Basic Income: Is It Applicable to Modern States?

Abstract

Basic income is a concept of a universal and unconditional cash benefit provided to all individuals, without any means test or work-related requirement. The struggles of modern states in sustaining the current social welfare models has resulted in the search for long term alternatives, which hassled to the popularity of basic income in recent decades. Due to its equal and comprehensive nature, many have championed the basic income idea to promote fairness in income distribution and total coverage. On the other hand, there are strong criticisms against a basic income both on ethical and financial levels. The everlasting conflict of providing an income to every individual even if they are not willing to contribute to society, versus the right to a basic living standard and freedom to work has been discussed. The criticisms and ethical justifications of the system are provided for review. Notwithstanding, financial criticisms, funding problems and adequacy of a basic income scheme is also discussed along with the counter arguments and possible solutions. International applications and experiments in basic income are also briefly presented and their results are commented on. In conclusion, some variations of basic income are suggested as suitable to solve today’s social security struggles. First, it is deduced that basic income could be a supplemental benefit and not a replacement to modern social security schemes due to distribution and funding issues. Secondly, a partial basic income is possible to implement in state owned natural and national resources. And finally, basic income is suggested as an efficient tool to tackle unemployment caused by disappearing professions as a result of technological advancements.