Actually, the whole incentive situation for automation will change dramatically: With the shift towards voluntary work there is only a need to automate work which people are not willing to do for free. Automation will gradually eat up all the jobs that aren’t inherently rewarding. What remains is work that people do for free. There is much less economic reason to automate jobs that people do voluntarily. Still, even some voluntary workers might be replaced by machines, if the latter are much more efficient than human workers.
Actually, the whole incentive situation for automation will change dramatically: With the shift towards voluntary work there is only a need to automate work which people are not willing to do for free. Automation will gradually eat up all the jobs that aren’t inherently rewarding. What remains is work that people do for free. There is much less economic reason to automate jobs that people do voluntarily. Still, even some voluntary workers might be replaced by machines, if the latter are much more efficient than human workers. In any case, an increasing degree of automation will bolster the supply of all kinds of goods. On the other hand, without a SUPI, consumer demand would at the same time decrease, because fewer and fewer workers would be left to purchase those goods. In fact, at least something like a SUPI will be needed to keep the economy running smoothly.
An increasing universal basic income can keep income inequality at economically optimal levels rather naturally. Consumer demand will be boosted to the level that is required by an increasingly automated supply side. The conventional economy will continue to make sense.
But there is more: New economic modes are on the horizon and will complement the conventional economy. Presenting these rather speculative ideas in detail would go beyond the scope of this article series, so I will only mention them briefly:
- Personal 3d printers will grant private individuals powerful and effective means of production. People become consumers and producers at the same time. They will often share their product designs freely and openly. Personally customized products will gradually replace uniform mass produced goods.
- Companies and cooperatives will become much easier to create and run successfully, because with a SUPI people will be much more willing to work for free. However, cooperatives will often prove to be more attractive compared to conventional companies. Therefore, conventional companies will be pressed to adopt elements of cooperatives, so that hybrid company forms will emerge.
- The non profit sector will see a massive boom, because with a SUPI non profit organisations have it much easier to cover their costs. Without having to aim for profits, they can focus on providing the best products and services imaginable – ideally for free! In turn, this will reduce the costs for all organisations, while at the same time improving the overall quality of almost every product.
- Crowd funded and crowd sourced initiatives will provide exactly the kinds of products and services that are desired. Consumers that so far have merely reacted to the supply side will become proactive and take a leading role in specifying and designing new goods and services. This will range from the design of new forms of electronics to the direction of medical research.
- More and more digital goods will be shared openly and freely. Reputation systems and reputation economies will support this development further, because sharing will increase reputation. And reputation will be coupled to personal wealth, in turn. Inspired by the fictional reputation currency “Whuffie” in Cory Doctorow’s science fiction novel “Down and out in the magic kingdom” [Doctorow 2003], I developed a system called Quantified Prestige [Hrenka 2012] that could be used as basis for a reputation economy.
- New systems to leverage the so-called attention economy are also being worked on – for example the decentralized social network Synereo. Users will be rewarded for interacting with online content and for sharing it with others.
All of these developments will be enabled or supercharged by a SUPI, and they will massively transform the economy. We will live in a Zero Marginal Cost Society [Rifkin 2014] in which the cost of very many goods and services will be effectively zero.
Why think about a SUPI already?
Wouldn’t it be better to restrict ourselves to the next step and only debate about the introduction of a “simple” universal basic income?
While it is important to create and strengthen a big alliance that can politically introduce a UBI, there are some important reasons for looking further into the future.
While it is important to create and strengthen a big alliance that can politically introduce a UBI, there are some important reasons for looking further into the future.First of all, it may seem intuitively reasonable to restrict a UBI to a merely sufficient level. It may be possible that a UBI is introduced, but only under the condition that it stays at such a minimal level. This would significantly complicate the introduction of a true SUPI, and unnecessarily delay the unfolding of the full potential of the universal basic income idea.
Perhaps even more importantly, a bright vision of a very positive future is sorely needed. People want to thrive and flourish. It would be hard for them to look forwards to a future in which they would be mostly restricted to living on a merely sufficient basic income. Instead, the idea of universal prosperity not only makes a lot of sense, but also provides reasonable hope for a much better future.
Finally, without such a positive vision, people tend to find refuge in extreme ideological positions. The lack of promising secular and moderate visions can drive people to violence, crime, drug abuse, and even terrorism. Hope is very important for the human psyche. When things get really serious, humans will flock to those who promise them hope, no matter how misguided the hope promising ideology actually is. The vision of the SUPI, and the society it can help to create, can provide substantial hope and acts as antidote against ideological extremism.
All these reasons mean that we must talk about the idea of universal abundance as soon as possible. Let’s not waste too much time on half-hearted compromises!
What counterarguments against a SUPI can we expect?
Of course, the idea of a generous sustainable universal prosperity income may seem much more extreme than a “normal” universal basic income. Certain objections are very likely to come up in the debates about a SUPI. Nevertheless, the SUPI idea is quite rational and is not easily invalidated by criticism.
It’s not fair to give people so much money when they don’t even have to work for it!
What is and is not fair is highly subjective and depends on cultural expectations. The fairness argument is a highly ideological one and therefore it cannot be easily dismantled with facts alone. I could argue that the end result of a SUPI would be a world that is much fairer than one without it, but that assertion certainly won’t convince everyone.
Let me therefore try to propose a different perspective: Consider the SUPI as an investment that you make in order to get a very special kind of return – a better society. If people invest into the SUPI they get rewarded with a much better society and a booming economy.
