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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

> a UBI recipient need not provide any value to his community as a condition of this benefit

A person working for a paycheck doesn't provide value to a community, only to their employer. Chronic unemployment, however, does harm a community. The explicit physical need for food, shelter and access to medical care outweighs the implicit value in the dignity of labor.

> Charity is not a legitimate role for government.

Don't consider it charity, then, consider it insurance, or just another public service like the police or fire department.

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Police, insurance, and fire department are paid services to protect property. UBI is a scheme intended to increase consumption, that is, destroy property.

>UBI is a scheme intended to increase consumption, that is, destroy property.

What property does UBI destroy, and why don't increases in consumption through other means also destroy property?

A simple example:

10 people make widgets. Annual production is 10 widgets. Mean annual standard of living is 1 widget.

9 people make widgets, 1 person is on UBI. Annual production is 9 widgets. Mean annual standard of living is 0.9 widgets.

In the second example one widget was destroyed, and everyone was affected.

We are all counting on one another to to create value. At my business, in my community, and our country as a whole, I'm counting on you to take a job and work, because if you don't we will both have a lower standard of living.

That example seems so contrived that it's difficult for me to see it representing reality in a meaningful way. It may be too simple to be useful.

In reality, that tenth widget still gets produced. They hire someone else to replace the "UBI recipient" or else run the production line slightly faster so nine people make ten widgets, or else automate and fire all ten employees, and make twenty widgets a year. Nothing in a real economy is that zero-sum. Value which only exists in potentia and which may as well be created by other means cannot reasonably be said to be "destroyed." Something which never existed can't be destroyed.

UBI just decouples a person's ability to work with their ability to live at a subsistence level, it doesn't prevent them from working.

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