Debates around the social safety net are too easily characterized by their extremists: libertarian conservatives seeking to dissolve any restriction on free exchange, or near-Marxists who never met a hard-earned dollar that they didn’t want to redistribute. But an alternative school of criticism would claim that capitalism and the socialist ideal are both flawed — both tend to unravel the bonds that tie communities together, offering only money as a substitute.

A universal basic income, should it ever come to fruition, would likely represent the withering of America’s social fabric through the combination of the free market and welfare state. While it is easy to foresee an environment in which cutting a check to every citizen would be a reasonable and perhaps even necessary policy solution, we should earnestly hope to escape that fate. By the time a true universal basic income would be justifiable, both the capitalists and the government would be purchasing more than mere domestic nondisturbance: they would be buying many of us out of civil society altogether.

Read the article “The Terrible Cost of Universal Basic Income” on washingtonpost.com.