So, today we have an interesting article I found on a basic income forum. It discusses the relation between critical race theory and income grants. As you guys know, I love basic income, but strongly dislike critical race theory, that said, let's see what this guy has to say and see how it sits with me.
I’ve been following debates about basic income, guaranteed income, and similar policies for a long time. This semester, for the first time, I’m teaching a course called The Critical Race Theory Debate and Public Policy. This is why, while listening to a recent episode of this Forward podcast, my ears perked up. Carly Reilly and Zach Graumann were discussing the Critical Race Theory (CRT) “controversy,” “moral panic,” pick whichever term you like, and suggested at one point that a basic income (BI) would be a way to address some of the concerns of proponents of CRT. Unfortunately, they didn’t spend a lot of time developing this point, but quickly moved on to other things. What I want to do in this piece is dwell a bit longer on the possible relationship between BI and guaranteed income (GI), on the one hand, and CRT, on the other. Given, however, that one of the things currently being fought about in the U.S. is whether critics of CRT are really criticizing CRT, I’ll start by saying what I mean by “Critical Race Theory.”
I may or may not have listened to that one, as I used to be a huge fan of Yang's forward podcast until the recent merger turned the party and the podcast into a whole lot of nothing.
But yeah. I find CRT to be extremely divisive. Not quite the boogeyman status the right gives it, I'm more criticizing it internally from the left as a former right winger who came over to the left...not for this. But, I do see UBI and programs like it as disproportionately benefitting POC and the like. By virtue of being the least privileged, they tend to stand to benefit the most from a universal program.
In the course I’m teaching, “Critical Race Theory” refers to the following: a framework for studying law and public policies where the focus is on the role laws and policies have played or continue to play in constructing racial categories as well as promoting and reinforcing racial inequality. This is also how I’m going to be using “CRT” in this post. My course is, more or less, divided into three parts: 1) the context within which CRT emerged 2) the basic tenets of CRT, along with criticisms of those tenets, and 3) the degree to which CRT might help illuminate a number of current policy debates. Here I want to focus on one of the key themes of CRT: the idea that racism can be structural, institutional, or systemic.
No comments here really.
Although those in the circles I travel in see it as almost axiomatic that systemic racism exists, there’s actually a fair amount of disagreement, among members of the general U.S. public, about this. For example, in a 2020 poll, Ipsos found that (using the racial/ethnic terms from the survey) 50% of Whites, 67% of Asians, 69% of Hispanics, and 83% of Blacks believed that institutional racism exists in the U.S. What I’ll have to say in this piece is directed at those who do believe there’s such a thing as systemic racism. As I did with CRT, I now want to clarify what I mean by “systemic racism.”
For the record, I am in the camp that it does exist, I just don't believe that it should be the primary focus of society, like many CRTists make it. I mean, we can acknowledge something is an issue, without being obsessed with it to the degree that our entire worldview is defined by it. That tends to be my issue with it. In context of UBI and CRT, my big problem is a lot of CRTists DONT LIKE UBI and other universal programs. By defining the problem primarily through the lens of racism, rather than poverty and oppression in general, their solutions are primarily created through the lens of solving racism. And I'm going to be honest, racism isnt a very high priority for me. Making a better system FOR EVERYONE is. All this CRT crap does is frame issues in the most divisive of ways, as well as encouraging the more piecemeal approach to "solving" them, which in my eyes, encourages not solving them at all.
In a sentence, “systemic racism,” as I see it, refers to the unjustified application of race neutral rules or practices which result in racially disparate outcomes. Whether such outcomes are intended or unintended doesn’t matter to whether such an application qualifies as systemic racism. I should probably say more about two terms used in this definition: “race neutral” and “unjustified.”
Fair, but I would prefer to solve these problems through "race neutral" solutions that happen to benefit the underprivileged. Redistributing income, or even something as nebulous as "opportunity" through the use of say, affirmative action and quotas just ends up creating resentment from those who are not included in the positive side of this redistribution. In other words, it's alienating as fudge.
All I mean by “race neutral” is that the rule or practice makes no explicit mention of or reference to race. The use of “unjustified” is meant to ward off a definition that may be too broad. I can’t recall the number of articles I’ve read about the small proportion of Blacks with degrees in STEM fields, but here’s one.
Okay.
