Would people work if they didn’t have to?
Universal Basic Income (UBI). The revolutionary idea to solve poverty and stimulate the economy by giving everybody free money is becoming mainstream. The goal of UBI is not to make everyone rich, nor to make everyone equal, but to provide everyone with a monthly basic income to provide for basic necessities. No more, no less.
The guaranteed income has been supported by highly respected figures across all ideologies (socialists and capitalists alike); however, most people cannot help but doubt how realistic such a scheme is. After all…If nobody had to earn a living, why would anybody work?
Here’s 6 Reasons people and society will not only continue to work, but work better, with a Universal Basic Income.
1. No More Poverty Trap
Our current welfare system in America is a disincentive to work. Because the money is conditional on you NOT working (unemployment, disability, etc). If you are on benefits and you get a job, you lose those benefits, so naturally you’re less likely to get a job. Even if you’d really like to get a job, you don’t because it no longer makes financial sense. You’d be risking you’re financial security by doing so. This is a “poverty trap”.
Replacing the current welfare system with an Universal Basic Income would remove that current work disincentive. Since Universal Basic Income is unconditionally guaranteed, nobody would be penalized for working. If we all had UBI, everybody who works a job will earn more than somebody who does not. It will finally pay to work again.
2. More Efficient Work
No bank teller is more efficient at counting and dispensing money than an ATM machine. That’s a fact. Machine work is a great thing in terms of productivity and efficiency. But it’s not so great a thing when we live in a society where we’re all dependent on a job’s income for survival.
Technology already exists that will likely automate half of all jobs in the next 20 years. This may sound like the dystopian plot of “The Matrix”. But it doesn’t have to be. A Universal Basic Income will protect workers from the otherwise inevitable poverty of joblessness. It will also be a catalyst for more efficient automated work, allowing humans to spend less time on thoughtless repetitive tasks, and more time on works of passion and innovation.
3. More Innovative Work
Due to an epidemic of financial insecurity, the large majority of the workforce is restricted to doing work that is profitable. But not all work, especially innovative work, or work that benefits society in the long run, is profitable. (For example, the invention of the polio vaccine has saved countless lives, but its developer Jonas Salk didn’t make a dime selling it. Because he never patented it.)
Henry George put it well in 1879:
“The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature, and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for their own sake, and not that they may get more to eat or drink, or wear, or display. In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously increased.”
With a Universal Basic Income people will be able to explore new ideas without also worrying about having to make a profit.
4. More Work Opportunity.
What if you don’t want to invent the next polio vaccine. What if you just want to a traditional job working for someone else to earn enough to to afford a nicer house, a bigger family, and/or a vacation every once in a while? Well, Universal Basic Income help in that department as well. Because UBI will create more business opportunities.
By putting more money in the hands of more people, UBI will increase aggregate demand (create more potential customers). This creates an environment with more incentive and opportunity to create new businesses (and improve old business) to compete for the new customers.
5. More Productive Work
Currently 62% of Americans lose sleep over financial worries. If basic income was guaranteed there’d be less stress about money. Research shows people who aren’t losing sleep over financial insecurities, are better workers. Also less stress means better health. And better health means less sick days.
6. More Important Work
When a minimum income was provided to all citizens in a Canadian experiment, most people stayed in the workforce. But even those who didn’t stay in the “workforce” still worked. The most common demographics for those who opted out of the workforce were mothers who chose to stay at home to raise their children and students who chose to continue higher education.
A UBI will enable such intrinsically motivated work, that is currently not valued in our monetary system. Like parenting, studying/research, and volunteer/charity work. This is arguably the most important work there is.
Whether we’re motivated by curiosity, greed, or empathy, one thing is for certain: People do work. #BasicIncome would enable us as individuals, and society as a whole to do work. More productive, more efficient, and more important work.
This resource was created thanks to a crowd-funded monthly basic income. If you find value in this article, you can support it along with all my future work with a monthly patron pledge of $1+.
Matt Orfalea makes videos on Youtube. You can also follow him here onMedium, Twitter, and Facebook. If you feel others would appreciate this post, please click the green heart below so more people see it.
