To 'anonymous'

Oh Dear. I made a blue. Here's an 'anonymous' comment from yesterday.

Lindsay, you've blatantly misrepresented Hyman's article, which is headed "A Universal Benefit Works for Women". She was writing about the benefits for women of a universal basic income. The article also points out that a UBI would not discriminate - by definition, everyone would get it. Now if you want to argue about UBI (which seems to be a dead issue, so not much point in that) go ahead, but don't depict it as 'wages for housework' only for women. It never was.

Quite right too. I was being flippant and hasty.

So let's be serious. A UBI of $8,000 for everybody would discriminate. Why? Because the lion's share of the tax paid to fund such a scheme would come from men. It would simply add to the forced redistribution of wealth which already moves broadly from male to female through the benefit system.

Also the children's UBI would go to the main caregiver which is usually the mother. That's $8,000 per child she has control of.

And finally, I depicted the UBI as being for caring and cleaning services. Prue Hyman most certainly did see the payment as recognition for the 'value of caring for children and dependent relatives'.