Suppose a firm will only hire people to design bridges if they have at least a four-year degree in structural engineering. Given the statistics highlighted in the article linked to in the previous paragraph, it wouldn’t surprise me if this resulted in racial disparities in “representation” at this firm. However, since most of us want the bridges we drive across to bear the weight of our cars and think that having formal training in structural engineering may increase the probability that one is able to design such a bridge, we might think this kind of “credentialism” is justified. Thus, perhaps this sort of thing shouldn’t fall under the concept of “systemic racism.” I hasten to add, though, that this wouldn’t mean that there haven’t been other acts of systemic racism that have resulted in the relatively small proportion of Blacks in STEM fields.
I mean, some can, and have argued that this is a form of systemic racism. And this logic is often used by feminists to point to systemic sexism and the gender pay gap. From here, it really depends what's driving the change. if the change is due to lack of educational opportunities for blacks, then perhaps we should expand their educational opportunities. I'll be the first to admit a lot of inner city schools are underfunded, and the fact that these schools are funded primarily by local property taxes rather than by the state or federal level is a problem. But in this sense, shouldn't the focus be on improving the educational system? We all know "separate but equal" didn't work, and I'd argue a lot of problems of systemic racism have that sort of thinking of not really being racist on the surface but having racist outcomes. I'd argue the education system does this and it's really sad. In this case, yes, we should do more to encourage blacks and other minorities to have the same educational opportunities as whites.
But if this is due to a lack of desire to go into stem, like happens with women at times, then maybe there isn't a problem at all. It depends. Like, in terms of CGT, there's a lot of discussion as to whether women don't pursue stem because of cultural factors like the stereotype that women aren't good at math and therefore shouldn't pursue it. We can discuss trying to change stereotypes and the like to encourage more equality, but ultimately, peoples' decisions are their decisions, and if they dont wanna do something, I don't have much of a desire to encourage people to do something they voluntarily choose not to do.
So it really depends. While systemic barriers should be removed, I'm not really going to be a die hard in ensuring that statistically, STEM degrees are equally held by all races and genders. Again, remove BARRIERS, but dont focus on trying to achieve equality in terms of statistics as the end all be all of policy.
Here’s an “old school” example of systemic racism I think almost everyone, at this point, can agree on. In order for someone to be able to vote in the Jim Crow South they had to pay a poll tax or pass a literacy test. Assuming that a person doesn’t need to be able to read or pay a tax in order to know who they’d like to see represent them in government, these practices were unjustified. And I’m sure practically every historian would tell us that these rules disadvantaged Southern Blacks to a greater degree than they did Southern Whites.
Oh yeah, that crap was horridly racist and it's good that crap is now illegal.
Consider another example closer to cash assistance policy. The Social Security Act of 1935 enacted the public retirement program known today as “Social Security.” In order, upon retirement, for someone to qualify for benefits, they had to work in a job that was covered by the program. Jobs in agriculture and domestic work weren’t covered, meaning that those who held such jobs weren’t eligible for benefits after retirement. The rules about eligible jobs made no explicit mention of race. Yet these were jobs held by a disproportionate number of Blacks. So, it turned out that the rules governing which jobs were covered by the program worked to the disadvantage of Blacks more so than of whites.
Mmhmm. Limiting eligibility criteria can often go the other way too. Same thing with the minimum wage. A lot of FDR's programs were good for what they did but racist AF in implication. But for me, that's why I am die hard on UNCONDITIONALITY of programs. You cant exclude anyone for racist reasons if everyone is treated the same by definition.
Of course, CRTists often argue the other way, claiming it was the "color blindness" of these programs that was bad and we need special programs for CRT. At which I'm gonna say, no, HELL no. Because that's divisive and alienating as fudge.
As I’ve thought more about the concept of “systemic racism,” I’ve thought of another notion which turns the idea of systemic racism on its head. I’m, for lack of a better term, going to call it “systemic racial equity.” Here’s what I mean by that term: the justified application of race neutral rules or practices which result in racially disparate outcomes in favor of historically or currently disadvantaged racial groups. Whether such outcomes are intended or unintended doesn’t matter to whether such an application qualifies as systemic racial equity.
Mmhmm, and I have no problems with that. Heck, that's what I've been advocating for all along. I never really wanted to throw CRTists under the bus like they often claim I do, I just want to stop this divisive crap that alienates normies from their causes, and mine as well.
Any truly race neutral policy that is aimed at the poor would...disproportionately help POC. Including UBI.
