The Servile State Reborn
How Universal Basic Income Would Complete Canada's Descent into Bondage
"Socialism, would substitute for individual effort a collective system, which destroys the foundations of private property and reduces men to a kind of slavery.” —Leo XIII
The late Hilaire Belloc, writing a century ago in The Servile State, warned of a future where free men would voluntarily surrender their liberty for the promise of security. Today, that prophecy stands at Canada's doorstep in the form of Bill S-2061, a "guaranteed livable basic income" (UBI) that promises dignity while delivering dependency and pledging security while ensuring servitude.
As this legislation advances through Parliament, we witness the auto-destruction of a once great nation via the resurrection of feudalism under progressive banners. What the bill's architects call "social justice," the Church's great economic thinkers would recognize as a trap; one that destroys both the giver and receiver while concentrating unprecedented power in the hands of a technocratic elite.
The Dignity of Work: A Principle Under Assault
Pope Leo XIII, in his foundational encyclical Rerum Novarum, established a truth that modern legislators seem determined to forget: work is not merely an economic necessity but a fundamental expression of human dignity. "It is only by the labor of working men that States grow rich,"2 he wrote, recognizing that authentic prosperity flows from productive effort, not redistributive schemes.
This understanding runs deeper than economics, as it touches the very nature of man as created in God's image. Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that humans find fulfillment through participating in God's creative work.3 When we produce, build, and contribute, we exercise our divine mandate to cultivate and steward creation. Work sanctifies because it aligns us with our Creator's nature.
Bill S-206 explicitly rejects this principle. Section 3(4)(c) stipulates that "participation in education, training or the labour market is not required" to qualify for payments. This is poor policy, and an assault on human anthropology. By severing the connection between contribution and provision, the bill attacks the psychological and spiritual foundation of human flourishing.
“What the welfare system and other kinds of governmental programs are doing is paying people to fail. In so far as they fail, they receive the money; in so far as they succeed, even to a moderate extent, the money is taken away.”- Dr. Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell's research demonstrates what common sense suggests: when effort becomes optional while reward remains guaranteed, both effort and reward diminish.4 The bill promises to lift people from poverty while removing the very mechanism—productive work—that has historically accomplished that goal. It's akin to promising to cure hunger while banning agriculture or meddling with fertilizer.5
The Economic Psychology of Dependence
Thomas Sowell, in The Vision of the Anointed, critiques economic systems that foster dependency, arguing that they diminish human potential by rewarding consumption over the creative contributions of individuals.6 Universal Basic Income represents the apotheosis of this error by reducing citizens to passive recipients of government largesse while expecting others to maintain the productive capacity necessary to fund such “generosity”.
The psychological effects are predictable and devastating. Work provides not just income but purpose, social connection, skill development, and personal agency. Remove these, and you create precisely the mental health crisis, social isolation, and spiritual emptiness that plague wealthy nations despite their material abundance.
Consider the implications: if $4,000 monthly requires no effort, why would someone accept an entry-level position paying $3,000? The bill creates powerful incentives for economic non-participation, particularly among those who most need the character-forming discipline that honest work provides. As the Ontario pilot project revealed, payments decreased fifty cents for every dollar earned, explicitly penalizing productivity while rewarding idleness.
This isn't compassion; it’s evil people imposing systematic demoralization disguised as charity. A virtue signal from those who possess little actual virtue.
“The freedom to pursue one’s own ends through work and exchange is what makes a man more than a tool of another’s will. It is in this freedom that human dignity is realized.” - F.A. Hayek
The Servile State Mechanism: Property as Political Control
Belloc's prophetic genius lay in recognizing that the Servile State wouldn't arrive through violent revolution but voluntary surrender. Citizens would trade freedom for security, not realizing that guaranteed subsistence requires guaranteed subjugation.
The financing mechanism, though unspecified in Bill S-206, reveals the trap's true nature. To fund universal payments approaching $17 billion annually, government must extract resources from the productive class. This inevitably means taxing not just income but wealth itself, including home equity, the traditional foundation of middle-class independence. You may well disagree with my politics, but not with the math.
When the government taxes your home's appreciated value, you discover that you never truly owned your property. You become a tenant on your own land, paying rent to the state for the privilege of maintaining what you thought was yours. This represents the final dissolution of private property (contra fide)7 not through confiscation but through taxation that makes ownership impossible.
