I just had an idea for a thought experiment, or perhaps just a little shift in perspective. What if we just excluded the time that people spend in day jobs from our considerations. Or rather: Let’s assume that people have to sleep twice: One regular sleep, and one day job sleep. During the day job sleep people are sleepwalking day job work. Outside of the two sleeps people are free to do what they want.
What do I want to model with that? I see this as model for basic income. Let’s assume full employment and equal pay for everyone – incomes are equalized at the average income. All work that is being done in day jobs is still getting done at the same quality and quantity, but people are sleepwalking through it. Let’s further assume that people do 8 hours or regular sleep and 8 hours of “day job sleep” per day, so they have 8 hours for their free use every day.
So, with this kind of basic income, what would people do?