacy. Presumably such schemes are funded by paper money printing. Over time, governments that have the power to do so always overprint – leading sooner or later to considerable price inflation.

From a philosophical standpoint, the decision is simply a moral one. Do we want to continually empower a tool inevitably controlled only by a few – called "government" – with further redistributive tactics? Do we want to create additional justifications allowing a small group to forcibly extract wealth from the larger citizenry?

The solution, of course, is individual – as in individual "human action."

Here at High Alert we're happy to present reasoned arguments for freedom, free markets and libertarian perspectives. But an important part of our brief includes solutions that can provide individuals and their families with the resources to live fuller and freer lives.

Reduced to its essentials, the choice is between liberty and Leviathan. Unfortunately, the paid apologists of elite memes that propagate the false solutions of the state continue to clog the alternative media that they've targeted.

After Thoughts

Beware. Look to your own initiative and provide the resources you need whenever possible.