After my last article, I received a fair few questions and also some complaints. The main point being around: “Why should lazy people who don’t want to work and do everything they can to stay on social welfare also get UBI? Where is the incentive to work?”
In short: “Why give lazy people money?”
The answer is simple: if someone doesn’t want to work, they will never do good work.
Over my 30 years of work experience, I had the pleasure of working with some great minds, creative thinkers and motivational leaders. I also worked with those who would rather stay home and play video games. This last group is the one who I think is more disruptive in the workplace than any other. They don’t necessarily break things but they lower morale by complaining and whinging; they keep productive people from doing their job by drawing them into long drawn out conversations; they use resources that are needed to move the company forward.
So, I hear you ask: why do they have jobs now?
They are in their jobs because they had their job yesterday and the day before. The real reason though is that our current socioeconomic system requires us to work for money. So they have to work. Whether they like it or whether they are good at it doesn’t matter. It’s not a choice. If you want to eat, you better have a job.
That is where a Universal Basic Income (UBI) comes into place. A recent report by the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, UK, showed that poverty would be cut in half by the introduction of UBI.
Be honest, do you really want to work with disruptive, demoralizing, downer colleagues?
If not, then I suggest you sign the European Citizens’ Initiative for the Universal Basic Income!