The economic principle I’m exploring is “people respond to incentives in predictable ways” My research question to help me study the economic principle is “what are the pros and cons of UBI?” The article published in Business Insider titled “Elon Musk doubles down on universal basic income: 'It's going to be necessary' ” demonstrates this economic principle because it argues that as we are faced with increased automation, UBI will become a necessity.” Firstly, Musk acknowledges that increased automation will create a loss of jobs. Therefore, to keep the machinery of the economy moving, people will need to be provided with some means to live--in the case of UBI, a fixed income that covers one’s basic needs. Secondly, aside from the necessity of society not collapsing, Elon has a vested interest in keeping the economy running because that is what makes him rich and I must assume that a man who has enough money to launch a car into space very much enjoys having a lot of money. That last point is, I think, the true reason for billionaires backing UBI: their own self interest. It’s a big assumption to make, true, but they got wealthy by being self interested (why else accumulate massive amounts of wealth?), why would they stop now? They way they (subconsciously) see the situation is probably this: eventually, people will get so sick of having no jobs or healthcare or just of being poor with no safety net that they will come for them and burn everything they own to ash. UBI allows them to keep their Scrooge McDuck pool of money while also keeping everybody else from taking all their money away, no matter out of need or jealousy or chaos, as has happened several times in the past two centuries to those who held massive amounts of power and wealth over others. In my next blog post I will research: How’s Finland Doing?
No comments:
Post a Comment