By Charles Murray
★★★☆☆
Murray presents a policy proposition for a $10,000 per-annum grant, a so-called “Universal Basic Income”, to entirely replace existing selective state welfare systems, touting t as a cheaper, more effective and socially desirable system.
The UBI is becoming a hot-topic in 2019 as a version of it is central to 2020 Democratic Presidential-Nominee hopeful Andrew Yang’s platform. I find the arguments in this book somewhat convincing, at least from a cost and fairness perspective, however it leaves many important questions open and unanswered, and has a fair few sloppy arguments. Universal Basic Income - For and Against - Antony Sammeroff provides a good companion counterpoint book. Yang has also written a book on the topic, titled The War on Normal People.