The Key Determinant for Whether Basic Income Will Happen
Universal basic income (UBI) has been proposed in various forms to address the social and wealth inequality brought by the current dominating capitalism systems.
Unlike many forms of socialism or even communism, UBI’s core concept is not to abolish capitalism, but to supplement it with a different distribution system so that every society member may benefit from the fruits of its progress, instead of the few winners of the ovarian lottery.
There are arguments on both sides: proponents believe that UBI will provide a more leveraged field to ensure human rights (much like the right to vote or education, people should have basic living support). Critics believe that UBI will lower work incentives, and is not executable.
Regardless of which side you believe, I believe that whether UBI will happen is actually not determined by people’s preferences, but by cold, hard, basic, market economy.
The key issue at stake is: as technology and automation continue to progress, with AI, robotics, and blockchain on the way to impact us more and more, will human capabilities, still be economically relevant?
What that mean is: do the skills that only humans do better than machines, such as creativity, empathy, negotiations, child and elderly care, or maybe education, still able to produce enough economic values on the marketplace (not social values) for most people to get a decent job?
Put it in another perspective: will we (or the decision makers who hold wealth), be willing to spend money on things we currently are allocating less for, such as: artistic work, social work, charity, personal and spiritual growth, etc. as opposed to more convenient and abundant materials.
Or perhaps another way to say it: will we be willing to spend more on the spiritual, emotional, and psychological, instead of the physical, the visible, and the material?
If the answer is yes, then humans just “might” be able to produce better economically than the machines. If not, then we’re simply less and less capable to produce “goods” than the new machine slave class in carrying out factory-style productions and assemblies, and will lose jobs eventually.
But of course, even if most people would like to change their spending habits, the attitudes of the current wealthy people are equally important: as they decide how resources and purchase decisions are allocated that affect the current marketplace.
The basic determinant for UBI then is: if people are willing to change buying preference to non-materialistic goods, then we might still be able to produce economically without needing UBI. Otherwise, most people will not be competitive enough and likely social unrest will occur.
To UBI or not to UBI, the deeper question is actually what we value more: physical or non-physical consumption, collectively as a human race.
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