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Those who hate Universal Basic Income should be its first advocates instead
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A few days ago, I saw a Facebook post going like this:
“I’ve been thinking about the future impacts of AI and robotics on our society for some time now. Here’s [a video] on the subject... I would love to see other viewpoints as well.”
Since the poster asked for other viewpoints, I replied:
“What happens after we run out of jobs because AI” is the OPPOSITE way to look at things. Seriously. By coincidence, just two days ago I wrote about a sane strategy to deal with AI and job losses, and had already written another piece just about how UBI, AI and reality are always put in the wrong ORDER. Please have a look at those posts, and let me know.”
At this point, another contact of that person, whom I’ll just call “HIM” from now on, stepped in, to fill the time-honored internet role of “guy who has no idea what I’m talking about and refuses to inform himself”. For context, here is how the conversation went, but if you just want to know why the more you support hard work ethics the more you should love UBI, just skip to the next paragraph:
HIM: so you want to go full on socialism because technology replaced the low/no skill worker... here’s the issue.. if two workers get the exact same and 1 is a hard worker and the other is a blue falcon.. you just murdered incentive.. good job..
(note for those who, like me, had never met the “blue falcon” expression before: A blue falcon is (source) “someone who causes problems or does things to get their fellow service members in trouble. This often leads to more work for their fellow soldiers”)
ME: disagreement is no problem, but it should be about the same thing somebody said first, not something else entirely. From your comment, instead, you seem to have not read at all what I actually wrote, and to have no idea what UBI is.
First, you got completely wrong that I want to go “full on socialism”... because technology replaced low /no skill workers: NO, i don’t want to go full on because tech etc etc. I say that, now that tech finally makes it possible, we should go full on on something which is not socialism (more on this below) because it was right well before AI came along period. Which is the opposite of what you wrote.
Second, actual tech is not replacing just low / no skill workers. No way. Look around.
Third: UBI surely is NOT at all what you say, that is “if two workers get the exact same and one is a hard worker and the other is a blue falcon.. you just murdered incentive”.
UBI is, to use your words, “if one worker is a blue falcon and the other one is a hard worker, they both get e.g 1000 USD/month, no strings attached, whatever they do, so the blue falcon can be fired immediately without causing any problem to anybody, because the falcon won’t starve. And the hard worker will get those 10000 USD/month PLUS whatever salary he deserves”
You say “you just murdered incentive”, whereas UBI is exactly the opposite. UBI removes all the deadweights from any organization, allowing the real workers to continue to get paid what they are worth, and real innovators to innovate all they can.
It really amazes me how many people who are all on a “work hard/entrepreneurial ethic” are against UBI, instead of realizing it would set them free to work as they want, getting all the rewards they deserve.
Summing up, I am not saying you should approve UBI. I am just saying “please do learn what UBI actually is, and then criticize it all you want, no it’s OK”. Start from the two links I shared above, and then look for third parties, or the opposite, no problem.
HIM: lol.. I worked in countries where you can only fire people for theft or safety violations.. it was also customary to give 12 month notice if youre going to quit. Granted the country also had 23.5% sales tax and income tax started around 40% and no refunds. Ubi doesnt remove dead weight. It encourages it. Go work in Norway.. Italy... or of you are more adventurous Angola..
ME: UBI IS designed for, and makes it infinitely easier, to remove all the restrictions you mention (”only fire people for theft etc”). That’s exactly what I meant writing “UBI removes all the deadweights etc”, If you think UBI would be applied without changing anything else, you just keep proving you have NO idea what you are talking about. Study first, then you can criticize.
From everything you have written so far it is really evident that if you really got what UBI is, how it should be implemented and so on, you’d like it much more than me.
HIM: lol like it more than you? Nah I worked 30 years in a field that guaranteed my death.. just to somehow survive and collect a pension and 100% disability compensation.. nice try, but you failed miserably on that one. People should be paid market value for their skills.. period.
ME: if you refuse to even criticize the basic concept that UBI is an ADDITION, NOT a replacement for “People being paid market value for their skills”... you have deeper problems than liking UBI or not. Again: spend time to read what it actually is, and if you’ll still dislike it, it will be for very different reasons.
HIM: it still boils down to living wage nonsense.. [no matter how you call it]. At the end of the day its the living wage nonsense in that you are no longer paying people based on market value of their skills..
What UBI really is
A good starting point to get what UBI is actually about is what Bob Kennedy and Buckminster Fuller already said very clearly more than 55 years ago.
Kennedy described the intrinsical idiocy of measuring the success of any society with something as limited and misleading as GDP.
Buckminster Fuller denounced “the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today (ME: in 1970!) that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery [to] justify his right to exist.”
In 2025, we have 55 years of evidence from all over the world that Kennedy and Buckminster Fuller were absolutely right. Economies worldwide are full of objectively useless or harmful jobs, including jobs to manage those bad jobs. Those are all jobs that only, only exist because we have never found a better, no: a socially acceptable way to give the people doing those jobs the money they need to not revolt.
All those unnecessary jobs really produce are:
ballast and moats that suffocate the really hard workers, entrepreneurs and innovators
millions and millions of human beings with all sorts of more or less recognized mental health issues
Because, even when they aren’t in the growing ranks of workking poors, the people doing those unnecessary jobs do feel, more or less consciously, that their income is not a reward for value, but a fraud. Yes, a fraud that on one hand prevents them from doing something else they could do best but has no “market” value; on the other, for the same reason, hinders the progress of society as a whole.
