Killer Arguments Against Citizen's Income, Not (33)

I have fallen into this trap far too many times. A lot of the KCNs are arguments against any form of welfare paid out in cash.

So from the right, we get things like "It will just make people lazy" and from the hard left we get things like "A Jobs Guarantee is much better" or even "The government should provide 'universal basic services'" (whatever they are supposed to be, it's never really clear).

Those aren't KCNs and there's no point engaging with people like this, as you are arguing on several fronts and the proponents can constantly change the topic. All you can say is "Those are arguments against any form of cash welfare payments, and if you don't accept that these are a necessary part of a democratic, capitalist system, there is no point me explaining why things like means-testing, the couples penalty and conditionality are ultimately pointless"

These non-KCNs are quite distinct from genuine KCNs, where somebody accepts that there have to be cash welfare payments to certain people in certain circumstances and are merely arguing over who gets them and how they are calculated. So things like "It will be unaffordable", or "why give money to rich people?", or "means-testing helps to reduce the cost of welfare, so means a lower tax burden on everybody else" (the latter two neatly cancel each other out), while completely without foundation are at least proper KCNs and it might be worthwhile addressing them. It usually isn't, because most people have a poor grasp of maths and logic, but hey.

As I've said many a time, if I hadn't taken a few weeks to try and understand our welfare system and how it inter-acts with the tax system, on the level of individuals and on the national level (total cost and revenues) and realised that's it's perfectly affordable (no increase in tax and NIC rates) and do-able (i.e. the UBI would be a £ for £ replacement of Income Support and Working Tax Credits etc), I wouldn't be so keen either.

What is equally annoying is that some UBI supporters see UBI as a matter of principle and are very vague on how it would be paid for or how much each individual could be paid, I spend a lot of time explaining to supporters and opponents alike that if you look at it in totality, the UK has something approaching a UBI or Negative Income Tax. There are just far too many kinks, conditions, complications, loopholes and overlaps, mistakes, non-earners who fall between various stools and get nothing, and to be fair, claimants who completely take the piss. If you ironed all these out and removed the opportunities for fraud and mistakes, you'd end up with a UBI. Few people would be noticeably better or worse off; and total costs and revenues would be much the same.