Universal Basic Income

UBI

Yet another 3 letter acronym that seems to have found renewed relevance within the context of this "new normal" world. It stands for the idea of giving money to people without any exchange of labour or any other condition aside from being alive. 

It is not a new idea, it dates as far as the 18th century with proponents such as Condorcet as a measure to fight inequality. The proponents of today are people like Elon Musk or David Yang and their core motivator for UBI is automation and it will force many industries to adapt from the use of human labour into a robotic framework.

Whether it is for inequality or automation that is not the focus of this article. There are also political ideologies that can be tied to this idea but that too will be left out. Instead, it is better to explore the feasibility of UBI.

Among the reasons that have been put forward against it is the loss of purpose since most people who go to their jobs every day would be left without a reason to wake up in the morning. However, the great majority of people who would benefit from UBI are stuck in jobs with no career prospect and their sole purpose is to be able to pay bills and feed themselves, so the argument doesn't stand.

Others argue that people would just spend it all at once and would go broke right after the first check.  That may be true, although most bills would still be there and one still needs to eat. There isn't any mention that with the UBI suddenly everything else is free of charge so people would have to consider that before going out on a binge and spend crazy.

The real feasibility factor is the volatility of the standard of living. It is a concept that changes from culture to culture and in the case of western culture, it is deeply rooted in archetypes that are not aligned with the UBI. In essence, people are prone to want more. There is a debate to be made as to why and how, whether it is a consequence of capitalism and advertising or post-war society models, the fact is that there and it needs to be taken into account.

People want more and better and different and they want to feel better with the new and bright as a source of joy, accomplishment, status, superiority, and or recognition. As much as we can discuss as to how our human condition levels the natural Plainfield, the social/financial conditions and geographies change all that.

As such either the incomes would have to reflect the particularities of a country, since the value of goods and services aren't the same everywhere, or it risks being a naive approach to solving inequality and automation.

Put simply, the UBI can only work if it is an integral part of a system that allows it to exist. A system that knows where to get the money without risking further debt and can calculate just how much is enough. This last part is tricky. and what does it even mean is yet another conundrum. On the one hand, people are not inclined to care enough for others and either decrease their expectations as to the meaning of success and abundance, and on the other whenever they have been forced to the result is usually a disaster and bears closeness to negative ill efficient models. 

For the universal basic income to have a real chance to work, the overall purpose of life has to be repurposed, the standard of living needs a refresh and the model of society needs to change. Therefore, for the time being, it is a nice idea, one that could even benefit the people in the poverty line but ultimately on a massive scale, it won't work. The world isn't ready for it.