—Universal Basic Income—
A Look Into America's Future?

Dateline: 11 February 2016



If you have not yet heard of Universal Basic Income, you really need to understand this. Crazy as it first sounds, this economic scheme is being seriously considered and tested in other countries. The short video above is an introduction to Universal Basic Income.

I'm persuaded that some sort of Universal Basic Income is ahead for America. We are, after all, a socialist nation. Social Security is obviously a Socialist program. Universal health care is a Socialist program. Hillary Clinton can't explain the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist. An avowed Socialist (with the appropriate initials of B.S.) is running for President of this country. And his Socialist agenda is appealing to a lot of young people.

Too many Americans have accepted the concept of Government providing for their needs (and too many Americans actually do depend on government for their needs)  for Universal Basic Income to NOT become a reality in this country.

I'm persuaded that it will be ushered in by impending financial crisis. That is, after all, how revolutionary social change is most easily implemented.

 This Article in The Telegraph Today indicates that the global financial crisis now unfolding could "destroy capitalism as we know it."  Further down in the article the author writes, in response to the possible financial crisis....

"Central banks, in desperation, would embrace the purest form of money-printing: they would start giving consumers actual cash to spend, temporarily turbo-charging demand while destroying any remaining respect for the idea that money needs to be earned."

Give everyone in the nation money to spend—a regular stipend even—and that will spur the economy, bringing financial prosperity to the nation. That's the basic idea. It could actually work.... for awhile. 

But, of course, it would eventually fail. All these utopian schemes only last for a season before they utterly fall apart.

What is amazing to me about this idea of a Universal Basic Income is that it dovetails perfectly with the ongoing development of Technocracy and a technocratic economic system, as I wrote about In This Blog Post.

Universal Basic Income payments could easily be distributed to everyone via debit cards. The debit cards could be based on allocated carbon-based energy credits. This is difficult to comprehend because we are all used to an economic system based on capitalism and cash money. But the replacement of what we have always known has been in the works for a long time.

The following quote comes from Patrick M. Wood's excellent book Technocracy Rising. The Technocracy Study Course he refers to was written in the 1930's by two intellectual visionaries (one of which was M. King Hubbert)...

The Technocracy Study Course also called for money to be replaced by Energy Certificates which would be issued to all citizens at the start of each new energy accounting period. These certificates could be spent for goods and services during the defined period but would expire just as a new allotment for the next period would be sent. Thus, the accumulation of private wealth would not be possible. Neither Scott or Hubbert viewed private property or accumulated wealth as allowable in a Technocracy. After all, it was capitalism that caused all the trouble in the first place, and the accumulation of wealth due to ownership of private property was the primary culprit. In a Technocracy, then, all property, resources and the means of production would be held in a public trust for the benefit of all. They reasoned that since all needs for work, leisure and health were to be so abundantly met, people would willingly trade private property for the utopian dream.

That paragraph should bring every thinking person to pause, while considering two remarkable things. First, it was written some 80 years ago—long before the computer tracking technology to properly implement the idea was in anyone's mind. 

Second, and more importantly, in order for this Technocracy to work, private property rights must yield to the public trust, for the benefit of all. 

Private property and property rights are fundamental to freedom and prosperity. The protection of private property and property rights are the Constitutional birthright of all Americans. But they are disappearing very quickly in this country. They are being lost because of widespread apathy,  ignorance, naive trust in government, foolish dependency on government, and fealty to socialist principles.

We are on the threshold of epic economic and social change.


8 comments:

WhatIfWeAllCared? said...

As our current system falls further and further into collapse, something must happen and, chances are, it won't be anything logical. As long as we plan ahead for the collapse of the next system we will be ok . . IMHO

Anonymous said...

All the lands in the West are being held in trust for the people. Ask a Western state how that is working out.

deb harvey said...

i just read that california is considering paying up to 9000$ per year to criminals to not engage in crime. who said crime doesn't pay?
where do i sign up to be classed as a criminal?

also, lands held 'in trust' for the 'people' may have any definition of 'people' inserted.
harry reid, anyone?

Anonymous said...

Also, I read today that Banks may start implementing a "Negative Interest Rate", meaning that soon you'll have to pay the Bank to hold unto your money.....

Lady Locust said...

Scary!

Elizabeth L. Johnson said...

Thing is, a technocracy would be called a utopia only by the ones in charge. I have a close relative that has donated work with a volunteer organization, twice, to work in North Korea. The descriptions of the socialist way of life for the people, not for those in control, sounds exactly like utopia. In n. Korea the socialists give you your drab dark khaki clothing, your thin-walled house and pit-toilet, a free school for your children to be brain-washed(the children screamed in fear when the American volunteers came in to see the blackboards that had been donated by the Americans. They were taught that Americans are the enemy-"they want to invade our country"). The people have to fetch water up in the hills out of springs. They get a allotment of cabbage and turnips only, dumped out of a truck on a street corner or at a dirt road. You must carry your identification papers and card to be stamped that your family received the government food allotment. TB is rampant. All people work in the fields only. They are never provided any fertilizer for crops, and so use fresh human excrement straight out of the out-house. Really. You see them digging it out with a shovel and filling wooden buckets, and pouring it out into the fields. Though the highway in Pyongpyang are 18 lanes wide, only an occasional government vehicle is seen. The highway is empty. People aren't allowed to have vehicles. They are on foot, or bicycle; aren't allowed to open business at all. Their rivers are polluted to the point that the fish caught are contaminated and make American volunteers very sick, not to mention the volunteers from the World Health Organization, among other humanitarian organizations from around the world, that are allowed to spend money on the people inside the country, because the socialists don't lift a finger. And if a n. Korean says something wrong, he and his entire family are rounded up and taken to spend the rest of their lives in one of six concentration camps. The fields have loud speakers set up along side to broadcast the propoganda from government radio. Brain-washing. Fear. Nope, I wouldn't recommend utopia/socialism/communism/so called equality/redistributing the wealth, etc. Elizabeth L. Johnson

Kiina said...

But it works on Star Trek. In the Federation/Starfleet you do your job for the joy of doing the job and get your food/clothing (replicator rations) and housing (private quarters on a spaceship) provided for you as you go about the galaxy doing good deeds. In the same way that this science Fiction has been influencing technological advances (i.e. Kirk's communicator = flip (cell) phones, data pads = kindles and ipads, talking ship's computer = Seri) the socio-political philosophies of the show have been influencing generations of viewers/fans. Star Trek Next Generation especially took on many moral/social concepts phrased as problems on alien planets that humans could solve with the values of the United Federation of Planets... most of which were of a seemingly socialist bent. And the spinoff series continued that trend. On Deep Space Nine (the last tv series of the franchise) the economic contrast between greedy nasty horrible Ferengi who still used money and the Humans who were beyond/better than that was pointedly made in favor of the socialist/communist style humans by pointedly showing worst case excesses of greed and criminal behavior as the only result/type of ferengi behavior. So to the viewer who wishes to be enlightened or even just a good person, it is obvious you shouldn't dabble in the dirt of commerce. Combined with the "education" received in public schools society has participated in the brainwashing of successive generations until we believe that the idyllic (sci-fi) future is simply waiting for us to implement the necessary changes so that we can come out of this deluded "primitive race" stage of "our evolution" and emerge into a utopia limited only by encounters with aggressive aliens or backward thinkers. Universal basic wage sounds starfleet to me....

Herrick Kimball said...

Elizabeth and Kiina—

Wow. You have both provided some excellent insights. Thank you for taking the time to put your thoughts and perspectives into words here!