Fortunately we don't need UBI immediately, but that is precisely why we must use the current window for pilot schemes to fully understand all the implications. Those who don't see the need are thinking with a 20th century mindset, and clearly have no idea where automation is now leading us.



In the post war age, on which most economics is based, the needs of capital, labour and government all overlapped. New technology enabled capital investment to get healthy profits, but firms also needed expanding labour to achieve this. Employment growth consistently boosted wages, whilst the increased income tax receipts also funded expansion of government spending, further boosting economic growth.



However, this golden age has passed. Capital no longer needs labour to make big profits in the digital age, and we could soon be into a new era of jobless growth. Labour and governments will soon both be left asking "what the hell just happened?" even though experts have already being warning of the consequences. Yet governments show how clueless they are by continuing to cut back corporation taxes, blissfully unaware that the biggest returns today are now going to capital, not labour, and income tax receipts may well collapse in the next two decades. Solving these challenges requires a fundamental relearning of where wealth is created in the Global economy and how we need it to be distributed.



Of course Universal Basic Income involves huge challenges, but it also answers many of the problems we face in the Global economy today. Sceptics claim that giving people money for doing nothing will undermine work incentives of the lazy and feckless population. But in fact UBI provides greater incentives to work for additional income than current means-tested welfare systems, where benefits are lost as soon as earned income increases. Besides if gifting money removes all work incentives, shouldn't we be increasing inheritance tax to 100% ? But then of course "your" children are different, aren't they !



Robert P Bruce - www.TheGlobalRace.net