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Basic Income
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All citizens receive a regular, liveable and unconditional sum of money. The recipient is not required to work or look for work, and the payment is given independently of any other income.
Agree:
Noam Chomsky Linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist
It comes from the right wing originally. Milton Friedman proposed it for example. From his point of view it was part of an effort to undermine welfare state measures. But it doesn’t have to have a reactionary component. It can be interpreted as something progressive. That people have rights. In fact if you read the universal declaration of human rights, 1948, take a look at article 45. It says peo... See More
Tim O'Reilly Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media. Investor. Studied at Harvard University.
I completely agree that Universal Basic Income is a good idea. But I think that’s just the beginning of the discussion.
Richard Branson Founder of Virgin (400 companies)
Policies like these can help people struggling just to survive and allow them to get on their feet, be entrepreneurial and be more creative.
Owen Jones Columnist for the Guardian and the New Statesmen
Basic income – where we all are given a payment from the state as a right of citizenship – should be introduced.
Sam Harris American author, philosopher, and neuroscientist
Ultimately we need something like a universal basic income. There has to be someway to distribute this kind of technological wealth more fairly to the rest of the world.
Alec Ross Former Senior Innovation Advisor to Hillary Clinton, currently running for Governor of Marylan
The economy continues to develop in the way it is with bounty and more spread, more billionaires, and more struggling members of the working class. I do think that there will be more and more momentum for safety-net programs like basic income.
Elizabeth May Green Party of Canada
Paying everyone a basic income will end poverty and save money
Dan Savage LGBT Author and Activist
Guaranteed minimum wage […] would relieve a whole lot of stress for a lot of working people and poor people
Paul Mason Economics Editor, The Guardian
To benefit from the automation revolution we need a universal basic income, the slashing of working hours and a redefinition of ourselves without work
Ralph Nader Consumer advocate, author and former presidential candidate
Basic income would get rid of chronic capitalism
Charles Murray Libertarian conservative political scientist, author, and columnist
Replacing the welfare state with an annual grant is the best way to cope with a radically changing U.S. jobs market—and to revitalize America’s civic culture
Jeremy Rifkin American Economic and Social Theorist, Author, Political Advisor
Basic income is not a utopia. It's a practical business plan for the next step of the human journey
Barbara Ehrenreich Author of Nickel and Dimed
[Martin Ford's] solution is blindingly obvious: As both conservatives and liberals have proposed over the years, we need to institute a guaranteed annual minimum income
Grace Lee Boggs (deceased) Civil rights activist
You can think so much in terms of re-distribution. Or you can begin thinking about justice in terms of restoring another way of life
Andrew Gamble Sir Isaiah Berlin Award for Lifetime Contribution to Political Studies
Building a political coalition around the idea of basic income would help end the resentment of those in work contributing to support those who are not able to work or cannot find jobs. Payment of a basic income to everyone would price workers into many more jobs which at present do not pay enough for people to live on.
Martin Ford Author of Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
Another reason for a basic income - Old and on the Street: The Graying of America’s Homeless
Tim Worstall Writer and Senior Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute
An Unconditional Basic Income Is The Solution But The Important Word Here Is Basic
Thom Hartmann Radio Host
If conservatives really want to do away with “wasteful” and “overly bureaucratic” social services in the U.S. - services like Medicaid, Social Security and foodstamps - there’s an easy alternative. It’s simple. It encourages personal responsibility. And it will do away with our current mess of programs that make up our social safety net. All we have to do is guarantee every person a universal, and... See More
Ray Kurzweil Author, computer scientist, inventor and futurist
Adopting a universal basic income for all people can help society think creatively with new ideas, develop new industries — and free-up people to work on important future projects. This practical social support program can grow as science & technology rapidly evolve, becoming part of world abundance.Disagree:
Joseph Stiglitz Nobel laureate economist based at Columbia University
You want your government to think more carefully about targeting programmes that help those in need, rather than universal. That’s a trade-off given the budget constraints on the public sector
Yuval Noah Harari Israeli historian and a tenured professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Paying people not to work will only increase inequality and rancor. [...] If universal basic income is aimed to improve the objective conditions of the average person in 2050, it has a fair chance of succeeding. But if it is aimed to make people subjectively more satisfied with their lot in order to prevent social discontent, it is likely to fail.
MIchael Hudson Economist. Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
The problem’s not only income, but what people have to spend it on. Paine didn’t talk about universal income, he talked about everybody should have the right to a place to live, a means of their own self-support. That’s independent from income. Once you economize and financialize it, you put in a distortion. You don’t want to give people income to buy what really should be public goods and servic... See More
Evgeny Morozov Writer ans researcher on political and social implications of technology.
Basic income, therefore, is often seen as the Trojan horse that would allow tech companies to position themselves as progressive, even caring – the good cop to Wall Street’s bad cop – while eliminating the hurdles that stand in the way of further expansion. Goodbye to all those cumbersome institutions of the welfare state, employment regulations that guarantee workers’ rights or subversive attemp... See More
Tyler Cowen Professor of Economics, George Mason University & author of Average is Over
"Let’s send a check to everyone" is an appealing idea, but I've come around to the view that doing so would do more harm than good. [...] It eventually would choke off immigration to the U.S. Voters don't like sending money to immigrants.
