Basic Income Frees The Mind

An impressive side-effect of basic income is emerging in the Finland test, according to the Guardian.

Juha Järvinen is an artist who is one of the 2,000 unemployed people taking part in the trial. Since he started receiving the €560 monthly payment, his creativity has exploded. His workshop is full of new ideas, like an artists version of Airbnb, or sets of shaman drums that he sells for up to €900.

He credits all this entrepreneurialism to the basic income. Not the money itself, it’s barely enough to keep his family, but the headspace. Now that he has been freed from the bureaucracy of the benefits system, he has time and space to work on his moneymaking ideas. Rather than constantly trying to prove that he is applying for other jobs, he can focus on doing the kind of work he is good at.

The unconditional nature of basic income is a liberator of the imagination. As Juha says, it is coded into our DNA to turn time into ideas.