Saturday 24 February 2018

Human House Cats - the world under UBI



Some UBI proponents are convinced that incentive effects will go away. People who are less stressed about meeting their basic needs will actually be more productive, proponents argue, because they will have the financial freedom to experiment with different career options. And one might find anecdotal cases where that could be true.

But for the vast majority, a UBI will create legions of human house cats. Living on a UBI might not be all that uncomfortable if you can afford a room, ramen noodles, and an Xbox to while away the hours.

And, like house cats, they'll be great until they shred society's sofas, chap in its flower beds, leave part chewed dead animals in the hall, and wail all night because they fancy the bird opposite. I guess too, that the wealthy elite will probably want to have them neutered - that might be the deal: food, drink, warmth and entertainment in exchange for the chop.

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1 comment:

Sobers said...

Don't we have that now? Doesn't the welfare system basically allow the lazy to not work and still live in a reasonably OK, if rather chaotic, manner? And those that want to work do? There's millions of 'economically inactive' working age adults, they all get by without working, they can't all have trust funds.

I'd guess under a UBI the same people would be working as today, and the same people would be not working. Whether it would be any cheaper would depend on what level it was paid at, and which benefits it replaced.