Links in Guillaume's reply: 1 and 2
Thank you, Guillaume. I appreciate the links. Those were some pretty long articles! On the whole, even if I like Dan's sentiments, I have a different opinion. Also, I am not an economist/statistician or in politics or finance so I apologise in advance if I misunderstood some points.
From reading the article, Dan's basic income model is economically driven rather than life/creativity-value driven. This form of thinking comes from a scarcity mentality and any solutions coming from this mindset will not decrease suffering in society. I don't think assigning a monetary figure when one is born that decreases/increases (through interest) will necessarily solve problems created by this mindset. Personally, seeing human beings as units that either contribute to society or not feels abhorrent to me. Who is to judge what is of value or not, and in what way, is incredibly subjective and liable to abuse.
If I've understood it correctly, the unintended effect of Dan's model would be a form of psychological slavery coming from the idea that someone in society (or the collective), rather than individuals themselves, deciding what is valuable or productive, what needs to be done and how much something is worth. Our value to society would be defined by the consensus -- rather than us collectively valuing our psychological individual or collective health, creativity, innovation or compassion. From systems thinking approach, in a healthy society, consumption is more or less equal to production. The consensus is usually a consequence of the biological/psychological/sociological/spiritual health of society. An unhealthy society can be manipulated to create horrific consensus, e.g. Germany before WW2, so it would be dangerous to put value on this necessarily. Equally, those in power could be equally unhealthy and perpetuate a populace that never truly reaches its potential.
I also don't think society is filled with suicidal farmers, as Dan calls them. An impending flood will drive people to put sandbags around their home. A drought will create community pressure on neighbors to save water. These things happen naturally. Even now, those in marginalized communities try to grow their own food and similarly, those on welfare are resourceful in their own way to get as much as they can to have semblance of a good quality of life.
Dan's article seems to betray a stereotype towards he calls "freeloaders" -- as if "freeloading" and greed is something inherent in the nature of a subsection of the population. There seems to be no understanding for why people might have those characteristics in the first place. People parasitise systems only because their needs (defined by Maslow) aren't being met in some way. Even overconsumption / underconsumption is related to this. Advertising and consumerism, for example, thrives on unhappy/unfulfilled/traumatized people.
At the heart of things, people get self worth and feel happier when they are contributing in some way. That's why I think it's better to put value on human/animal/ecosystem health and life rather than anything else.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the only system I've come across that values each human life for its own sake rather than what people can contribute to society. It is based on the assumption that each individual would have self-leadership or would naturally develop leadership over their own inherent creative and productive potential, given their needs can be met and growth potential unimpeded.
When the pressure to survive (through a universal basic income) is removed, Individuals can:
- Decide to do what needs to be done, by themselves or with others, using their own judgement and resourcefulness. A platform like Steemit and Steem would be perfect for this.
- Take jobs they like and would naturally be more productive at. Even if they weren't completely productive -- happier people make happier societies.
- Focus on their on creativity which naturally producing value -- think of artists taking over run down areas, bringing life to and adding value to entire communities/city districts.
- Focus on educating themselves in their own way to reach their maximum potential, rather than be educated to become "units" that pay taxes.
- Focus on their own healing if necessary, which is normally interrupted by the pressure to just survive with some quality of life, hence the appearance of freeloading -- think about army vets who weren't able to focus on healing from PTSD etc because of pressure to earn a living. Another example would be the unemployed who are under pressure to find jobs (rather than create or add value) becoming more and more depressed. Too many cannot focus on healing and end up with confounding issues as a result of pressures and lack of societal support for their wellbeing.
As we start to value life (human, animal and ecosystem) for its own sake, mental/physical health and wellbeing of society increases. With time, further creativity, contribution and value is added to society.
Sadly, I don't think this utopia will happen anytime soon because the status quo and wealth/resource inequalities will be perpetuated because all humans reaching their true potential is a dangerous thing to those benefiting from inequalities. The likelihood is that Dan's system (or Universal Credit, another model) will probably be more supported than Universal Basic Income.
This Salon article on how scarcity changes the way we think might be of interest to some.