1 June 2021

I hadn’t heard this justification for a Universal Basic Income before: “As a matter of justice, we should acknowledge that the income of all of us is far more due to the efforts of the many generations before us than anything we ourselves do. Even billionaire Warren Buffett knows that, acknowledging the benefits given to us by our ancestors, when he said: ‘I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant portion of what I’ve earned.’ If we allow private inheritance, then we could see basic income as a dividend on inherited public wealth created by our ancestors, paid equally because we cannot know whose ancestors contributed more or less. Critics who claim it is ‘something for nothing’ and reduces the incentive to work, should logically oppose private inheritance for the same reasons.”