Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) is not new, but surprisingly few have heard of it or truly understand the reason for it and why, now more than ever, it is vitally important. In simplest terms, UBI is a regular cash payment made to every person. The key word here is “universal”. You don’t need to work for it and you can do anything you want with it. Some see it as money for nothing, a lazy person’s way of getting a handout from the rest of society.

Proponents, many of whom don’t actually ‘need’ UBI, see it as a necessary means to keep the wheels of civilization running smoothly as automation increasingly renders many, if not most, of our current jobs redundant.

Automation replacing human workers by the millions is not mere fantasy, and unlike previous ‘industrial’ revolutions, we are entering an age where machines can, and will, do everything we can do. In earlier times, we could always say, “Well, sure machines can do this or that really well, but only humans can do this other thing.” Then, when machines did manage to do that particular thing, we’d move the bar and say, “Yeah, sure. Machines can do that now, but they’ll never be able to do this other, uniquely human, thing.” Soon enough, they’re moving the bar again. The truth is that we are running out of places to place that ‘bar’ as we enter a time where there is really nothing that a human can do (I’m talking about ‘jobs’ here) that a machine cannot do.

Pretending the problem isn’t real and suggesting that ‘people are just lazy’ or some other nonsense will bring about a future that will make the world wars seem like the good old days. Yeah, it’s that bad. It’s been said that the devil has work for idle hands. Imagine, if you will, millions of idle hands, and now imagine that they don’t have enough to eat. More than one revolution or war has started for reasons as mundane as the need to put food on the table. We don’t need to go too far back to find examples. The Arab Spring began as demonstrations over high bread prices.

People have fairly basic needs and desires. Most of these have to do with living well and providing the same for your family. Most of us want to work, but not too hard. Life is, after all, for living. Give most humans a roof over their heads, a safe place to raise kids, food enough to fill bellies, and the chance to explore what the world has to offer, and most people will need little else. Notice I didn’t write ‘want‘ but ‘need‘. ‘Want’ is something else.

The historian and futurist, Yuval Harari, (author of “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus”) talks about what he calls a “useless class”. If you dig, you’ll discover that many people would rather be exploited than rendered useless, and yet it doesn’t have to be that way. There is plenty of work out there for people to do, though not necessarily paying work. A classic example of this dilemma is the stay at home parent. These people (historically, mostly women) work extremely hard, but they are in not financially rewarded for that work. Worse, they aren’t recognized for that work.

Consider this exchange:

“So, what is it that you do?”

“I’m a stay at home Mom. I take care of our kids and our home.”

“So, you don’t have a job?”

In Robert J. Sawyer’s Hugo-winning “Hominids,” we explore an alternate Earth where Neanderthals became the dominant species of hominids, as opposed to “Homo Sapiens” in our own reality. In this parallel world, people aren’t asked what they do for a living, but what they contribute. That’s an important distinction and one we need to embrace. We have come to be defined by what we do for a living, not how we contribute to society, and that needs to change.

Over the years, I have done a lot of work in the field of Linux and Open Source software, where countless talented programmers and developers have contributed freely to projects that have created the modern technological world in which we live. Through their contributions, Open Source developers have helped build the tools that made the Internet possible. I’m talking about the technology that powers electronic commerce, online banking, Hollywood special effects, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and even Microsoft. While there are plenty of Open Source developers employed by major corporations like those I mentioned above, many more have contributed to making this magical modern world possible without the other-worldly financial rewards that those corporations take in.

We could, and must, start to reward voluntary contributions to the public good, just as we do salaried work to a corporate giant. Understand that these giant multi-billion dollar corporations owe their success, in no small part, to many of people whose contributions are grossly undervalued. A job is only one measure of how an individual contributes and, with time, is turning out to be an increasingly poor measure.

The coming, and unstoppable, wave of automation, led by increasingly capable machines and artificial intelligence, will forever change our world. Surprisingly, politicians seem loathe to address this problem. Either they don’t truly understand it, or they are more concerned with the next election cycle to entertain complex and novel solutions like UBI. When you’ve been telling people how great they’ve got it (or how great it’s going to be), it’s hard to pull back and tell a different story. One notable exception is US presidential hopeful, Andrew Yang, whose book, “The War on Normal People” goes a long way to explaining this problem. Yang’s campaign is built largely on providing UBI (what he calls a “freedom dividend”) for all Americans.

The reason? Automation.

Make no mistake. The robots and the AIs are coming for you job. It’s going to happen. Millions upon millions will find themselves without jobs and without any realistic future job prospects. Ask yourself what jobs all those millions can be retrained for that a machine won’t be able to do. Telling those people that they just need to suck it up, or to move, or to get retrained, or to find other work so that we can keep the engine of capitalism humming along will only lead to disaster.

Idle hands, remember?

We could, however, just as likely enter something akin to the Star Trek universe (minus the war with Klingons and Romulans) if we understand that defining people by what they do and forcing them to ‘earn’ their right to live, is a thing of the past; a vestigial organ from an earlier time. Like an appendix.

Capitalism is a lot like fossil fuels. It helped create our modern world, but it is starting to do more harm than good. We simply can not just dump capitalism overnight, but we must start to transition away from it. That’s what Universal Basic Income is; the first step in the transition to whatever comes next.