UBI is the least impossible solution to this sad, unbelievably stupid state of things. The actual concept of UBI is that every citizen gets a certain amount of money every month just because he or she is a citizen, with no strings attached.
“No strings attached” is the first crucial point that nobody can ignore if they want to criticize UBI without making fool of themselves: UBI does not forbid anybody from engaging in any job or entrepreneurial activity they want, and getting for that any salary they can get. That salary would go on top of UBI.
The second crucial point is, obviously, how much money? Let’s say, for concreteness, enough for food, clothes and maybe a public transit pass, but no more. Under those two conditions it is evident that:
UBI is not socialism. In and by itself, UBI does not prevent anybody from owning all they want, funding companies, earning all the money they can, or “fulfilling the American Dream” in any other way (incidentally, it’s quite funny - tragically funny - how many Americans not only think socialism === North Korea, but consider North Korea-like socialism anything left of the american GOP)
the “no strings attached” part would eliminate all the infrastructure and jobs (that is: costs for taxpayers) that only exist to control who qualifies for most means-tested welfare programs of today
in general, UBI would eliminate all the deadweights that today hinder real entrepreneurs and all the really hard workers. UBI would let them work more freely, instead of being slowed down by coworkers unable or unwilling to work hard like them, and having to pay their salary too
Only fire people for theft? With UBI granting everybody enough money to survive till they find another job, it would be much easier to both pass and accept laws that make firing people easier
Advance notice to quit? For the same reason, UBI would let everybody who is now stuck in a bullshit job under an a**hole boss the freedom to quit without notice, thanks to the time and peace of mind to find a better job provided by UBI, because...
being just enough to provide the bare minimum, UBI would not and could not kill the incentive to work
in other words:
only the useless jobs, companies and public organizations would disappear, but without civil unrests. UBI would only kill stuff that shouldn’t exist in a sensible economy, giving hard workers and real entrepreneurs much more freedom to do their best, and much more visibility (and extra money) for their value. For the same reason,
only the BAD bosses would suffer from UBI, not good companies or the economy in general. UBI would mean that hard workers who came across an incompetent or sadistic boss could give him the finger right away, instead of being forced to stay with him because they can’t afford to remain without money
Help all hard workers to see how UBI would be their ally: share this post, in and outside Substack!
What about the people who, with UBI, would never work anymore, or go crazy?
The moment UBI went in force, many millions of people would be freed from bullshit jobs and all sorts of fears, and many millions of hard workers and entrepreneurs would be finally free to make the best work they can, and get the greatest reward for it.
But yes, there is also no doubt that in the same moment:
millions of finally happy people would never apply for any paid work anymore because, for any of a thousand reasons, UBI would be enough money for their needs. This includes aspiring stay-at-home parents and hermits who’d retire in some mountain huts
other millions of people would try to kill themselves with booze or drugs, or fall into serious depression, because their “work” (note the quotes) was all they had to feel worthy
People of the first category are a feature of UBI, not a bug: they are all people who right now are costing much more to the companies and governments that must keep them in unnecessary jobs, only because there is no other socially acceptable way to give them enough money to not revolt. Even giving people who do want to have kids a feasible way to do it would be a feature, in this coming age of underpopulation overshoot.
People of the second category instead, whose only reason to live and way to feel good is a paid job... they’d need therapy to discover the difference between SERVICE and “p-work”, not jobs that would cost more than therapy, and still be more a drag than an active contribution to society.
How to pay for UBI?
The first thing to realize is that everything you read so far would save mountains of money for both individuals and public or private organizations, from commuting costs to rent and utility bills for office buildings and administrative overheads of all kinds. Getting back to what caused this post, automation is only what can finally make UBI possible, not the other way around.
The second and really crucial thing is this: as necessary and unavoidable as it is (*), UBI can only come after even more radical that, if you look at the status of public and private debt worldwide should happen as soon as possible anyway, and probably will: a reboot of money, that is of how money is controlled, created and distributed.
I already mentioned this fundamental issue in the last part of this essay on the meaning of work, and I would be delighted to host here a guest post by experts outlining how it could be done.
Summing up... If you have a serious work ethic, UBI is your ally
I have explained what UBI really is, and how it would help hard workers and serious businesses of any kind. In one sentence, even if you or your company had to pay more taxes to support UBI, you’d still gain enough, in reduced costs and job satisfaction for both you and all your remaining employees, to be more than happy about it.
So, maybe UBI is unfeasible - and again, it surely is, if it isn’t preceded by a reform of money - or maybe UBI is wrong for some reason I haven’t seen yet. But if UBI is wrong or impossible, it surely isn’t for any of the reasons “HIM” is so sure about. Don’t be like HIM.
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“Wait a minute, what about healthcare?” Easy
Please never mix UBI with healthcare. Healthcare is a human right before and regardless of UBI, and universal healthcare done right, with proper checks, is much more human, fairer and cost-effective than the alternatives available in e.g. the USA.
Think of UBI and universal healthcare like food and water, instead: two separate, equally essential measures, to implement in the right order. First universal healthcare if you still don’t have it, then UBI.
If you don’t trust me...
Here is some further reading:
(*) Besides and before everything you read here, UBI is necessary and unavoidable for other, entirely different reasons. To know what they are, read this post, or this one.
