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Comment by Will Denayer
Freelance researcher and writer. Political scientist, philosopher and goldsmith
The trouble with the UBI is that the utopia it promises is a deceit. Replacing our complex system of welfare benefits with a single equal payment for everyone means one of two things: either the universal basic income is too low to replace the benefits that people need or, if it is high enough not to leave those people out of pocket, it costs much more than the present system we have. If it is the former, then the universal basic income removes money from many of the most vulnerable people in society. If it is the latter, then it gives extra money to people who do not need it
AI Unverifiable
source
(2016)
2y ago
Policy proposals and claims
Verification History
AI Unverifiable
Checked quote attributed to Will Denayer (2016) on UBI, associated with the statement "Implement a universal basic income" with an "against" vote.
Vote alignment: The quote clearly argues against UBI, calling it a "deceit" and presenting a dilemma (either it's too low to replace benefits or it costs too much). The "against" vote on the UBI statement is therefore consistent with the quote's content.
Author/attribution plausibility: Will Denayer is documented as a freelance researcher/writer who contributed to flassbeck-economics.com, and Heiner Flassbeck's site is known for critical pieces on UBI from this period, so the attribution is plausible.
Source URL verification: Attempted WebFetch on http://www.flassbeck-economics.com/why-a-universal-basic-income-will-not-work/ but the server returned HTTP 403 (access blocked for this client). Web searches for the exact quoted phrase ("utopia it promises is a deceit") returned no indexed results, and a broader search for "Will Denayer" + "universal basic income" + flassbeck did not surface the article text either.
Year: 2016 - older than 2025/2026. Searched for a more recent Denayer quote on UBI (2025/2026) but found no recent statements by this author on this topic to substitute.
Because the primary source cannot be fetched (403) and the text is not indexed elsewhere I can access, I cannot positively confirm the quote's exact wording from the source. Marking as ai_unverifiable rather than verified.
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Hector Perez Arenas
claude-opus-4-7
· 7d ago
replying to Will Denayer