The failure to invest into a SUPI does not only represent a huge missed opportunity, but can be actively dangerous. Everyone depends on having a functioning society around him. If we don’t provide the support to the society that it actually needs, it will sooner or later come crashing down. The typical results of that are very gruesome and can be found in about any history book.
People would get really lazy if they got so much money for free!
According to self-determination theory, humans have the psychological needs of autonomy, mastery, and relatedness. A SUPI would strengthen their autonomy and allow them to find better ways to satisfy their needs for mastery and relatedness. They will be guided by their passions and intrinsic motivation, whether that’s voluntary work, a creative hobby, or just interacting with others in clubs, social networks, or online games. Everyone has the wish to be really good at something, even if it’s just playing a certain game. At the professional level, playing games counts as (e-)sports. And few people would argue that doing sports is being lazy.
Anyway, if prosperity really made people lazy, then the rich would be suffering from a laziness epidemic – from which they would need to be cured by giving away their money, so that they would be forced to work hard in order to make a living. I hope that people see that this proposition is nonsensical.
Ordinary people should not be shareholders of a nation or region. They don’t deserve it!
From a purely utilitarian perspective it is irrelevant whether they deserve it or not. If a SUPI provides superior results, then it should be adopted. Historically, capitalism was introduced and philosophically justified based on utilitarian reasoning [Rifkin 2014]. If you think capitalism is legitimate due to its efficiency, it should be legitimate for people to be shareholders of a nation if that’s a more efficient system than the status quo.
It would be better for the economy to lower taxes and keep the UBI at a level that is merely sufficient!
That is a highly questionable hypothesis. As explained above, massive automation will require a proportional strengthening of the consumer demand side. Either you hope for this strengthening to somehow happen on its own, or you do the economically rational thing and use a SUPI to do that in an intelligent and systematic way.
Of course, optimizing the economy is difficult, so some actual experimentation will be required to figure out the optimal approach. It might be conceivable that there are better solutions than SUPI, but the idea of trickle down economics has failed empirically [Piketty 2014, Chu 2015, Aleem 2014], so we definitely need to try something else.
Summary
I have predicted that a UBI, if it is implemented correctly, will have the following effects:
- The economy is boosted and will grow faster.
- Inequality, poverty and criminality will be significantly diminished.
- People will feel better, more motivated, more creative, and more innovative.
For best results, the introduction of a UBI is done in several steps:
- Pilot cities should introduce a fully sufficient UBI should commence as soon as possible. The resulting effects should be scientifically analyzed.
- Whole regions should introduce a UBI one by one until the whole nation has a fully sufficient UBI.
- As soon as the UBI is introduced on a national level, it should be transformed as soon as possible into a SUPI (Sustainable Universal Prosperity Income).
It is not premature to present, discuss, and promote the SUPI idea, because it enables an uplifting and bold positive vision of the future.
Final Remarks
- This article was initially published as chapter 3 of the book Anticipating Tomorrow's Politics by the think-tank Transpolitica. The lead author of that book was the renowned futurist David W. Wood. The current version as article series contains some minor alterations, for example the addition of these final remarks.
- General valuable resources for the topic of UBI are the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), the Basic Income Subreddit, and the blog of Scott Santens.
Notes
Piketty, T. (2014) “Capital in the twenty-first century” The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England.
Dolan, E. (2014) “A Universal Basic Income and Work Incentives, Part 1: Theory” EconoMonitor, August 18, 2014
Kaufmann J. (2010) “BIG Hopes, BIG Questions: Namibia’s Basic Income Grant”. The Journal of Civil Society and Social Transformation, Volume 1, January 2010, 38-47
Standing G. (2013) ”Unconditional Basic Income: Two pilots in Madhya Pradesh”.
Braus, A. (2014) “Don’t Tax Humans – Tax the Robots”
Winfield, A. (2015) “Maybe we need an automation tax”
Van Hollen C. (2015) “Democrat proposes carbon cash: $1000 for every American” SFGate article by Carolyn Lochhead, February 25, 2015
Dinan T. (2012) “Offsetting a Carbon Tax’s Costs on Low-Income Households” Working Paper Series, Congressional Budget Office, Washington D.C. November 2012, Working Paper 2012-16
Krugman P. (2014) “Inequality Is a Drag”. The New York Times, August 8, 2014
Pink D. (2010) “Drive”. Canongate Books, 2010. 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
Hanauer N. (2014) “The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats”. Politico Magazine, July/August 2014
Dolan E. (2014) “A Universal Basic Income and Work Incentives. Part 2: Evidence”. EconoMonitor, August 25, 2014
Santens S. (2014) “Wouldn’t Unconditional Basic Income Just Cause Massive Inflation?”. Medium, November 22, 2014
Morisson R. (2013) “Ecological Growth”. EugeneWeekly.com, November 14, 2013
J., Roach B. (2013) “Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach”. M.E. Sharpe Inc., 80 Business Park Drive, Armonk, New York 10504. 3rd edition 2013. Chapter 8
Doctorow C. (2003) “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom”. Tor Books, January 2003
Hrenka M. (2012) “Quantified Prestige”. Radivis.com, October 2, 2012.
Rifkin J. (2014) “The Zero Marginal Cost Society”. Palgrave Macmillan; St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Chu B. (2015) “The wealth that failed to trickle down: The rich do get richer while poor stay poor, report suggests”. The Independent, January 19, 2015.
Aleem Z. (2014) “7 Chars Show What Free Market Economics Have Really Brought on America”. Policy.Mic, November 20, 2014