Some thoughts on why UBI seems like a solution, but clearly can’t work

Stan Rimdzius
Aug 24, 2017 · 2 min read

I often think about the coming robot economy. The only people that will be employable in the coming transitional decades to job automation, will be technical, specifically those that can envision how to apply robotics to current tasks done by humans, and of course the engineers that specialize in building and maintaining these machines. Few people currently are interested in doing these jobs for various reasons. What are they to do? Clearly if you don’t work, you don’t eat.

Universal Basic Income seems to be the clear answer to this problem.

However, a number of problems present themselves to me when I think about this.

1 Where does the money come from? The government does not have money on it’s own. It must confiscate it. If most people are unemployed it would be impossible to tax those left working enough to pay everyone the UBI.

2 You might think the government can just print the money. This is where most people just don’t understand basic economics. The more money that is printed the less that money can buy. Prices would skyrocket to the point that the entire monthly allotment of UBI would cover less and less of household expenses. Essentially, the money would be worthless.

3 Some think that as robots take over and energy becomes less and less expensive, that products will essentially be produced for next to nothing. So worthless money would be able to purchase valueless products. But why would any company produce anything if a profit cannot be made?

4 It seems to me that to live in a such a world would be inhumane. People need to work, they need to be able to keep the fruits of their labor, this creates value that can be traded for their wants and needs. If we must transition to an automated economy, some how the people must own the robots, not the corporations. Otherwise, why wouldn’t the masses revolt against the machines?

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