In an increasing number of countries the idea of a universal basic income is being discussed and is gaining momentum. In contrast to a minimal guaranteed income that is only given to those who have less than this amount in wages or other sources of income, the universal income is given to all citizens regardless of their wages or other income.
Andrew Yang has proposed such a scheme with the name of freedom dividend. The proposal could also be described as a flat tax reduction of $12,000 with the possibly that the resulting tax would be negative. For some, this way of describing the proposal, as an income tax reduction, coupled with the possibility of negative tax, or a tax payment made by the government to the citizen, might make it seem more agreeable.
The name freedom dividend, on the other hand, suggests a partial common sharing of the fruits of the earth and the economy, regardless of direct ownership of an individual of the specific means of production. The catholic teaching of the universal destination of good gives a perspective to see this proposal as realizing a form of justice in relation to the common good.
The responsibility of seeing that the goods of the earth can be enjoyed by those that need them is as such the state or mankind’s responsibility, not that of an individual employee or businessman on his own. But because, for the most part of human history and in most cases, it was necessary for most persons to work in order to ensure that through man’s labor and use of technology together the fruits would be enough for all, this requirement of justice became closely linked to the justice between employer and employee, under the title “living wage”.
For an employer to be required, for the sake of justice, to consider more the wealth or neediness of the employee than the value of the work the employee should do is a major impediment to efficient exchange and valuation of labor. Such a system consequently significantly increases the cost of labor without a corresponding increase in productivity of labor.
Arguably, for all employers across the board to contribute 10-20% of labor costs to a pool that would be distributed to all independently of the work they performed, while likely increasing the price of labor in comparison to the present price, would end up being a more efficient way to ensure that the fruits of the earth and fruits of labor benefit all men, for whom the earth was created.
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