So how would that be different from Americans getting ~$12000 and buying goods from developing countries where workers also make $300 a month.
>People get lots of things for "free", like infrastructure
Infrastructure serves a specific purpose. Why should we give money to people for free when we can instead use it to build infrastructure?
>What conditions do you think are important for food stamps and welfare?
Welfare targets people who cannot provide for themselves, such as children and the disabled. We don't lose much productivity by giving these people money. Every able bodied adult should be expected to give back to society.
> So how would that be different from Americans getting ~$12000 and buying goods from developing countries where workers also make $300 a month.
I don't really know how to respond to this because we buy those goods anyway.
> Infrastructure serves a specific purpose. Why should we give money to people for free when we can instead use it to build infrastructure?
Every category of spending has diminishing returns. You'd never want to spend everything on infrastructure, or zero in any effective category.
> Welfare targets people who cannot provide for themselves, such as children and the disabled. We don't lose much productivity by giving these people money. Every able bodied adult should be expected to give back to society.
We also want to have certain standards for non-dehumanizing employment, and not everyone has access to jobs that meet those standards. Basic income is a way to help that situation a lot, but do you have better ideas?
Also how much productivity do we need to demand from everyone? Somehow a century after establishing 40 hours, with productivity per hour skyrocketing over that time, we're demanding more than 40 hours from so many workers just to make ends meet.
So how would that be different from Americans getting ~$12000 and buying goods from developing countries where workers also make $300 a month.
>People get lots of things for "free", like infrastructure
Infrastructure serves a specific purpose. Why should we give money to people for free when we can instead use it to build infrastructure?
>What conditions do you think are important for food stamps and welfare?
Welfare targets people who cannot provide for themselves, such as children and the disabled. We don't lose much productivity by giving these people money. Every able bodied adult should be expected to give back to society.