A case against UBI – Rejecting its premise and promise!

Today, the world is witnessing jobless growth primarily due to Automation and Artificial Intelligence. Advancement in technology is set to antiquate low-level jobs, potentially causing millions of poor low-skilled laborers to lose their livelihood in the medium term. The world runs a risk of perpetually widening the already seemingly irrecoverable gap between the rich and the poor. According to recent studies by Oxfam and Forbes, the richest 60-80 individuals on earth own wealth equivalent to the bottom 50% of the world’s population! In such a situation, how do you expect one to think about higher education and healthcare when availing even the most basic necessities is a growing challenge?

Advancement in technology has led to large scale job displacement since ages. While this problem isn’t new, the dynamic today is very interesting. Up until yesterday, big businesses and conglomerates (read ‘right wing capitalists’) were held responsible for the growing divide between the rich and the poor. The rise in IT (read ‘Silicon Valley’) and the disruptions that it brought along in various industries was hailed as a populist rebellion against the established cruel big businesses. Today Silicon Valley, majorly a bunch of left wing Democrats, lays claim over individual liberty, social inclusion, and charity. But if you observe, the list of the richest individuals on earth is in fact dominated by these very same cool and benevolent IT dudes! Very interesting! Who will the socialists demonize now? Their own people on the left??

For an already failing left-wing campaign, as the recent global phenomena like Modi, Brexit, Trump and others attest, this left vs left implosion will be the final nail in the left-wing campaign’s coffin. So what are they doing about it? From whatever’s left of the left, they came up with UBI!

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a socialist idea where the government provides a certain amount of basic income to all or some of its citizens. It is an idea that seeks to alleviate poverty and provide for at least the basic living standards to the poorest of the poor in the society. The proponents of UBI hold the view that governments should discontinue poorly managed social security schemes and redirect the funds towards UBI. It is a cause so noble, that no pious a person should protest against it. Well, not really J

UBI is the most demeaning of all policies. It is the rich telling the poor low-skilled laborers that your services and your contributions to the society are no longer needed. But, here, take some pennies and don’t come out on the streets please. We are essentially buying you off for not being able to keep up with the markets!

UBI is worse than cheap capital. We saw in 2008 what happens when you provide interest free loans and easy money to the lower income group. UBI is worse than that. Cheap loans, in theory, was an instrument to create an environment for the poor to flourish. This instrument made risk taking easier and capital freely available, providing everyone with an opportunity to succeed. Yet if someone did fail, they still had to own it up and forfeit whatever they had got from the banks. On the other hand, UBI is an instrument which is a direct transfer of prosperity which will come at the cost of other social schemes and no real focus on the creation of a conducive environment. There will be no sense of responsibility, achievement, or even ownership of the benefits received by the poor and unemployed in the case of UBI.

UBI is tangential to a unified societal direction. If the society identifies a shortcoming or a looming threat, the society must take targeted actions and collectively provide direction to the one’s at risk. Today, if job losses due to antiquated skill-sets is the challenge, then the society must take targeted actions towards providing for skill development, training, and education. If my skills of yesterday are irrelevant today, and if you really want to help me, do something to again make me relevant tomorrow. UBI will not make me relevant tomorrow. If you give me UBI directly, you will lose control over what I do with your money.

UBI is an affront to one’s individuality. Working and earning gives one a sense of identity, dignity, purpose, and contribution. Civilized society should constantly strive towards offering equal opportunity to everyone and not equal wealth. After all, at the end of the day we become who we are because of the choices we make. Even in your personal lives, there are individuals around you who began their journey with you but financially did poorly in life. Of course, both, their choices and circumstances were together responsible for the end result. But the point is tomorrow, if someone were to say that they will get an income from the government commensurate to your salary, you will not like it, and neither will they, especially if they failed owing to their circumstances and not choices! Swaabhimaan!

UBI will be reduced to a political gimmick. Where will this all end? Today the NITI Aayog in India is actively considering UBI. Given the political realities of India, even if UBI is implemented, there will be a huge debate just to bring about an agreement on the list of beneficiaries. Who should really be the beneficiaries? The unemployed? Underemployed? Backward castes? Below Poverty Lines? Religious groups? As if we Indians really knew who is earning how much, who was proselytized when and why, and who has what kind of employment! Going a step further, my biggest fear is that UBI will be such a strong instrument, which any politician can misuse. Secondly, UBI is also an instrument which the beneficiaries themselves will misuse by misreporting their backgrounds. Everybody will want at least some share of the pie.

I have no reason to not believe that the word ‘universal’ in UBI will be meaningless in India’s version of the instrument. Due to the evil of ‘vote-bank politics’, different categories of citizens will receive different amount of benefits. Some will have less privileges, and some more – not for reasons fair and just, but purely for political reasons. The other challenge and potential area of misuse will come from the debate on deciding the actual ‘amounts’. These amounts will end up being revised every election cycle and will never remain constant. These revisions will be made in the name of adjustments due to inflation.

In conclusion, UBI as a concept may still make sense in developed nations where, one, the percentage of beneficiaries is a small number. Two, the beneficiaries are more likely to be well informed and aware. And three, there are less chances of the whole system going bust due to corruption. Yet, recently we saw Switzerland reject UBI in a referendum and Finland essentially has approved for just a 2 year pilot project. 

A developing country like India is not prepared for UBI, because one, there already is a huge load on taxpayers. Two, by now you do have a hunch of how the 2^nd generation of beneficiaries and beyond will misuse UBI, just how they did with the quota system. Once implemented, nobody will be able to undo UBI, even if it failed miserably! And most importantly, the country already suffers greatly today due to a sense of entitlement within certain sections of the society! They behave as if the fellow Indians owe them for being born - where they think their wants, aspirations, and rights take precedence over their own duties and others’ rights!