The horror show that is our conditional welfare system remains unknown to most everyone. In 1993, Theresa Funiciello wrote a Pulitzer-nominated book to try to help change that by laying bare the details she learned as a welfare mother herself, and as someone who worked at an organization devoted to helping people in the welfare system. Her book is considered to be one of the most important books on welfare and poverty in America to ever be published, and it concludes with a call for unconditional basic income as the only solution to fix what's broken.

In this episode I read Chapter 5 of Tyranny of Kindness which explains the title. It examines the rise of the non-profit sector which operates under the guise of alleviating poverty that truthfully exists as a means of reducing taxes, increasing profits, and funding paychecks through the industrialization of poverty. The concept of TSAR is introduced which is "Table Scraps As a Right", where the creation of a "discard market" enables people to feel good about feeding what would otherwise be garbage to the homeless. I think this entire chapter is extremely important to hear to gain a big picture understanding of just how many people benefit from the perpetuation of poverty, and how no one ever listens to those actually in poverty, who if given the choice, would choose money to spend for themselves.

Listen to Part 1: https://anchor.fm/scottsantens/episodes/Tyranny-of-Kindness-Chapter-1-e5390l

Listen to Part 3: https://anchor.fm/scottsantens/episodes/Tyranny-of-Kindess-Part-3-efu89h

Read Tyranny of Kindness by Theresa Funiciello: https://amzn.to/2Zfo75s

For more info about UBI, please refer to my UBI FAQ: http://scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq

You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: https://patreon.com/scottsantens

You can also sign up for my News Flash via scottsantens.news to get an alert by email each time I publish a new podcast episode.