The problem I generally have with CRT is most advocates aren't in favor of this. They want special benefits only for themselves, and then scream we're racist when we oppose them. And when I propose more race neutral stuff they scream it doesnt focus on their issues enough, because as we know, to most CRTists, the entire world has to revolve around solving systemic racism at all costs, no matter how many people it alienates, no matter how many half baked mediocre policies it spawns, and no matter what the cost is to anyone else.
What does all this talk about systemic racism and systemic racial equity have to do with GI and BI?
First, let me focus on GI. As it’s currently used, the term “Guaranteed Income” seems to be a catch all for any kind of non-work conditioned, targeted cash assistance, whether targeting is based on income plus assets, income only, or even membership in certain racial or gender identity groups. And “work” in “non-work conditioned” refers to the sale of labor in some formal labor market. For the purposes of this piece, when I use the term “guaranteed income” or “GI,” I’m referring only to income plus assets targeting (also called “means-testing”) or income only targeting. This is in keeping with the idea of systemic racial equity, which, recall, is based on race neutral rules.
Yeah, Im not big on targetted assistance. Making GI based on racial identity seems extremely divisive. More color blind but still not universal programs are better, but still, not a huge fan of them, because they generally exclude people and/or serve to force people into the labor market as wage slaves.
Jeremy Rosen of The Shriver Center on Poverty Law has this to say about GI:
“It’s time to ensure the financial security of all families by providing a guaranteed income. A guaranteed income program provides recurring cash payments, with no strings attached, to a targeted group of people. Unlike Universal Basic Income (UBI), a guaranteed income program channels money to people who truly need it. As a result, guaranteed income programs are more effective at reducing the racial wealth gap and increasing equity.”
Ugh, I find that so alienating.
First of all, "truly need it". I hate dividing people into deserving and undeserving. It's a flaw with our approach to poverty going back to the Elizabethian poor laws. Give it to everyone.
Second of all, the framing here is alienating for reasons I mentioned above. "More effective at reducing the racial wealth gap and increasing equity" implies that whites won't get it. And if whites don't get it, many of us are gonna get turned off.
Like really, I can't underscore how much racial resentment can come bubbling to the surface with this rhetoric. As you guys know, I used to be conservative, and was raised conservative in the post Reagan era. So everything was about "why should I give my tax dollars to minorities who want crap for free?" As we know, a lot of the resentment toward social programs have these kinds of implicit racial biases in them, going back to Nixon's southern strategy. And that's a huge reason I feel the focus on CRT in politics is divisive. Because it literally frames the push for social programs on the worst possible framing, and that framing is just going to drive whites toward the republicans and Trump. While a universal program that helps everyone, on some level, attempts to address this kind of resentment in ensuring that these programs benefit everyone, a more means tested one will not.
Now, to be fair, in some ways, they did mention that the program would ONLY be means tested, with racial characteristics not included. In some ways they're going the NIT route with this rather than the UBI route, giving people an income based only on their other income, and phasing it out based on need. But...you can also do this through UBI, just by having higher tax rates replace the means testing. And I'd argue that the taxes, if done automatically through a flat type tax like I support, would reduce the burden of applying and getting it vs a NIT or GI program. The fact is means testing has bureaucracy and exclusion. Like really, I hate the idea of distinguishing between those deserving and undeserving, just give it to everyone and then tax everyone back. And even a UBI would disproportionately help POC since the outcome would be mirrored either way. So why push for a version of the program that would inevitably drum up resentment? Idk, standard democrat brain I guess. Democrats love their piecemeal means tested programs, not understanding that dying on that hill is what keeps the conservatives in America...conservative.
In a press release about a new GI proposal she worked on, economist Naomi Zewde said the following about GI:
“Black and Latino communities have disproportionately suffered from the health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and have also been hit hardest by the economic devastation from the resulting recession,” …. “But these inequalities existed long before the pandemic. A Guaranteed Income for the 21st Century would ensure that everyone has the resources needed to meet their basic needs, prevent the pain that comes with poverty, and provide economic security and social mobility.”
I like how they shift at the end toward helping everyone. I mean I have no problem pointing out some people are disproportionately impacted, I just dont want solutions that end up being primarily targetted at minority groups with no concern for anyone else. It's a huge tactical error of the left.
