Activity

Two general principles should be applied to any social policy, especially those pitched as alternatives to an unconditional basic income. The first is:

The Paternalism Test Principle. A social policy is unjust if it imposes controls on some groups that are not imposed on the most free groups i…

libertarian paternalism derives from Bentham's 'panopticon', a prison design enabling prisoners to be watched by a guard at all times and their behaviour monitored. Bentham's idea was to give prisoners apparent free choice, while knowing they would be punished if they made the 'wrong' choice.

[...] His personal technical contribution built on a stream of inventions and ideas of others, yet he has gained most of the income attributable to those inventions and ideas as well as his own. And that income in turn is based on the lengthy monopoly he enjoys on Microsoft software and other produ…

The standard objection to the social dividend rationale for a basic income is that no individual has a right to a share of inherited social wealth because they have done nothing to 'deserve' it. In that case, following the same logic, private inheritance should also be abolished. If private inherit…