NOTE: I have been posting excerpts from my book World After Capital. Today’s section wraps up the section on Universal Basic Income (UBI) by addressing a few common objections and arguing that it is a moral imperative.
Other Objections to UBI
I have already addressed the three biggest objections to UBI by showing that it is affordable, will not result in inflation, and will be positive for the labor market. There are some other common objections that are worth addressing. The foremost of these is a moral objection that people have done nothing to deserve receiving an income. That one is important enough that it merits its own section which follows in a bit and closes out this chapter on Economic Freedom.
Another objection is that UBI diminishes the value of work in society. The opposite is true because UBI recognizes how much unpaid work exists in the world, starting with child rearing. We have created a weird situation where the word “work” has become synonymous with getting paid and using that to conclude that if you do not get paid for an activity (at least not in an obvious direct way), then it cannot be work. As an interesting counter to this, Montessori Schools use “work” to refer to any “purposeful activity” [Citation needed].
That leads us to a different objection, which is that UBI robs people of a purpose which–the argument goes–is provided by work. But work as the sole source of human purpose is a relatively new view that is largely attributable to the Protestant work ethic (which signals its focus on work by its name). Previously human purpose tended to be much more broadly based in following the precepts of religion, which might include work as one of many commandments, and being a good member of the community. Put differently, the source of human purpose is subject to redefinition over time and as I have argued earlier in this book, contribution to the knowledge loop is a better candidate for the future than work.
One other objection that is frequently brought up, is that people will simply spend their basic income on alcohol and drugs. This objection is often accompanied by claims that the casino money received by Native Americans is the cause of drug problems among that population. There is no evidence to support this objection and the accompanying claim. None of the UBI pilots and experiments have found a significant increase in drug or alcohol abuse (in the meantime we have, in the absence of UBI, the largest drug epidemic in U.S. history with the opioid crisis). And the research on casino money shows that, contrary to apparently widely held belief, casino money has in fact contributed to declines in obesity, smoking and heavy drinking [Citation needed].
And then there are people who object to UBI not because they think it will not work, but because they claim it is a cynical ploy by the rich to silence the poor, a financial version of “opium of the people” designed to keep people from rebelling against their situation. This criticism is voiced by some who genuinely believe it but is also used by others as a convenient tool of political division. Whatever the case, the impact of UBI is likely to be the opposite, as was recognized by Thomas Paine (see above). Today, in many parts of the world, including the United States, poor people are effectively shut out from the political process. They are too busy holding down one or more jobs to be able to run for office, or organize and sometimes even just to vote (as in the United States we vote on a week day and there is no requirement for employers to give employees time off from work to vote).
UBI as a Moral Imperative
Finally, before proceeding to examine Informational Freedom, we should remind ourselves why individuals deserve to have their basic needs taken care of. Why should they have this right by virtue of being born, just as they do the right to breathe air?
None of us did anything to make the air. It was just here. We inherited it from the planet. Nobody ever asks, what did you do to deserve air? None of us alive today did anything to invent electricity. It had already been invented, and we have inherited its benefits. But you might say: electricity costs money and people have to pay for it. True, but they do not pay for the invention of electricity, just for the cost of making it. Yet, nobody asks: what did you do to deserve living in a world where electricity has already been invented? We can substitute many other amazing parts of human knowledge for electricity, such as antibiotics.
Human knowledge is our collective inheritance. We are all incredibly fortunate to have been born into a world where capital is no longer scarce. Using our knowledge to take care of everyone’s basic needs is therefore a moral imperative. And UBI accomplishes that by giving people Economic Freedom, allowing them to exit the Job Loop and thus accelerating the Knowledge Loop that gave us this incredible inheritance in the first place.
