The Universal Basic Income future is simply a return to the default of human societies through the ages – feudalism – but without even the relative purpose found in walking behind a plough.

The evil of aimlessness

I once worked in communities supported mainly through a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Most money was received from the government for no (or token) work, or from mining royalties, where others worked digging on the communities’ lands. There were walls black and heaving with cockroaches while children slept with dogs on stained mattresses below, and babies covered head to toe in pustular scabies while the mother complained about a sore back. This was not universal, but not uncommon. Other communities that stood out as strong and healthy had people working hard for a living – particularly in roles that reflected their culture – a very different economy.

Men who once worked hard to support families lose the reason to do so when it makes no real difference; when the basics of life and leisure are equally available to those who work for them, and those who do nothing. It is not a political issue, just a human behavioral and psychological one. Removing the need to work and the dignity that striving and succeeding bring, especially before one’s family, leads to inaction, loss of interest in the world, a loss of role (i.e., a loss of dignity), and depression. This is dampened by alcohol or drugs. Wives and children suffer by being beaten up by drunk, frustrated, and drugged men. Having two frequently drunk parents ensures children are malnourished and aimless.

This is not theoretical – it is seen all over the world where people of one culture are overrun by those of another, and confined to subservience, economic and societal irrelevance, and handouts. Some people and communities break out of it, usually by finding ways to grow their local economy and achieve some form of self-governance and self-reliance. Breaking out is not common and requires an opportunity, the possibility, to do so.

Our brave new technocratic world

The road much of the ‘developed’ world is currently on is towards UBI, but without that potential for escape. We use this term ‘developed’ in a technological sense – not a human sense – as it denotes technology rather than awareness. UBI will be introduced as a panacea, as artificial intelligence (AI) will replace a lot of jobs. The use of AI is increasing because it can accumulate wealth more reliably than employees. Amazon’s plans to replace humans with robots will not only mean a few hundred thousand human jobs gone at Amazon, but lots more high-street shops boarded up and their employees and owners gone. This is why Amazon is moving to AI and robotics – to increase profit for the few percent who are its beneficiaries by putting competitors out of business. AI may be overplayed or not, but what Amazon is doing will be widely repeated.

The people out of work, by and large, will be city and town dwellers who must obtain their food from shops (or Amazon). They will need to be given money or food vouchers to do this. Governments will provide these because they cannot afford responsibility for abject poverty on a mass scale, and many in government also mean well. People will increasingly rent their housing from Blackstone or a similar corporate entity rather than own it, further increasing their dependence. For a while, some people will play online games or draw pictures and grow token lettuces on their balconies, but knowing this is just window dressing on life. Then they will go the way of the communities in the first paragraph, taking families and communities with them.

Government UBI will happen – it already does to some extent, but the future will see it on a far, far larger scale. It will not be cash handouts but digital currency. This will be a tightly controlled version, as in a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), because the government will claim responsibility for controlling the money it dispenses. CBDC is essentially food vouchers, and intended to be. Your UBI will be yours as long as you use it for what the government allows, within the time they allow.

Well-meaning people are already building the social acceptability for this. Those suggesting now that a virtuous society should prevent food vouchers or unemployment benefits from being used for sugar-based drinks or tobacco believe already that dependent people have lost their right to autonomy. Again, this is not at all theoretical. It is exactly what this form of money is intended for. Most people in society will see its introduction as a good thing, as they are fine with limiting the freedom of others if told that it serves a greater good.

Living as safe as slaves

In countries like Canada, if you protest against the government, you can already lose your right to buy or sell. If you need permission to obtain the basics of life and cannot make your own choices on the pursuit of happiness, and you are punished for questioning those who restrict you, then you are in a master-slave relationship. In time, most people will become, essentially, a slave of the UBI provider, the government. This is the design behind UBI and CBDCs. It is why very rich people, the people who own the AI and robotics that are going to make so much human labor superfluous, see this as an excellent path.

All the above will not seem at all dystopian. Governments will control their populations as part of saving the world (saving the world is important) and will readily convince a majority of the population that being saved is a good idea. We need governments to save us from climate catastrophe by stopping us from travelling, as our children are already told. We need large corporations to save us from pandemics, including those that the same corporations’ laboratories may develop. We need ever more expensive pharmaceuticals injected into us to save us from the scourge of obesity – to save us from our own inability to control our eating. We will certainly need saving from mass unemployment and the inability of a large part of the population to earn their own keep.

Saving people is, after all, the government’s job. As the last few years have shown, convincing populations to indulge in self-harm on the pretext of being saved is much easier than we thought. We will slip back into slavery, into a feudal system, because most people will choose it.

A conversation we are unlikely to have

So, we need to talk about UBI because a lot of people think it is a harbinger of a great future, but it is something else. They think people will somehow flourish when they have nothing much useful to do, when they get money for being obsequious, and there is no compelling incentive to get out of bed in the morning. A temporary social welfare net is what society should do to protect its members and act with decency. UBI – permanent free money for the majority – is something else entirely. It will ensure that the vast majority can never break out of their lot and recover any semblance of the real economic autonomy necessary for societal flourishing. 

The UBI future is simply a return to the default of human societies through the ages – feudalism – but without even the relative purpose found in walking behind a plough. Human nature leads us to want to stay on top if we are already there, or wallow in depression if there is no potential for improvement. Depression, drugs, violence, neglect, and repeat – the UBI – CBDC future. This is the orthodox understanding from a public health viewpoint. Social capital is a basic determinant of health and well-being. None of this is controversial; it can just be awkward politically.

Over the past few hundred years, many societies broke free of feudalism. This freedom has been a brief time in the sun. Accepting or rejecting Universal Basic Income as a basis for fixing the rapidly approaching decimation of useful employment will determine whether the sun keeps shining or we return to the oppressive societal default. Slavery, for many, will seem easier than struggling, and far safer. Once dependent, the luxury of struggling may be gone. We need a real conversation before we turn irretrievably down that road. For most, that will probably not happen.

By David Bell. This article first appeared at Brownstone Institute and is reproduced here under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. David is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.