Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

Whatever means works out best, in theory and practice, of course. I don't have a strong opinion on what that looks like, in this case. Conceivably no increase, quite possibly a lesser amount that ramps up over time or a fixed lesser amount, or potentially the full amount but with much of it earmarked for medical and educational expenses.

I agree that a basic income may be the best solution to the decline in demand for labor. And I consider myself economically conservative. There is still much to be learned about the societal effect. Its something we need to consider as an alternative to social upheaval.

However other parts of this article concern me, in particular: "Employment law is liberalised, as workers no longer need to fear dismissal." Employment laws should be entirely at will in such a system. Workers should fear dismissal. And after all, they have a basic income to fall back on.

Combining basic income with "liberal" employment law would be a disaster.

to the Gulag with you!

Coders that work more than 8 hours a week will be banished to the countryside to learn how to live free.

It will be former CEOs that clean the toilets as repayment for their debts to the working class.

I've been struggling with this concept for a while. How can we have an effective democracy when it's so easy for stupid, essentially malicious, but persuasive-sounding "political memes" to infect the working classes and derail processes which are actually in the country's interest?

I still don't know the answer but realising that the media were actually part of the effective bureaucracy was a revelation.

We've been lucky, for a long time, that the media has basically done the right thing for the good of the country. Collectively, they are in charge. They slip up every now and again, giving air time to toxic memes like the carbon tax thing, and of course the example you raised - McCarthy suddenly got traction because he comes bearing gifts of news. But generally it's been not too bad.

I hope we remain lucky.

Arguments like this are completely selling ourselves short on our ability as a species/society to innovate and come up with new ideas that improve our life for everyone. I'm sorry, but it drives me absolutely nuts! Come on guys, are we really saying that we aren't capable of continuing to come up with new ideas and grow them into sustainable businesses that lift a majority of Americans out of poverty?? What a positive, optimistic this author has on our future, not to mention his faith in the capabilities of fellow human beings.

Instead of jumping into many of the circular arguments below of where costs are truly incurred from things such as taxes on the rich and on corporations, let's think of taxation in a different way - as valves controlling where capital flows in our economy. Think of taxes as valves in a hydraulic system or switches/relays in an electrical system. If those valves aren't directing the right amount of electricity or hydraulic oil to the right parts of the system, the entire system stops working. In the same line of thinking, if not enough capital is going to the right places in our economy, our economy slows down and stops working.

So, the question becomes, where do we need to adjust the valves to get the entire system working again? Where can we cut taxes, to give that sector of the economy a boost? It's small businesses, innovators/inventors, and early stage startups. Why? Because if 1 out of every 1,000 businesses started turns into the next Microsoft or GM and employs 100,000 people, then we need 10m people out of work right now/100,000 jobs per Microsoft startup*1,000 startup businesses = 100,000 startups.

There's a reason the first round of capital for starting a company typically comes from friends and family - because it's extremely risky, and those closest to the entrepreneur can make that investment at the lowest risk possible because they have insider knowledge of the entrepreneur's skillset. If we have a disappearing middle class, that means that very first round of capital is disappearing too, because it comes from the middle class, which means 10 years from now, we will have even fewer jobs for the middle class. I'll leave it up to everyone else to debate how we can get more money into the hands of the middle class, but taxing the rich and providing a basic income for everyone is not the answer.