UBI is Inevitable

Basic income is going to reach mainstream politics. Just ask Andrew Yang, a former tech executive from New York, his entire 2020 campaign is based upon it. We saw it with Bernie Sanders being so popular among Millennials in 2016.

We see it with the decline of trust in Capitalism among younger Millennials and GenZ. Late in 2017, it was found that preliminary analysis of a European-wide survey has found young people are more in favour of introducing a universal income than their older peers.

This is not hard to understand, we have higher student loans, the cost of housing has risen dramatically, and job stability and economic uncertainty is on the rise. Healthcare costs are ballooning and last but not least, automation is coming. Automation is on our technological doorstep and we’re all in denial of its impact that could become personal.

With technological unemployment and a declining labor pool and falling birth rates, consumerism could be in trouble. You don’t disenfranchise young people and expect that it leads to good future outcomes. In fact, the political left and the right are already preparing their stances on basic income. You have to follow the script guys, if Silicon Valley are advocates for UBI, and AI regulation, there could be many explanations for it.

Experiments in Africa, have shown UBI has positive impacts and recipients do not abuse the “free money”.

If Robots and AI improve productivity and help automate tasks that humans used to do, free money might empower the sharing-economy and new forms of social entrepreneurship where humans will be most active: helping each other and the attention economy.

You cannot talk about regulating AI, without talking about the human consequences that AI and automation will create on human systems. Indeed this idea that Universal Basic Income is trending more, is in a way true. Basic income has its own subreddit, and pretty active tags here on Medium as well.

This is not something that’s going away, because technological unemployment is on the rise. We are just about to enter another wave of automation and if AI and robotics grows as some believe it will in the next two decades, the future of our children will be radically different from ours. This is because the very future of work and income might be irrevocably changed. In such a world of uncertainty, it will likely to take another great recession for things to finally make sense to all of us, and we’ll need something to lean back on.

What is UBI?

UBI is a system in which all people, in a spirit of “unconditional” support, are given by the state or a pool of the leading firms — regardless of occupation, demographic, social standing, education, or any other external factor, receive a basic income — a sum of money around $1,000 to help them make “ends meet.” Some studies indicate that this technique can improve the long-term conditions of people even better than giving them re-training in a new field after having been made redundant for example, due to technological innovation and automation.

In this view:

• Universal Basic Income not only can prepare society for increasing automation but also spur innovation and growth. The idea is if people feel cared for in this manner, they are more likely to start small businesses that embody aspects of the sharing-economy and social entrepreneurship that encapsulate social responsibility.
• That Presidential candidate Andrew Yang? He has a nice spin on it he calls it “Freedom Dividend.” The whole point is it’s a share of wealth from the 1% that’s more in line with a world where work begins to become decoupled from income. In such a world we don’t work to make money, but we work to do good in the world and express our innate potential.

Calling UBI a “Freedom Dividend” or any other better name is also important, the term “basic income,” feels too much like social welfare which offends a lot of people that abide by principles of rugged individualism in an the spirit of the competition in the marketplace; the capitalism that used to work for the average American or global citizen.

As automation continues to scale at a frantic pace leading to a lot of consolidation among the major global corporations of the world, it will become apparent that the middle class will need to shift into the next stage of consumer that integrates with principles of the sharing economy, the smart energy grid and more sustainable transformation that are possible with IoT, AI, green technology, robotics and so forth. Yet how do we deal with technological unemployment, poverty and a middle class entrapped with debt? A state contributed freedom stipend, or for short “human-stipend” may be the answer.

In the future all people deserve basic things; not just food and clothing or freedom of expression; but access to the internet, and monetary support for basic necessities of living. Eventually this will of course include free access to healthcare and education. Anything less, would be a failure of technological civilization.Enter the Human Stipend

We are not there yet, but the human stipend (HS) could liberate us. The principle of equality is important, like everyone should get an old-age pension after years of contributing to the state, so should everyone get an HS. The HS could put the dignity back in human beings many of whom may never work again in the same capacity. In the future, people of working age not in the labor pool won’t be uncommon.

Technological unemployment is a growing social problem. How do you maintain the public order, when the true unemployment rate rises and the feedback loops of consumerism such as having a family, start to twindle? What do you do to ensure security and avoid riots and social unrest without an HS when automation’s speed is more aggressive as new automated and robotic trends spread like wildfire across the world?

The HS is the last response of world leaders, businesses and governments to ensure a more satisfactory quality of life, through transitions that may be quite painful. “Disruption” is a gentle word, for the prospects of a new technological underclass who may not have access to the same privileges of skills that are not easily replaced. Yes as a civilization we have less global poverty and hunger than ever, but we also have an exponentially rising wealth inequality and global monopolies who will be default, destroy more jobs than they create.

We need to evolve and develop our concepts of basic income until they are in sync with the future of our children, so they don’t grow up impoverished and disheartened by adversity as millions of Millennials have. As Millions of GenZ who will graduate into a world where automation has rapidly begun and is being implemented. Where the job or career path they imagined, may no longer even exist.

It’s not by accident that some of the most outspoken Tech leaders and the most wealthy Moguls are in favor of UBI. The right implementation of a human stipend must not enslave us to dependence but promote us into entrepreneurship. The right scaffolding and support must be there. The right amount must be given that fuels our drive to engage with the world, and not become complacent in our ambivalent relationship to work itself.

UBI is inevitable, yet as experts and leaders continue to disagree on the potential impact of such a system; automation is not waiting — it will not magically slow down due to our ambivalence to share wealth and reduce inequality. Without a human stipend of some kind, radical social events could occur and a mounting climate of mistrust that could divide us for decades to come. UBI has the power to diffuse social tensions that have a significant cost to the healthcare system before they occur. The opioid crisis, is just a sign of what can happen in rural communities where job displacement has already occured.

Imagine for a moment having $1,500 extra in your bank account at the end of the month — $1,500 more than you’ve actually earned. It’s not a bank error; the money is yours, no strings attached. What would you do with the human stipend? Would your HS make a difference in how your self-growth and betterment as a human being impacts your future? Your community? The sum total of your life’s work? As a civic agent in society that has a moral will to give back to the community, to the people that helped you? The Human stipend may not be enough to bring total freedom, but it does create trust, in a system for generations that must battle their lack of trust, each and every day.

Thank you. UBI is inevitable, but let’s call it a human stipend. Because we all deserve the same support. It should be part of our basic human economics, because we all matter.

Want further reading? Futurism | Medium | BIEN | Reddit Wiki | r/BasicIncome | Basic Income Medium Publication

UBI is Inevitable was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.