'In Defense of Social Insurance'

MaxSpeaks:

In defense of social insurance: On Twitter I said: “The basic income movement is an attack on the strongest political pillar of social-democracy: social insurance.” I’ve inveighed against the Universal Basic Income in the past, so here I go again. Another edition of old man yelling at clouds.

Throughout history, in certain communal settings some variant of the Marxian “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” has applied. In a naive sense, the UBI is not far off from that ideal. What economists call a demogrant* — a fixed, unrestricted, unconditional transfer payment to every individual (to each according to his needs**) — would presumably be financed by some kind of progressive tax (from each according to his abilities). I have no quarrel with the ideal. The problem is that it’s an utter fantasy that beclouds thinking about more plausible social policies. It’s a distraction from the need to defend really-existing social insurance and to attack the devolution of the safety net (about which a bit more below). ...