Road to Universal Basic Income: Brainstorming

This thread is for brainstorming on the “Roadmap to Universal Basic Income project”.

What could go in here:

  • What you would like to see in the paper

  • What is awesome about UBI

  • What resources to use for the paper

  • Whom to invite to the collaboration party

  • How to do better idea marketing for UBI

  • And so on

Let me just add an outline of my first draft.

  1. Abstract
  2. Why we need universal basic income
    a. Technological unemployment
    b. Reduction of poverty
    c. Improvement of innovation and the economy
  3. The implications of cryptocurrencies for basic incomes
    a. Cryptocurrencies are superior to conventional currencies and will eventually replace the latter
    b. Cryptocurrencies can enable better anonymity and can make tax evasion easier
    c. Conventional tax revenues will therefore drop, which makes it harder to finance a universal basic income
  4. Local basic incomes
    a. Local basic incomes are those which are paid out within a city, region, nation, or group of nations
    b. Land value taxes are suitable for introducing such local basic incomes
    c. Conventional income and consumption taxes are not a sustainable, and should only be used in a transition period for financing local basic incomes
  5. Global basic incomes
    a. Since conventional currencies will be replaced by cryptocurrencies, global basic incomes should be paid in cryptocurrencies from the start.
    b. Cryptocurencies can feature transaction taxes, which can be used for a global basic income
    c. Cryptocurrences can also have integrated basic incomes
    d. Global cap and dividend systems
  6. Looking further
    a. Universal prosperity as long term goal
    b. Reputation driven voluntary taxes
    c. Automated corporations as tax payers
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Just seen this article on the BBC website. The Finnish government is considering a pilot project that would see the state pay people a basic income regardless of whether they work.

The article also mentions that the Dutch city of Utrecht is to experiment with basic income this autumn. Read more about this here.

Wow, it’s absolutely insanely popular in Finland:

With unemployment an increasing concern, four out of five Finns now are in favour of a basic income.

On the other hand, there are still old-fashioned comments like this out there, even though the article mentions that a basic income would increase the incentives to get a job:

The young especially might lose the motivation to look for a job, if it
was, say, €700 a month. That would be too much," she says.