Because Elon Musk has decided to start talking about a concept he refers to as “universal high income” as being different and seemingly better than universal basic income, I feel the need to set the record straight here.
Simply put, universal high income is a universal basic income that is high enough to be considered “high.” Universal basic income is not a low universal income.
As defined by the Basic Income Earth Network, the international organization founded in 1986 to foster informed discussion around the world about the topic of basic income, the current definition of basic income is “a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement.”
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Although the sixth description, ‘uniformity’ for BI (Basic Income) seems rational as it further underpins the social equality aspect of providing a BI – however, the original BIEN description included the term ‘Universal’ – UBI (Universal Basic Income), which I feel still adequately serves to describe the ideology BIEN promotes. Therefore the addition of ‘universal’ before BI does clarify that BI is provided uniformly to all in society, whether you rich or poor, whether you have an income or not. The term ‘Universal’ also defines the level of BI offered, in that UBI attempts to maintain a ‘universally’ accepted humane standard of living, therefore BI is not necessary envisioning a survivalist style living standard, but a standard that supports the very viability of the Capitalist system itself, which requires steady and reliable growth of the middle-class, which requires sustainable incomes just above the accepted level of inflation (2%-3%). Average lower middle-class income has not been keeping pace with level of inflation for at least two decades, if not more. Thus the decay of the middle-class globally. I feel Musk was pointing to this decay when he stated a basic ‘high’ income was necessary. As either incomes needs to rise or markets must reduce prices. Markets prices are very ‘sticky’ and resist price reduction as far as possible. Therefore ensuring living standards are maintained at optimum level, means incomes need to rise. However market prices react to demand and demand is driven by increased income levels. So there is a catch 22 – which is that incomes must not rise so far as to cause an excess of inflation – which is the cause of the pain most societies are experiencing. Elon Musk does make a valid point – that the fast rise of AI will impact the need for humans presence within the work place in almost all categories of work. Which means that much of the inflationary pressures that are caused by human involvement in work will disappear – hence a possible deflationary cycle as costs of production decrease and the need to millions of people commenting daily decrease could counter balance the otherwise inflationary aspect of BI – therefore justifying Musks thoughts on Basic High Income as a future necessity. The term ‘High’ will largely hinge on what society deems a acceptable equitable standard of living to be.
Interesting approach. If you go for the statiscs in percentiles on incomes, taxation and spending you get even more interesting effects. Too bad the statistics are not available in the Netherlands, Europe.