So why wouldn’t a universal basic income work?
Part 3 of an exploration into universal basic income, this time looking at the arguments against UBI
🌎 What are the arguments against UBI?
Continuing our exploration into universal basic income, let’s explore the arguments about why universal base income wouldn’t work. There are a number of them, and they come from both both right and left political perspectives. The goal of this exploration isn’t to prove or disprove any of these arguments, but just to understand an overview of the different takes and how they fit into the bigger picture. Then you can take some time to think critically about each argument as this continues to be in conversations in our future.
(If you missed it, here is part 1, what is UBI?, and part 2 where we looked at some different UBI tests and how they all pretty much went well.)
Now let’s explore some of the top reasons folks give for why universal basic income won’t work.
💪 People won’t work
This is one of the loudest objections against a basic income. If people’s needs are met, why would they even show up to work? Society would come crashing down in a week!
To me, this objection doesn’t hold water. We already saw when looking at tests of basic income that it doesn’t usually negatively impact employment. Granted, this was only for the lowest income members of the population, and it does tend to slightly reduce working hours. But with productivity rates increasing year over year (though workers’ share of the fruits of those increases stagnating), it stands to reason that society will be fine if we all work a little less. Perhaps billionaires will have fewer billions to throw around, but that’s not likely to have a negative affect on most people’s daily lives.
I’m actually of the mind that a lot of employment today doesn’t need to happen except for the fact that people can’t meet their needs without it. So we have people spending 40+ hours per week of their lives either making a neutral or even negative impact in the world when they could just be at home enjoying themselves (or starting a new business that would be more impactful and less profitable.) I’ll save a deep dive into this for a future exploration, but for many reasons I think the concern about people not working is blown out of proportion.
😔 People won’t be happy
Some people bring up the good argument that work, ie contributing to the world around us, gives us purpose and meaning in our lives. However, they say, if we provided a universal basic income, we might remove this purpose from people’s lives.
I don’t see how this is the case. A universal basic income doesn’t stop people from working and contributing. If anything, it increases people’s ability to contribute meaningfully because they have more freedom and flexibility to do what they feel is meaningful instead of what is financially profitable. UBI doesn’t mean someone is locked at home on the couch for those 40+ weekly hours instead of working!
So while I agree wholeheartedly with the premise that humans need ways to meaningfully contribute to the world to live fulfilling lives, I cannot see how enabling their basic needs to be fulfilled does anything but make this more possible. At the very least, I think it’s worth trying to find out. We can explore ideas around what work is and how we make meaningful contributions in future articles.
💰 We can’t pay for universal basic income
So even if people would work and be happy if they had a universal basic income, how would we pay for it? This is a huge hurdle, and as far as I can tell, it isn’t one that’s fully been addressed. But here are a few ideas I’ve seen proposed.
We could use our tax funds as a start. This would be more comprehensive if we were to end tax breaks for things like large corporations, the richest in our country, capital gains, and inheritances. There would need to be some shifts for us to have enough tax income for this to work, but in theory it’s a viable option. However, the reality of the US currently making these shifts feels pretty unlikely right now 😅
We could take the budget spent on current means-tested welfare solutions and divert it to UBI. However, this risks taking services away from people who need them, and if other things (like rent control, affordable healthcare) aren’t implemented, this could lead to lower overall quality of life. This also wouldn’t be enough on its own to cover the cost of a basic income for everyone.
We could consider a UBI that’s in a more local currency instead of a state-backed currency. (Diving into the differences would take too long here, but let me know if you’re interested in exploring that together in the future.) Local currency based UBI has recently hit the news in the form of the crypto coin World Coin backed by Sam Altman of Open AI. But there are community currencies that aren’t crypto-based. Depending on what goods a community can provide within itself, part of a UBI could be given in the form of a community currency which would promote the exchange of goods and services within a localized community. This requires community engagement both in the form of signing on to the currency and in the community providing goods and services for each other. This will be more viable in some places than others, but it’s something worth exploring as we focus on how communities come together to provide care for each other.
📈 Universal basic income would increase inflation
We can’t prove this one way or another, and there’s a good argument that if we changed nothing else about society but started cutting checks, rents would increase quickly to take away most of the benefits from that check. So we do need to be thoughtful about how we either impose things like rent control or focus on giving services (ie universal healthcare) instead of cash.
In theory, the basic income trials have not shown an increase in inflation from cash payments. But given that they haven’t happened across a whole population yet, it’s unclear what the wider effects would end up being. Here’s a quote from The Future is Degrowth speaking to this.
“For example, if a basic income were to be implemented without further policy changes, it is likely that this would further entrench class and labour divisions between citizens fo a country and migrants, who cannot access such politics. It could, furthermore, actually increase unsustainable consumption —and would not solve the alienation of labour in itself. Finally, a basic income, within patriarchy, could further push women out of the sphere of wage labour, as they may spend much of their time focusing on care work and housework instead of pursuing a profession. All of this changes if a basic income is combined with other degrowth policies.”
🏛 Expanding the state is a bad idea
A concern from folks across the political spectrum is that a government-based universal income expands the power and impact of the state which is a negative thing. This is an argument that definitely makes sense, and this is where things like local currencies could come into play to help us support each other without it all going through one centralized state apparatus.
That said, we have to find a way to step from where we are today to a potentially radical future of autonomous community organization without a wider state. That isn’t going to happen tomorrow. And finding ways for the states of today to provide better for their people is, in my opinion, a helpful step forward.
👋 Up next is the final part of this deep dive…
…where we’ll explore some alternatives to universal basic income that might better lay the path to create caring communities supporting collective liberation.
🗣 Question of the day
Which of these arguments resonates with you? What other questions come up for you around whether UBI is viable or not?
Drop a comment or hit reply and let me know your thoughts — I’ll share some responses in the next post and use responses as a jumping off point for exploring alternatives that address some of our concerns!
🧠 For further exploration
Here are some books and articles for you to check out and explore this topic more. I’d love to hear any thoughts or further recommendations you have in the comments!
📚The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing - a book exploring the growing issue of people not in “extreme poverty” but living lives of deep insecurity and precarity.
🎧This universal basic income episode from Upstream podcast (who are great) is a good listen if you’re more of a listener and want an intro
Ultimately (unforch) there doesn't seem to be a magic cow to milk to provide a UBI for everybody.
I think this boils down to the basic nature of the world. I'll write a bit more on this later or we could have a chat and dig into it. Love you and the questions you are asking Riley!