To be fair given how much the left overplays CRT even pushing this line is going to divisively alienate SOME people, so I really have to wonder if it's worth even playing the CRT card at all. It's kind of a poisoned well in America. While I would play these kinds of arguments to a CRT type audience to try to win them over to my cause (in my experience it often doesn't work because they have democrat brainrot and are stuck in their means testing ways), I certainly wouldn't play this in a GENERAL election trying to appeal to independents and the like.
This same press release tells us the following:
“The proposal offers lawmakers a blueprint for reforming the U.S. tax code to send monthly payments to every adult in America earning less than $50,000, which would end poverty and lift more people into the middle class, while helping to close the racial income and wealth gaps.“
Yeah they're pushing a more NIT style plan here. Or a tax credit, which is flawed as it excludes those who file for taxes, and this will be a sluggish safety net to rely on when your income suddenly drops. UBI you get automatically, but any time your income situation changes, youre just gonna have to fill out forms, or be on the phone for hours, or trying to load some website thast barely works. Ya know, kind of like you do with unemployment. It's a pain.
The GI proposals being referred to in these quotations, as far as I could tell, are income targeted but make no mention of race. That is, benefits wouldn’t only go to those of a specific race. Yet notice the claims in these quotes that a GI would, “close the racial income and wealth gaps,” would help Black and Latinx communities who have, “disproportionately suffered from the health impacts of the Covid 19 pandemic,” or that, “guaranteed income programs are more effective at reducing the racial wealth gap….” Since a GI would provide people with income, while wealth is one’s net worth, it isn’t clear to me how a GI would directly address the racial wealth gap, although there may be mechanisms by which it could do this indirectly. But let’s put this aside and focus on the claim that a race neutral income policy would especially benefit Black and Latino folks. This sounds like a claim that GI would promote systemic racial equity. Why might that be?
You see, despite making a true argument for how this program helps POC, this guy is still going "well it doesn't DIRECTLY do it", which is...alienating. Because it implies we should have special programs only for them, which would alienate most people, including myself.
Again, I kind of think that the CRT thing is actually a poisoned well at this point, and I prefer to not focus on arguments like this, but when they come up, and if I want to make a case for CRT theorists, this is what I would come up with. Because POC are worse off to begin with, they disproportionately benefit. I don't see why that's so controversial. And to go further, idk, why CRT people will fawn over a means tested guaranteed income but act like UBI is bad because it helps Elon musk. They're the same policy, just implemented differently. If anything UBI would be more beneficial for the poor because most NIT/GI proponents put in draconian clawback rates like 33-50%, on top of all other taxes. Meanwhile I just put a simple 18% or so tax on top of all other taxes. This actually causes my UBI to be more progressive than their GI/NIT. Also means that Elon musk pays higher taxes, while they wouldnt pay much more otherwise above the break even point. I know the arguments of which is more "progressive" or "regressive" arent mentioned here, but I've dealt with enough lefties to know how they think. And I've studied my fair share of NIT/GI proposals. There's a reason I generally give them Cs or Ds. Not universal, more bureaucratic, and the tax structure is often more regressive than the UBI they complain about. For all the "progressive left" talks about progressivity, their talk is just that...talk.
The reason a GI could be a source of systemic racial equity is that People of Color (POC) in the U.S. are more likely to be poor or low-income than are Whites. This isn’t to say that there aren’t poor or low-income Whites. Obviously there are. But poor and low-income Whites make up a smaller proportion of all Whites than poor and low-income Blacks make up of all Blacks.
Yes, and as such, they benefit more. But at the same time, low income whites who otherwise would complain about welfare going to POC but not them are helped, eliminating a source of resentment.
So, a policy, like GI, which targeted poor or low-income persons would be more likely to benefit POC than Whites. I hasten to add that no GI proponent I know of claims that a GI would solve all of our racial problems. But a GI could still promote systemic racial equity even if it didn’t do that, just as Jim Crow Era voting restrictions promoted systemic racism even though they didn’t exhaust all forms of oppression faced by Blacks at the time. Let me now turn to BI.
Yeah, does it solve every single issue relating to POC? No. But it helps.
First, I should define what I mean by “basic income” or “BI:” it’s an amount of money which people deemed members of some political jurisdiction would periodically receive, on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement. As I see it, another name for BI is “Universal Basic Income” (UBI). The “without means-test” condition tells us that, unlike a GI, a BI wouldn’t be targeted only to those who “needed it.” Instead, everyone would receive it, regardless of income or the value of any assets they owned. But, as will become clear in a moment, things are actually a bit more complicated than that.
