Universal Basic Income & Infrastructure
Say you are blessedly lucky to live in a country that implements Universal Basic Income. None yet, apart from a few trials, but there will be some, in a not too distant future.
Would you then buy a new pair of comfy slippers and move permanently to the sofa in front of the telly, there to booze away your last days in sinful indolence?
Not so fast, or slow. There are reputable thinkers talking about Universal Basic Infrastructure, as a substitute or complement to ditto Income. Meaning that things like roads, garbage collection, fire/police/ambulance, health services, education and social services should be included in the package.
Detractors argue that UB Infrastructure would detach use from payment, making everyone pay for what few use. Fewer, if UB Income comes to pass and the lazy folks turn into couch potatoes.
Seriously, though, does anyone think that public services are dimensioned according to users’ ability to pay? Well, yes, maybe, in those hellish places where they don’t function enough to justify their name. Economies of scale do not apply too well when the key is availability, before actual delivery.
In any case, we are getting to the point where all services can be engineered to be on demand, from standby availability and not from scheduled cruising offer. Think about driverless transit pods, uber alles.
Indeed, the two UBs go well together. Why pay a basic salary, that people then have to spend on basic services? The objective of UBI is to tide people over, irrespective of other income. Gives them the freedom to choose work better suited to their skills and lifestyle. But they might be constrained by the cost of commuting, or internet, or both. They might not do well where health services are not readily available.
A truly cooperative society, with equality of opportunity, does not penalise anyone who wants to work, in any way.
But then, they might ask, where do the resources come from? If fewer people work, whence the taxes? Many pundits believe that the super-rich, who concentrate all wealth and command all resources, would never agree to pay for it.
Therein lies the rub. There is this myth that resources can be accumulated in the hands of the wealthy…
Some news for you, sunshine:
- Resources which are not applied to satisfy demand are useless.
- Capital that sits under the mattress is worthless.
In the real world, Scrooge McDuck’s quackillion bucks in his Money Bin stronghold would not be worth a penny.
Human beings’ working or not is completely irrelevant — already, with the technology we have today, we can have completely automated farms, factories and mines.
The only indispensable factor in any economy is the user, aka ‘consumer’. No one becomes extremely wealthy without zillions of satisfied customers.
That is why wealth is created and it translates, invariably, into human well being, health and longevity.
War, any conflict, destroys wealth. George Orwell, in “Nineteen Eighty-Four” postulated that wealth must be constantly destroyed, with the proles forever in want, so that unfulfilled expectations, of anything more than the very basic, keep them under control.
Then, there is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. People without the basics of food, shelter and security are less productive. That is the main reason slavery ended in civilised societies — slaves will produce as little as possible, just enough to keep from being punished. Whipping them harder may break the balance for a little while, at the cost of the slave’s useful life. But, without extra food, some health care and proper rest, long term productivity will drop.
With faster burnout, demand for new slaves increases, and so does their price, until replacement costs tell the slave-owner to treat his folks a little less harshly. The equilibrium at the lowest possible productivity is restored.
No, I’m not being callous. Slaves are precisely the model for full automation — machines that do not seek, or are prevented from seeking, any reward.
Positive feedback works the opposite way. When productivity is properly rewarded, people will strive to produce at the best of their ability, and seek to increase their abilities. Hence creativity and a true ‘work ethic’. When intelligent machines do all routine work, well rewarded humans will do the creative and entertaining bits.
The model fails if you try to instruct a machine exclusively by negative feedback, ideally reserved for errors and out of spec production. Which should be a lesson to all those who view future conscious AIs either as slaves or masters.
Any intelligence comparable to a human is a human. Artificial Intelligence, built from scratch, should have none of the evolutionary and social hangups which make us treat many humans as less than human.
The capital invested in building and operating the machines needs to be remunerated. Profit needs to be made, to be invested in new developments and luxuries. Consumers need to be able to pay for whatever they use. Kept in poverty, no one is a consumer.
In conclusion, UBI is the natural next step in civilisation. Satisfied the first two steps in Maslow’s Hierarchy, humans work when it pleases them; and it pleases them to generate income for luxuries, social recognition, self-advancement, creativity.
There is a naive saying “necessity is the mother of all invention”. No. Inventions come from desire for better. A trapped human may be ingenious and escape, but expect no innovative, general solution.
If you want a solid and well thought through scenario for a future when all needs are supplied by machines and people are immensely creative, read the Culture novels by Iain M Banks. The first one, “Consider Phlebas,” sets the scene using a ‘clash of cultures’ type of conflict.
A religious, classic hierarchy, trying to conquer & convert a human-machine cooperative society. Guess where I’d place my bets?