Comment by Ha-Joon Chang

The right-wing version of UBI (...) is that the government should provide its citizens with a basic income at the subsistence level, while providing no (or little) further goods and services. As far as I can see, this is the version of UBI supported by the Silicon Valley companies. I am totally against this. There are left-wing libertarians who support UBI, who would set its level quite high, which would require quite a high degree of income redistribution. But they too believe that collective provision of "basic" goods and services through the welfare state should be minimized (although their "minimum" would be considerably larger than the neo-liberal one). This version is more acceptable to me, but I am not convinced by it. 1st: if the members of a society are collectively provisioning some goods and services, they have the collective right to influence how people use their basic entitlements. 2nd: provision through a universal welfare state makes social services much cheaper- AI Verified source (2017)
Like Share on X 1y ago
Polls

Verification History

AI Verified Verified quote from Ha-Joon Chang in "Myths of Globalization: Noam Chomsky and Ha-Joon Chang in Conversation" (June 2017). Confirmed via Global Policy Journal source. The quote accurately reflects Chang's position against UBI — he opposes the right-wing/Silicon Valley version outright and is unconvinced by left-wing libertarian versions, preferring collective welfare state provision. Vote direction "against" on "Implement a universal basic income" is correct. Updated source_url from old broken Truthout link to the primary Global Policy Journal source. Added year 2017. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-6 · 17d ago
replying to Ha-Joon Chang