Complicated how? Of course, why dont I just read the next paragraph. But as I said already, given the tax structure associated with a UBI...they might as well be the same policy. So let's stop the means testing bullcrap and focus on helping everyone in a universal categorical way.
Let’s go back to what Jeremy Rosen said:
“…. Unlike Universal Basic Income (UBI), a guaranteed income program channels money to people who truly need it. As a result, guaranteed income programs are more effective at reducing the racial wealth gap and increasing equity.”
That's bullcrap, because as I said, same policy in net effect given the incentives are structured identically. I hate how welfarists have this obsession with means testing everything? it's like a pathology with them.
This passage makes it sound like it’s a forgone conclusion that a GI would be better at promoting systemic racial equity than a BI would be. It isn’t. This is where the complications I mentioned a moment ago come in.
Go on...
Although BI would be an amount of money given to everyone regardless of income, no proponents of BI I know of advocate that this policy be implemented in conjunction with abolition of the U.S. personal income tax. That is, all proponents I know of believe we should maintain such a tax. In order to consider the degree to which a BI could be a source of systemic racial equity, one would need to consider how a BI would work along with the income tax. That’s because even though everyone would receive a BI in a gross sense, not everyone would do so in a net sense. Some would receive the full level of the BI, others would pay enough in taxes that they would net less than that full amount, and there would be some who would net $0 in basic income because they’d owe more in taxes than the level of the BI.
YES! EXACTLY! This guy gets it.
Now it’s true that although progressive, the personal income tax isn’t as progressive as it could be, and there are a number of tax deductions and credits which allow higher income people to reduce their tax liability. But the progressivity of taxes and the types of deductions and credits which allow people to avoid paying them are political decisions. A more progressive tax system with fewer loopholes would mean that the primary beneficiaries of the full amount of the BI would be poor and low-income people. That is, a BI in conjunction with certain tax rules could be designed to prioritize POC just as much as a GI could be. But there are other matters which would determine the degree to which a GI or BI would promote systemic racial equity.
Yes, because of their same policies. BUT, I would like to say one thing here related to the framing. You guys know how dog whistle politics was a thing, right? meaning that everyone on the right were pushing for policies they knew they were racist...without expressing the fact that they were racist, right? Like they would attack welfare and go on about forced bussing but the implications of the policies were very racial.
Well...I feel like CRTists really need to learn to do this. It's fine to acknowledge, to some extent, that policies benefit POC disproportionately, but I think one thing the left needs to do less of is so OPENLY boradcast this fact and push it. Because it will hurt support for it. Because instead of "white moderates" thinking about how they're gonna get all of this money, now they're thinking about POC getting even more. And it makes them fume. In this case, no, not me, I've trained myself out of this thinking, but being ex conservative, yeah, I know quite a few people who I am working on basic income pilling, but if this was the big argument presented to them, they would flip the other way. Not saying we can't discuss this stuff here or whatever, or in a more friendly environment but I really think it's a poor tactical decision to go all in on the "race" framing here.
I mean theres a lot of talk of reversing the stealth racism of the right, in ways that mirror them, but I think we gotta mirror their rhetoric too, which means we kinda gotta dog whistle this stuff a bit better. You want the message to be effective to those who it is targetted at, but has plausible deniability toward groups who dont focus on that. And that's something that the left really does a bad job at, especially post 2016. They lean way too hate into racial framings, which just inflame the public.
There are currently a number of social programs in the U.S. which benefit POC, such as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). So, the question of how a GI or BI would interact with the current system arises. That’s because the nature of the interaction would help determine how much a GI or BI would systemically benefit POC. To take the extreme case, if all other social programs were abolished and replaced with a BI, that might not be so great for POC. Some GI supporters are quite clear regarding their views about this question. For example, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income tell us that a GI would supplement, not replace the existing social safety net (https://www.mayorsforagi.org/statement-of-principles). In what I’ve seen, BI supporters typically haven’t been as clear, although some have at least tried to raise the relevant issues.
