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Consider: a world where everyone is entitled to a basic income (and hopefully also guaranteed healthcare) has a lot to offer for libertarians:

Fewer desperate people means you have the liberty to walk streets at night without the fear of being mugged. You are less likely to be panhandled by homeless people missing body parts because they couldn't afford their medical bills. Assuming BI suffices for the myriad of society's problems and replaces government solutions, it is an effective way to contain the state's scope and ambitions, since any "deserved" welfare scheme rests on the ideas that there are "correct" ways to live and "incorrect" ways that require welfare to fix. Basic income does away with that idea by providing what people need as the basis for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, while not mandating a particular way to live (such as drug testing for food stamps or work/-searching requirements for the unemployed who would be shown the door if they preferred to live as an unpaid community volunteer). This is why BI is often attributed as a conservative idea.




<Fewer desperate people means you have the liberty to walk streets at night without the fear of being mugged.>

You think that desires for nonessentials (or even luxuries) magically go away in such an environment?

Heck, a guy who was playing in the NBA a year ago was shot dead while pulling a home-invasion robbery this week. NBA minimum salary was $507K.


That NBA guy (I assume we're talking about Bryce Dejean-Jones) played this year too and it wasn't a home-invasion robbery.




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