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One problem with UBI is that it would go to millions of people and surely there will be tens of thousands that fulfill the stereotype that poor people just waste their money and a layabouts. That 5% or whatever will be provided as evidence ad nauseam that UBI is a boondoggle, entirely dismissing the 95% who are helped by it.
I know plenty of people who are financially struggling. I am not convinced that the best way to help them is to make them perpetually dependent on the state for direct subsidies, instead of addressing the problems that are making it difficult them from becoming more financially secure within a pluralistic economy.
But UBI is a pragmatic help to people here and now in a single stroke. The ideal solution would require somehow rewinding the clock to make corporations pay more taxes, undoing much of the corporate welfare, getting society to be truly colorblind (vs those who just claim they are as an excuse to not recognize racial discrimination), and so much more.
I'm not sure that it is. It sounds like a transfer of dependency to an even more centralized institution with even more dubious motivations.
> The ideal solution would require somehow rewinding the clock to make corporations pay more taxes
I'm not sure how making corporations pay higher taxes would resolve any such problem. It seems like it would have the opposite effect, and centralize more control over wealth in the hands of political institutions.
The "is" side of the question defines the empirical constraints within which those aims are pursued, but that's an instrumental question: it bears out the means, but has little to say about the value of the ends.
In other words, "is this course of action likely to produce the outcomes we intend?" is a question to be substantiated by evidence, but "are these the ends we wish to pursue?" and "are these ends worth the cost and/or risk to other things we care about?" are normative questions for which subjective values ("ideology") determine the decision criteria for all parties in the debate.
The most effective way for “my side” to win is to convince enough of “your side” to join me. I can only do that through understanding your position. So I appreciate your participating, even when it is unpopular.
You already participate in that appropriation. The coercive appropriation is called taxation. You can choose to not pay, but you'll be incarcerated. You cannot choose where your monies go, or what they go for.
You're already a participant, and you don't seem to realize it.
Also, eleemosynary... really? Means charitable or charity. Did you really have to use a word most of the world hasn't ever heard of to prove the point that you don't like charity?
You should stop using our roads then. You should stop using our schools. You should stop using emergency services, voting, or participating in the first world country you're living in.
Because every single program, service, or project uses confiscated monies from the masses to benefit the smaller minority that use those programs, services, or projects.
Taxation is social charity. UBI is social charity. What's the difference?