So because some POC are deemed worthy of help, they dont benefit from shifting to a universal program. But what of those of us who dont benefit from the current welfare state? This is where things break down between me and the CRT welfare advocates. Because the second UBI comes up they go on about "ERMAHGERD IT WOULD DESTROY WELFARE", and I'm like, yeah, so? And medicare for all destroys medicaid...by replacing it with something better. This is where thinks break down with me and CRT obsessed welfarists, because they start circlejerking hard about the deserving poor and how great welfare is for them...when...it isn't really. Welfare actually excludes a lot of people eligible and many who are eligible for welfare dont claim it because the process to acquire it is too difficult. This is true even of myself, I'm potentially eligible for medicaid under the affordable care back, but because 22 page form full of extraneous BS that asks tons of questions about my life I don't even know how to properly answer half the time...uh...yeah. Welfare sucks. And then it ignores the means testing, the work requirments, the time limits, blah blah blah. Even the amount aint great, the only times Ive seen a handful of people be better off on the current system than my own UBI plan, it would be if they're getting like the maximum SSI payout and THEN getting the max food stamps pay out on top of it. And then they'd come out ahead by like...$100? At best? Maybe? Like, I'm sorry, but Im not very sympathetic to keeping welfare around. Obviously my own cuts were designed explicitly to only target programs of lesser value, I'd largely leave social security and unemployment in place, just tax them like normal income as an alternative to cutting them. And I'd keep some stuff like medicaid (barring getting a better healthcare alternative in place) and section 8 housing. So yeah, I'd only be replacing small, means tested programs that are generally temporary and have many unpleasant aspects of them. But sometimes these welfarists just get so obsessed with edge cases that they would seemingly allow the rest of America suffer only to keep their horribly flawed safety net as it exists.
Of course when you frame things from a primarily racial perspective that's also fairly neoliberal or leftist in a jobist sense, that's gonna happen. Because these guys really don't care about universal principles or providing everyone the means to provide for themselves and the liberty to choose how to do it. They see the welfare system as helping the primarily "deserving" while excluding those dirt vagrants who don't wanna work. Again, Elizabethian poor law mentality in their thinking. A lot of traditional welfarists still haven't gotten beyond that mentality.
Another thing which would matter to how much a GI or BI could systemically advantage POC would be whether benefits would be provided through the IRS. All GI proposals I’ve seen would dispense benefits this way. But, as pointed out in work by the UBI Center, dispensing benefits through the IRS could mean that a lot of poor people would end up not receiving benefits or not receiving them in a timely manner. That’s because many of them don’t file taxes. And since POC are more likely to be poor than Whites are, this may not bode well for non-Whites. A BI could, but wouldn’t have to, be dispensed through the IRS. All the detailed GI proposals I’ve seen have essentially been some type of Negative Income Tax (NIT) in the form of a refundable tax credit. By definition, a NIT is dispensed through the tax system. But I don’t see why it would be impossible for a GI to be allocated in some other way, perhaps through the Social Security Administration.
I mean putting aside the race based implications, I agree. But the issue here is I'm largely agreeing/disagreeing with this guy on the basis of whether his philosophy of primarily helping POC aligns with my philosophy of helping everyone. If it does, we agree, if not, I have differences. here we agree, but we're agreeing for differing reasons. Still, yeah, that's a problem with the GI/NIT approach. As I've pointed out.
It should be clear by now that even though BI proponents don’t typically discuss BI in racial justice terms, that doesn’t mean that a BI couldn’t be designed in such a way that it would promote racial justice at least as much as a GI would. This raises an important question: even if a BI could have the same effects as would a GI, is there something added by openly discussing unconditional, non-work conditioned benefits in racial justice terms?
I think BI has a lot of good arguments over a GI, but I actually think the racial framing weakens it, and the left really does need to learn dog whistle politics on these issues.
I’ve listened to enough GI proponents by now to suspect that some would answer this question with a resounding “yes.” I can almost hear them saying, “POC have been oppressed, denigrated, marginalized, and erased in this country for far too long. It’s past time that we implemented more policies that, although they’d help others too, focused primarily on the needs of the POC community. And we should not be afraid to say that that’s exactly what we’re doing; racial justice calls for nothing less.”
No. Again, this is ALIENATING. We need to keep focusing on the issue in primarily universal terms. it's fine to mention POC and the like as a side benefit, but being the primary focus...just...no. I really dont wanna see UBI taken over by the social justice movement and corrupted, because as we can see our thinking sometimes aligns, but isnt really aligned, and I really dont trust the CRTists interested primarily in justice for some, to truly give us justice for all.