“The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property.” -Leo XIII
The result is precisely what globalist architects like Mark Carney envision: "You will own nothing and be happy."8 Citizens become permanent debtors to the state, unable to accumulate the independence that threatens bureaucratic control. The middle class which historically is the bulwark of free society, disappears, replaced by a dependent mass managed by an administrative elite.9
The Church's Tragic Complicity
Perhaps most heartbreaking is the silence, or worse, active support, from Christian institutions that should recognize this deception. Modern Catholic social justice advocacy often champions expanded welfare without addressing its dehumanizing effects. Protestant denominations embrace "social gospel" initiatives that prioritize material redistribution over spiritual transformation.
This represents a fundamental theological error. True charity requires voluntary sacrifice by individuals acting from love. Coercive redistribution through taxation lacks charity's essential element which is the free choice that makes giving virtuous. When government forces Peter to pay Paul, neither experiences the grace that authentic charity provides.
Moreover, supporting systems that undermine human dignity and family stability contradicts core Christian teachings. The Bible's instruction that "anyone unwilling to work should not eat"10 isn't cruel but compassionate. We recognize that productive contribution serves both individual and communal flourishing.
For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping), that they are enemies of the cross of Christ;
Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things. - Saint Paul, Philippians 3:19-20
Churches supporting UBI embrace what Belloc and St. Paul called "the god of the belly,” prioritizing material comfort over spiritual development and human flourishing. They fail to recognize that economic dependency inevitably becomes spiritual bondage, as those who control sustenance control souls.
John Horvat II, in Return to Order, identifies this syndrome as part of the broader "frenetic intemperance" that characterizes our age via the restless pursuit of material solutions to spiritual problems.11 Horvat demonstrates how authentic Christian civilization depends upon what he calls "organic society" which are natural hierarchies based on virtue, competence, and service rather than administrative diktat or economic manipulation.
Universal Basic Income represents frenetic intemperance in policy form: rather than addressing the spiritual and cultural roots of economic dysfunction, it attempts to solve poverty through monetary payments while ignoring the character formation that work provides. Horvat's analysis reveals why such schemes inevitably fail, they attack symptoms while strengthening the underlying disorder.
True social restoration, as Horvat argues, requires not the leveling of UBI but the elevation of human potential through meaningful work, genuine community, and transcendent purpose. When government assumes the role that family, community, and personal virtue should play, it doesn't solve problems, it perpetuates the very individualism and materialism that created them.
“The solution lies in forging an organic Christian society, where natural hierarchies based on virtue, competence, and service to the common good replace the artificial egalitarianism and economic manipulation of our age.” - John Horvat II
The Cloward-Piven Strategy in Action
Learned conservative observers recognize Bill S-206 as textbook implementation of the Cloward-Piven strategy12: deliberately overloading welfare systems to precipitate economic crisis, justifying even more radical government intervention. By making subsistence conditional on state approval, the bill creates the foundation for comprehensive social control.
Consider the progression: first, UBI creates massive dependency; then, economic strain requires "temporary" restrictions on various freedoms; finally, only those demonstrating proper loyalty to state ideology maintain their payments. What begins as unconditional support evolves into conditional compliance with whatever agenda those in power choose to impose. Canada, already as numerous examples of extra judicial punishments via the unconstitutional freezing of bank accounts13. Imagine if all the income was controlled in this manner.
You might think this is paranoia, it’s not; but pattern recognition. Every socialist experiment follows this trajectory, promising liberation while delivering subjugation, pledging equality while creating new hierarchies of privilege based on political conformity rather than productive contribution. It’s all been tried before and stems from the same evil godless source.
The WEXIT Alternative: Free Alberta!
While Trump's offers for Canadian statehood may seem audacious, a more politically feasible alternative has been quietly developing in Canada's western provinces: the prospect of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and potentially British Columbia and Manitoba forming their own confederation, or joining the United States as separate entities.
Premier Danielle Smith's recent meetings with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January 202514 represent more than diplomatic outreach; they signal a growing recognition that western Canadian interests may be fundamentally incompatible with federal Liberal governance. As Smith noted after her Florida meetings, she emphasized "the mutual importance of the U.S. – Canadian energy relationship, and specifically, how hundreds of thousands of American jobs are supported by energy exports from Alberta."
The beauty of the WEXIT alternative lies in its respect for democratic choice while preserving Canadian identity for those who desire it. Canadians who embrace Trudeau's "post-national" vision can retain their federal system, implement universal basic income, and pursue the progressive agenda without resistance. Meanwhile, those who value work, property rights, and constitutional governance can align with jurisdictions that protect these principles.
