UBI: The Possible Impossible

UBI is idealistic and futuristic. But that doesn’t make it impossible.

The post-work future is inevitable

This new age, though, can be comfortable

UBI is a sensible, practical solution to automation and joblessness

Many progressive ideas are often branded “idealistic” and “impossible” by people with political leanings akin to my own — centrists and liberals.

UBI, single-payer healthcare, and the $15 minimum wage are all seen by many in the moderate camp as futuristic and infeasible, not to mention unnecessary.

There’s a point in this gross oversimplification. Biden and Buttigieg would make the case about healthcare that universal healthcare can be achieved much more cheaply, and thus more sustainably. On that point, I agree with my political camp. Single-payer systems, as I know from living in the UK, are inefficient.

If the US is to radically change course on healthcare, it should be from the current libertarian multi-payer model to the European socialised multi-payer model, characterised by universal coverage, good healthcare, and efficient spending.

Similarly, one could contest that a $15 minimum wage is unnecessary, and that unions should instead be strengthened. Alternatively, the point can be made — and has been made — that a $15 minimum wage would be over $4 higher than in comparable countries such as the UK. However, I agree that a minimum wage rise is necessary, along with a change in the law to have the rate rise with inflation each year.

However, while I don’t personally agree with all progressive and democratic socialist proposals, none are more sensible than UBI.

For reasons I recently set out in this piece, automation is both inevitable and a threat to our job security. Humans have been vastly outdone in the manual sphere, and now we are being outdone in the cognitive sphere. Already, jobs are characterised by human-tech teams. It cannot be long before many professions are swallowed up by AI and machine learning.

AI systems also have the distinct advantage of being able to link to a network, ensuring better cooperation between the systems and simpler updating.

While some jobs will survive long into the future, there is every reason to believe that this revolution is different.

As such, to match the revolution in our world of work, we need an economic revolution to deal with the fallout. The central point of the aforementioned article was that we shouldn’t fear automation, though it is a threat to our jobs. Following the mantra “protect people, not jobs”, I suggest that, with sufficient government intervention and regulation, people can actually live more fulfilling and meaningful lives when freed from the monotony of work.

One of the key tenets of this intervention must be Universal Basic Income. While it would be wrong to introduce this immediately, governments need to establish and set out a long-term transition plan, from the modern economy of work to the future economy of joblessness.

Jobless need not be a synonym for destitute. But if it is to take on this new, positive meaning in the future, then UBI is vital. If 70% of us don’t work, then it makes no sense to maintain our traditional benefits system, which is built on the premise that only a small portion of people are ever without work.

AI will further our prosperity. You don’t need to pay AI, so sensible taxes on those still in work and those pulling the strings of large global corporations are in order. These taxes could easily pay for a very good standard of living for the masses in the world of exponential prosperity growth.

More importantly, the future presents an opportunity for the first feasible society of near-equality. We’ve always thought of such a society as ideal, but impossible. UBI, though, will be possible in the near future. In order to get there, we should transition now to Negative Income Taxation, a bridge between the current world of work and the future post-work world.

We do still have questions to answer on this topic. Does universal mean within our own borders, or globally? Does basic mean food, water, and housing, or does it mean a large house and garden with gourmet food?

But if we are to work through these questions at the speed we need, then we must begin instituting NIT and trialling UBI, in order to understand their flaws and iron out these issues before we need these systems to perform well.

UBI may be idealistic. It may be futuristic. Neither of those things mean that UBI is impossible or unnecessary.