by Kate McFarland | Jul 25, 2017 | News
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently been traveling the United States on a listening tour, during which he aspires to visit every state in which he has not previously spent time, learning about the concerns and perspectives of residents. While in Alaska, Zuckerberg mentioned the state’s Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) in a Facebook post, calling a “form of basic income” and commending it as a model for social welfare policy [1]:
Alaska has a form of basic income called the Permanent Fund Dividend. Every year, a portion of the oil revenue the state makes is put into a fund. Rather than having the government spend that money, it is returned to Alaskan residents through a yearly dividend that is normally $1000 or more per person. That can be especially meaningful if your family has five or six people.
This is a novel approach to basic income in a few ways. First, it’s funded by natural resources rather than raising taxes. Second, it comes from conservative principles of smaller government, rather than progressive principles of a larger safety net. This shows basic income is a bipartisan idea.
This post was Zuckerberg’s second public commendation of the idea of basic income. During his Harvard commencement address on May 25, Zuckerberg recommended exploring the policy, stating, “We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.”
In general, Zuckerberg’s remarks on the PFD were well received by the basic income community, who welcomed the high-profile endorsement and opportunity to raise awareness of the PFD, which is widely perceived as evidence that a basic income can be practically implemented. (For more on Alaska’s PFD, including recent updates, see “ALASKA, US: Survey shows support for Permanent Fund Dividend amid continued legal controversy” in Basic Income News.)
Some commentators, however, were less sanguine. Writers like Clio Chang (in New Republic) and Sonia Sodha (in The Guardian) worry that Zuckerberg–like many right-wing and libertarian supporters of basic income–sees the policy primarily as an excuse to cut other programs, as evidenced by his praise for “conservative principles of smaller government” and apparent opposition to raising taxes, which might leave many low-income Americans worse off.
Despite speculation that the tech billionaire is contemplating a 2020 run for US President, Zuckerberg denies that he is running for public office, maintaining that his tour of the US is only a means to broaden his perspective and understand his customers.
Photo: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 kris krüg
by Kate McFarland | May 26, 2017 | News
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made his first public comment on basic income during Harvard University’s graduation ceremony on Thursday, May 25, calling it an idea “we should explore” to “make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.”
Mark Zuckerberg, a former Harvard undergraduate student who dropped out to focus on his Facebook business, returned to the university on May 25, 2017, to receive his own degree (an honorary doctorate) and to deliver the commencement address for the rest of this year’s graduating class.
A prevailing theme in his speech was “giving people freedom to pursue purpose.”
Zuckerberg’s mention of basic income followed a discussion of what is needed to cultivate a culture of entrepreneurship, during which he stressed that “the greatest successes come from having the freedom to fail” and lamented having known “too many people who gave up on pursuing their dreams because they didn’t have a cushion to fall back on if they failed.”
Speaking to an audience of millennials as a fellow millennial, the 33-year-old then declared, “Now it’s time for our generation to define a new social contract.”
Describing what this new social contract might look like, Zuckerberg proposed that “we should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.” He also called for other policy reforms such as affordable childcare and portable health insurance benefits (as opposed to the employer-linked health benefits that predominate in the United States), as well as continuous lifelong education.
Admitting that these reforms would not be free, Zuckerberg stated, “People like me should pay for it, and a lot of you are going to do really well, and you should, too.”
Zuckerberg then proceeded to other topics, such as the importance of charity and building communities at both local and global levels.
Although brief, Zuckerberg’s passing mention of universal basic income is noteworthy as the famed and influential entrepreneur’s first public comment on the topic. Moreover, while his singular remark was not an outright endorsement of the policy (as some headlines and social media posts quickly began to claim), it is clear that Zuckerberg sees it as at least worthy of serious investigation.
It is also notable that the Facebook CEO did not broach basic income as a solution to automation and technological unemployment, in contrast to some other tech entrepreneurs who have backed the idea (e.g., perhaps most famously, Elon Musk). Instead, Zuckerberg’s primary motivation seems to be the need to secure individuals against risk to facilitate, e.g., entrepreneurship, innovation, and cultural production.
Zuckerberg is not the first member of Facebook’s founding team to speak positively of basic income: cofounder Chris Hughes, a founding member and co-chair of the Economic Security Project, has become one of the policy’s foremost advocates in the United States.
Watch the full commencement address here:
