No. You NEVER have the right to demand the assets or services of another person. That's encroachment of their free will.
Please HN. Enough of Basic Income
Please HN. Enough of Basic Income
All that's left to argue about is how much and what for.
The Constitution of the United States lays out that the government defends us with a military, builds and maintain roads, and enforces the laws it sets. This is done through taxation. The Constitution doesn't enumerate that it can take your money and give it to someone else because they have less.
Then all they would need to do is pass a law, saying that we are taxing X to give some benefit to all citizens. Which is, in fact, correct. That is how it works, and it is perfectly legal and moral, as long as all citizens are treated equally under the new law.
That said.. you forgot capitalism in your little list
https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/biggest-startup-failures/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff
And Maggie was awesome!
Demanding A gives to B because B doesn't have what A has, and forcefully doing it through government is a fundamental violation of that right.
You could just as easily say that we as a "Great" nation and society decide that we will not allow our poor and underprivileged to be impoverished so that a few billionaires can die with a little more in their pile. It's not a demand of the proletariat, it's the middle and upper class deciding that they want a more egalitarian society because it has a higher utility.
You do not have the right to rob Peter to pay Paul.
Mostly via the government, through food stamps, medicare, medicaid, welfare, etc. So the precedent is already there, and already consumes somewhere near 2/3 of your taxes today. Charity provides comparatively little for your average poverty stricken family.
If Paul got his wealth off the back of Peter and the government they both keep in power, is it theft to want Paul to help Peter when he can no longer work?
It's not robbery, it's the cost of being part of society. Those billionaires rely on the laws, created and enforced by the government, to maintain their status and possessions. If it's a government of and for all the people in the country, then the government absolutely has moral authority to tax citizens relative to their ability to contribute, and to aid citizens relative to their need for aid.
I mean, I hope you're right. Because if not, this kind of policy is basically sprinting toward having a society of people with no market-useful skills and a strong sense of entitlement. That may be egalitarian, but it doesn't sound like a "higher utility" to me.
This is their opportunity to repay their governments for those advantages.