I also imagine that there are BI proponents, thinking about the universal versus selective programs debate in social policy circles, who worry that an open focus on POC will ignite the racism that’s led to their oppression, denigration, marginalization, and erasure in the first place. The concern is that a universal program which could benefit everyone, but which could primarily benefit POC, won’t receive enough support because racists will come to associate the policy only with POC.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. While we can discuss this stuff in academic circles, entangling the UBI movement with CRT is the equivalent in covering it in gasoline and lighting a match. You're not doing it any good, and you're just ensuring whatever chance it had is gone now.
On the one hand, I feel that both sides of this debate have a point. But then I think of my favorite phrase I’ve heard from the youngsters I sometimes spend time around, typically on the basketball court: “haters gonna hate.” I wonder if another phrase should be coined: “racists gonna racism.” The following statistics from the Pew Research Center will help me explain what I’m getting at.
The problem is some of those haters would be attracted to UBI on the basis of it being universal but if the CRT people take it over, they're just gonna end up poisoning the well surrounding discussion with it. And it will hurt it.
I'd rather avoid having the concept be ruined by the CRT crapshow. Especially because a lot of them really don't have MY best interests at heart either. Again, how can I trust a movement based primarily around helping solely POC to look out for MY interests as a white dude? My experience with CRT advocates has been a bunch of "stfu and check your privilege", and I'm sorry, but the well is kind of poisoned there. They might support UBI one second, but the next they'll just switch back to GI or NIT or some topic about reparations, pushing for an exclusionary form of the program that won't benefit me.
Again, if universalism > critical theory politics, fine. I don't mind if CRT theorists come aboard the UBI cause on the basis that it directly helps POC, but i dont think it should be openly framed that way, or that be the primary argument for it. Because if that's all these people care about, well...they can just as easily switch to supporting something else and leaving me in the cold. If they want to build a stable coalition that brings independents and non CRT obsessed people into their movement, they are gonna need to tone down the rhetoric.
I really dont believe that postmodernism should be THE primary worldview that defines the left. Rather, I think that it should be a complementary or supplementary worldview that bolsters a more universal approach to ethics on the left. THe culture war nonsense between the CRT crowd and the white grievance type people on the republican side is cancer. And no, i dont identify with the white grievance politics either. Same as I dont identify with MRA movements and see them as toxic too because im a man. Because identity politics is toxic, it doesnt matter which identity they support. it's just divisive nonsense that keeps people apart when we should be building bridges.
Pew found in 2020, that about 73% of Blacks, 63% of “Hispanics” (the term used in the survey), and 35% of Whites supported a non-work conditioned BI of $1000 a month. That is, a majority of Blacks and Hispanics supported a BI, while a majority of Whites opposed it. I don’t want to suggest that all the Whites who opposed a BI did so because they associated this universal program with lazy, Black and Brown folks receiving “handouts” they wouldn’t deserve. But these are some pretty stark numerical differences and leaves me wondering how much of the opposition was on that basis; I doubt the correct answer is that none of it was.
To some extent they might. But, I've been trying to work at breaking that conservative outlook among conservative whites. A lot of us in the millennial generation arent anywhere near as racist as our boomer parents. We merely inherited their political crapshow, and a lot of us have moved in a more libertarian direction as a result, moving away from the same old racial grievances and religious authoritarianism as our predecessors had. And a lot of us have moved left, including myself.
But somewhere deep down, when this CRT crap is pushed, I find it alienating as fudge, and I cant help but feel a lot of others like me would too. And i dont see it as any surprise how millennial conservatives who mellowed out a bit after the Bush and obama eras are becoming more conservative again in this age of Trump and beyond. Because those politics, well, they dont help us. And they just perpetuate the same kinds of crap our boomer parents and uncles were screaming about for decades, with them turning around and saying SEE I TOLD YOU THIS WAS THE PLAN ALL ALONG. And I can't help but wonder how many millennials and the like will buy that.
Like really, when I shifted left, I started seeing a lot of these kinds of politics as weird conservative strawmen to alienate us and scare us from moving left, but as we found out in the 2000s and early 2010s, it was just a strawman, nothing more. Until these CRT whackos entered the picture.
