Guaranteed Minimum Income is an obviously absurd idea but it is useful in critiquing leftist welfare proposals. Essentially, my argument goes like this:
a) No one disputes that the market provides goods and services more cheaply than government can
b) Any welfare measure which interferes in private decision-making is a substitution of the government for the market
c) Hence, for a given money-pile, supporting interventionist welfare measures is equivalent to saying that less total help should be given to the poor
d) Hence, a GMI is the welfare system which provides the largest possible amount of help - for a given money-pile - to the poor
But since GMI is absurd, the idea that the government should forcibly intervene at all into people’s lives for the sake of “welfare” is absurd.
QED
Clayton -