Is It Okay to Get Something For Nothing?

“When you get something for nothing, you just haven't been billed for it yet.” – Franklin P. Jones, Humorist

One of the most deeply ingrained creeds in the American ethos is the idea that if you work hard, anything is possible. It’s the American Dream. The implied corollary to that, of course, is that if you don’t work hard, you’ll get nothing. More importantly, you deserve nothing.

This is an idea that seems so obvious to the average American that it is held firmly and without a doubt by every conservative thinker, from the most Alt-Right all the way down to the last rung on the conservative ladder, the modern political climate’s “moderate/centrist” Democrat.

It’s a point that seems so unassailable that even those further on the left usually don’t want to touch it. Andrew Yang, one of a score of candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination as I write this, has as the cornerstone of his platform the idea of UBI – Universal Basic Income, which says that every adult American will get $1000 a month on which to live.

This is the type of proposal that has conservatives waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. The very idea that not just some Americans, but EVERY American, would get a monthly stipend of a THOUSAND DOLLARS--$12,000 a year!—for just sitting on their behinds, is such anathema to those on the right and many in the middle, that they would rather see almost anything else become public policy.

It defies imagination just how preoccupied many Americans are with the sheer injustice of such a concept. It’s a principle that has “investigative journalists” from the mainstream conservative media regularly following around homeless people in the hopes of catching one sporting a new pair of sneakers or talking on a cellphone. It’s an idea that fills right-wing TV pundits with rage. “A thousand dollars! For nothing! Those freeloaders! Those savages!” As if a thousand dollars a month would allow someone with nothing to live high on the hog.

Can you imagine Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh trying to live on $1000 a month? I question whether they and their ilk could survive on $1000 a DAY.

And yet Yang, despite the swell of popularity he is enjoying and universal agreement that this is a bright guy who knows what he is talking about, is summarily dismissed when discussing UBI. The media seems to think he could not possibly mean it, and is just trying to pull eyes, the way candidates for Class President of your local High School would put up posters in bold letters exclaiming: “FREE SEX!...and now that I’ve got your attention…”

So, what is it that seems so obviously horrible to Americans about the idea of getting something for nothing? And why does it only apply to the poor? We don’t seem to care about the obscene amount of wealth that children inherit from their rich parents. Far from it, we build reality television shows around them. We don’t mind seeing Instagram models get six-figure paydays just for taking a picture of themselves sporting a certain brand of lipstick, even though this seems far from the type of “good day’s work for a good day’s pay” type of effort the Puritan forefathers of this country espoused.

No, it’s only the idea of people of limited means having their means a little bit less limited without any effort on their part that we find so objectionable. Is there any logical explanation for this?

Well, what are the arguments against something like UBI?

Some will say it’s not good for society. If people know they can get something for nothing, they won’t work. We’ll have a nation of freeloaders.

But this is obviously ridiculous. In most parts of the country, $1000 a month is enough money to put a roof over your head and feed yourself and little else. Would anyone who finds the idea of these luxuriating freeloaders so objectionable be content to have nothing more in life than three cheap meals and protection from the rain? Unlikely.

In fact, the reverse is almost certainly true. A person who is on the street and starving can do little else but try to survive. There’s no opportunity to interview for a job when you can’t shower or change your clothes or get a good night’s sleep. On the other hand, with $1000 a month, you could do all those things. And human nature being what it is, once you get a taste of a little comfort, you want more.

Something like UBI would mean no homeless people, a healthier population and more people looking for gainful employment. And if the cost of that is a handful of people who just want to live in a hovel and eat fast food and play video games all day, so what? Who does it hurt? Especially in comparison to what you get in return!

Of course, the other argument is, why should a hardworking American pay for other people to freeload? But this argument also doesn’t ring true. People routinely pay taxes that go to bribing big companies to stay in the U.S. by offering billion dollar tax cuts, that go to the building of giant military death machines that we will never use and often don’t work, and that go to many other things that ultimately offer less of a benefit to society than giving every American citizen a little bit of dignity.

And yet people would rather pay hundreds of dollars for all those things than part with one red cent to make sure a homeless person has a roof over their head or can see a doctor when they are sick.

Why? Even when it doesn’t affect them at all, they object. Even if UBI, universal health care and all the other programs that just give the most disadvantaged of our citizens a chance to succeed were to be paid for by a marginal tax on the wealthiest one percent, even if 99 percent of Americans would not be affected AT ALL, they still object. Why?

I suppose there’s the slippery slope argument. Some may say, well, if someone gets something for free now, they’re just going to want more and more. Eventually, we will get to that point where no one wants to work.

I don’t buy it. There are people in this country now that have more money than they can ever spend or will ever need, and they still put in full working hours every day. There are also people who volunteer their time and do work for nothing. And honestly, would it really be so awful if our society became so advanced that the only people who worked were people who want to?

Is the explanation that our true human nature is sour grapes? "I have to work, so why shouldn’t they?"  Is it that even if we will have so much more than they do either way, we absolutely refuse to let someone else have something that we had to work for? Is it true that for many Americans, it actually feels that someone getting a handout hurts them personally? Even if they don’t have to pay for it? Even if it’s someone they don’t know?

Unfortunately, for many, perhaps even most Americans, it seems that this is indeed the source of our indignation. A study by Zonghu and Li found that increases in relative income and absolute income both weaken negative emotion, but only increases in relative income improve positive emotion.

In other words, being well-off and being wealthier than those around you both make you less depressed, but what makes you feel really good is having more than others in your community. People actually derive joy in knowing that they are doing better than others, and helping the least fortunate closes that gap.

It’s not the idea of taking some of our money and giving it to the less fortunate that people find so objectionable, it’s the idea of taking some of our precious social status and giving it to the less fortunate that we can’t stand. It is our willingness and ability (or perceived willingness and ability) to work that is the currency that social programs for the less fortunate threaten to devalue, and that we cannot abide if we are to maintain our feelings of superiority.

Is there anything that can change this attitude? It will be tough. Even the idea of forgiving student debt has the people who have already worked off their own student debt up in arms. We really cannot stand the idea of someone else getting something for free that we had to work for, no matter what the positive consequences might be.

But maybe the least we can do is not stigmatize the very idea.