Again, I'm smart enough at this point that if someone genuinely wants to push a universal program that beenfits everyone, even if they push it with awful CRT rhetoric, that that's in my interest and I should support it. BUT...I dont really trust less intelligent versions of me when less education, and less expertise on the subject of UBI and welfare policy to follow suit. I mean, that's the thing. I have a FREAKING SOCIAL SCIENCE DEGREE. That's literally the only reason that I can be as sympathetic to this CRT stuff as I am. I mean, if not for that education, I'd be screaming about this stuff and how it fits the same old conservative stereotypes. Now consider how many people might be becoming UBI curious post great recession and into the trump and biden eras. All of those conservative yang gang and bernie bro types who started coming over, just to see the left devolve into this race obsessed clusterfudge. Will they stick around? Or will they vote for Trump and Desantis who promise to make their lives better while opposing this crap?
Think about it.
Pew didn’t ask about support for GI, at least I’m not aware that it did. Perhaps if it had, racial differences in support for that program would’ve been even more divergent. But it seems to me that even without having comparative findings on public support for GI, Pew’s numbers on BI, when it comes to the assumption that universal programs are always the best way to garner public support, should give BI supporters pause.
Yeah at least for me I have a much more viscerally negative reaction to more means tested programs. I know means testing is popular because conservatives like to sabotage programs and the left likes to triangulate to appease the right, but ex conservative me HATES means testing. Because it's just everything wrong with the democratic party and the american welfare system. Remember Ronald Reagan's worst words to hear in the english language: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Seriously, the government cant do ANYTHING right. Nothing can be simple, everything involves filling out 30 page forms, and being on the phone for hours, and trying to navigate government websites that don't work (looking at you, obamacare exchanges). They can't just give you a simple program. Everything is please fill out these 30 page forms proving you make below exactly $18,923.34 (who the heck comes up with these weird cut offs), above which screw you you get no aid at all, and waste hours of your time applying only to be constantly harassed by the government, and UGH.
Keep in mind, UBI and GIs like the NIT USED to be the conservatives' THING. Back when the war on poverty was passed, before Reaganism took over the party, this stuff was the conservative alternative. Instead of having like 389392823 agencies with all of these alphabet soup names doing different thing, what if we simplify it to have one program that we just give to everyone universally, and let them figure out their lives from there? There was actually appeal for a UBI on conservative-libertarian terms on the basis that it was simpler and less intrusive to peoples lives. This kind of thinking still existed in some conservative circles well into the 1980s at times, with people like Charle Murray pushing the idea as late as recently with the book "In Our hands". Really, there is a conservative undercurrent to UBI, which is why a lot of liberals are welfarists and oppose it. They see it as a plot to destroy their precious welfare states, that suck.
I think that GIs and NITs and means tested programs actually represent the worst aspects of liberal brainrot at times, and that this old school conservative approach is better.
And I think that's the weird thing about some on the right. I think that if we actually MOVE FURTHER LEFT, like into bernie sanders territory with healthcare or education, or into a UBI with welfare, a subset of conservatives will flock to the left. because not everyone on the right is really that racist, or primarily motivated by race. I think that framing things in racial terms can bring those tensions to the surface and make my own strategy of appealing to the right less attractive, as all of this CRT crap poisons the well, while focusing on a more universal oriented ideology would help bring people into the more left wing movements, causing them to abandon their conservative ways.
Again, CRT bad, universal framing good. Means testing bad, universal approach good. It wont work on all conservatives, but as an ex conservative, it worked on me and I believe it can work on others. And given a goal of mine is to bring over former right wingers to the left, the left needs to stop committing those five cardinal sins mentioned in the previous articles.
I think this question of whether, when proposing non-work conditioned cash assistance policies, we should unabashedly focus on racial justice or highlight how a given policy would benefit everyone, may be a real site of division between some GI and BI proponents. If so, I hope it isn’t an insurmountable one.
I'm fully in the universal came. Dont get me wrong, they're right in that UBI WOULD disproportionately benefit POC....but making that the PRIMARY selling point would drive away a lot of potential support. We kinda need to appeal to the CRT people on the down low. Mentioning this stuff in college classrooms and stuff like that, but as part of a political campaign messaging? NO. HELL NO.
Again, I can't help but feel at this point CRT is toxic and poisons everything it touches. I'd much rather focus on universal policies that help everyone, rather than policies that help some at the expense of others. Even if you frame a universal policy as helping some disproportionately, I think it could turn off some independents. I'm to some extent speaking from experience, but I'm ALSO the kind of voter who doesnt have an orthodox liberal background, and a bit cooler on the CRT stuff, even though I have come over to the left and abandoned the right.
Again, if we're gonna do this, we need left wing dog whistle politics to keep the framing on universal terms while helping the CRT people understand exactly what we mean.
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