Such an arrangement offers practical advantages that Ottawa's current path cannot match:
Economic Freedom: Western provinces could eliminate the equalization payments that transfer billions eastward annually, instead investing in their own infrastructure and reducing taxes on productive citizens;
Energy Partnership: Direct relationships with American markets would eliminate federal interference in pipeline development and energy export decisions that currently strangle western economic potential;
Constitutional Protection: American constitutional protections for property rights, free speech, and religious liberty exceed what Canada's Charter currently provides, especially given federal willingness to invoke emergency powers against peaceful protesters;
Fiscal Responsibility: Joining jurisdictions committed to balanced budgets and limited government would protect western taxpayers from schemes like universal basic income that promise prosperity while delivering poverty; and
Cultural Affinity: Western Canadian values—individual responsibility, work ethic, resource development, and constitutional governance—align more closely with American conservative principles than with Liberal Party ideology.
The demographic reality supports this alignment. As one Alberta oil worker put it, wearing his "Drill Baby Drill" jersey: he's already consulted immigration attorneys about seeking political asylum in the United States, preferring American freedom to Canadian servitude.
This isn't about rejecting Canadian heritage but about preserving it where possible while allowing those with different visions to pursue separate paths. Canadian nationalists who support universal basic income, open borders, and "post-national" identity can build their dystopia in the eastern provinces. Meanwhile, those who prefer the Canada that built the transcontinental railway, developed the oil sands, and fed the world can align with political systems that reward rather than punish such achievements.
The federal government's response to Smith's diplomatic outreach was criticism for conducting "unauthorized diplomacy"15 and attempts to restrict provincial autonomy, only reinforces the case for separation. When premiers cannot even meet with foreign leaders without federal permission, the pretense of federalism has already collapsed.
WEXIT offers hope where federal politics offers only decline. Rather than watching productive provinces subsidize destructive policies, separation allows each region to pursue its preferred path. Those who want to own nothing and be happy can do so in their reduced confederation. Those who prefer to own property and pursue prosperity can do so under constitutional systems that protect rather than plunder such aspirations.
The hour of decision approaches. Western Canadians must choose: continued subjugation to evil Ottawa's schemes, or the freedom to chart their own course toward genuine prosperity and constitutional governance.16
The Path Forward: Authentic Human Development
The alternative to universal basic income isn't universal basic suffering but universal basic opportunity; economic systems that reward effort, protect property, and maintain the social conditions necessary for human flourishing.
This requires:
Fiscal Responsibility: Governments that live within their means, allowing citizens to keep more of what they earn and reducing the regulatory burden that stifles job creation;
Educational Excellence: Skills training and educational opportunities that prepare people for productive work rather than lifetime dependency;
Community Renewal: Strengthening the intermediate institutions—family, church, voluntary associations—that provide authentic social support while maintaining personal dignity;
Property Protection: Legal frameworks that secure individual ownership against confiscatory taxation, ensuring that people can build wealth and pass it to their children;
Regulatory Reform: Eliminating the administrative fees, bureaucratic charges, and compliance costs that make basic necessities artificially expensive;
Immigration Sanity: Policies that prioritize Canadian workers while maintaining reasonable levels of newcomers who contribute to rather than compete with domestic employment; and
These solutions require no massive new bureaucracies, create no permanent dependency, and strengthen rather than weaken the social fabric. They align with Natural Law principles that recognize human dignity while respecting economic reality.
A Call to the Churches: Reclaim Your Prophetic Voice
The silence of Christian churches in the face of this moral crisis represents one of the gravest scandals of our age. Where are the pastors who should be thundering against legislation that systematically destroys human dignity? Where are the bishops who should be teaching authentic Catholic social doctrine instead of parroting progressive platitudes about recycling, open borders, and "social justice"?17
Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that the common good requires each person to contribute according to their capacity and receive according to their need 18 but he never suggested that contribution should become optional while receipt remains guaranteed. When the Church fathers spoke of caring for the poor, they envisioned temporary assistance that restored people to productive independence, not permanent dependency that enslaves both giver and receiver.
Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum contains devastating critiques of socialist schemes that could have been written specifically about Bill S-206: "The Socialist theory of property... is emphatically unjust, because it would rob the lawful possessor, bring the State into a sphere that is not its own, and cause complete confusion in the community."19 Universal Basic Income represents exactly such state overreach by means of confiscating private property through equity taxation to fund a system that destroys the work ethic Leo XIII identified as fundamental to human flourishing.
