Especially as the world gets more complicated: giving people money without any sort of structure or guidance is a recipe for malaise and lack of purpose.
The whole article talks about this aspect. What was your take on the points the article raised with respect to this?
It has nothing to do with laziness, as the (unnecessarily hostile article argues) but is simply because the world is getting more complex, and an inflationary-prone method like UBI is inferior to actually investing in societal institutions.
Many UBI proponents never seem to ever discuss public goods, but think that the ideal solution is to just make everything rest on the individual. I don’t think that will work, and to me it obviously didn’t work during COVID, which was a real world application of UBI.
UBI sneaks around the problem by giving the rich the same exact benefit as the poor.
I don’t think a society with poor public services and UBI is a desirable one. It sounds pretty dystopian to me, frankly, especially if people become dependent on the payments.
Most everyone is already dependent on the federal govt anyway. Barely a fraction of the country could survive a year without some kind of federal aid or social services.
But the US isn't ready for that either.