The great Pope understood what modern church leaders seem to have forgotten: authentic charity builds character in both giver and receiver, while coercive redistribution corrupts both. When government forces Peter to pay Paul, Peter learns resentment while Paul learns dependency, which is precisely the opposite of what Christian formation should accomplish.
Christian pastors and priests must stop conflating the Gospel's call to voluntary charity with government's power of compulsory taxation. They must cease blessing programs that undermine marriage, family formation, and personal responsibility simply because such programs claim to help the poor.
Instead of blessing expanded welfare, Christian institutions should encourage the pioneering new forms of productive community: worker cooperatives, artisan guilds, service organizations that provide meaningful work while meeting genuine human needs. They should be teaching that technological unemployment isn't a crisis requiring government dependency but an opportunity for human elevation.
The Church possesses everything needed to lead this transition: a theology of work that understands human dignity and baptismal mission, over mere productivity, institutions and facilites present in every community, and moral authority to speak against both unchecked automation and socialist dependency. Christian leaders could be facilitating community conversations about how to maintain human agency in an AI world, rather than surrendering to schemes that treat people as permanent slaves or wards of the state.
The Church’s prophetic voice should expose the spiritual poison hidden within Bill S-206’s material promises, urging Christian leaders to champion the dignity of work, especially through self-employment and entrepreneurship as individuals or in cooperatives, the sanctity of private property, resistance to monopolies that unjustly concentrate wealth and power, and the peril of replacing God with government as the ultimate source of security.
As Saint Thomas wrote, "He is not poor who has little, but he who wants more."20 Universal Basic Income creates artificial want by making honest work economically irrational while promising that government can satisfy desires it has systematically inflamed. This is the very materialism and spiritual sloth that the Church should be combating, not enabling.
The time for polite accommodation has ended. Christian leaders must choose: will they serve the Gospel of work, responsibility, and genuine charity, or will they serve the false gospel of guaranteed income, systemic dependency, and state-managed compassion? The eternal souls of their congregations; and the temporal welfare of their nations, hang in the balance.
The Hour of Decision
Hilaire Belloc concluded The Servile State with a warning that resonates today: "The practical test of freedom is not in the magnitude of the claim to it, but in the preservation of the power to exercise it."21 Canadians who imagine they're gaining security through guaranteed income are actually surrendering the power to be truly free.
The choice is stark: will Canada choose the dignity of productive work under constitutional government, or the degradation of managed dependency under administrative control? Will it preserve the conditions that allow families to build wealth and pass values to their children, or will it embrace systems that make both impossible?
Bill S-206 represents more than bad policy, it's a fundamental rejection of human nature and divine order. It promises earthly security while delivering spiritual bondage, pledges material equality while creating new forms of servitude.
The time for polite disagreement has passed. This legislation threatens not just economic prosperity but the anthropological foundations of free society. Canadians must choose: the dignity of work under constitutional protection, or the degradation of dependency under administrative control.
The servile state beckons with promises of ease. But as Pope Leo XIII reminded us, "Nothing is more useful than to look upon the world as it really is."22 And the reality is this: a system that makes work optional makes freedom impossible.
The choice is before us. Choose wisely, for your children and grandchildren's future depends on it.
Viva Cristo Rey!
https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/45-1/s-206
Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor), 1891
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 1, a. 1; I-II, q. 3, a. 8.
Dr. Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, 1995
https://calgary.citynews.ca/2022/08/15/fertilizer-emissions-big-story-podcast/
Dr. Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, 1995
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 66, a. 2; Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, 1891; Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, 1931.
Ida Auken, “Welcome to 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy, and Life Has Never Been Better,” World Economic Forum, November 10, 2016
John Ibbitson, “The Laurentian elite strikes back,” The Hub, May 2, 2025
2 Thessalonians 3:10
John Horvat II, Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society, 2013.
https://web.archive.org/web/20111124045536/http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/24-4
John Paul Tasker, “Banks have started to freeze accounts linked to the protests, Freeland says,” CBC News, February 17, 2022
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/danielle-smith-trump-maralago-visit-1.7525711
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/01/22/opinion/danielle-smith-surrender-trump
For up todate information I strongly recommend following
his current update is found here: https://x.com/DavidKrayden/status/1940772515074527334I am currently working on the 4th draft of a document on economy and private property with the help of those more expert in the study of economics than I am.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 66, a. 2.
Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, para. 15.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 118, a. 1.
Hilaire Belloc, The Servile State, 1912
Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, para. 18.