"Universal Basic Income — or an economic idea where everyone gets a paycheck from the government to spend how they wish — is one of the only solutions to the rise of robotic automation". (source)
Elon Musk
It so happened that not so long ago, this spring to be more precise, I got to know the blockchain technology. Of course, in my business I have already come across this concept, but plunged into it only in May 2017. Undoubtedly, on the one hand it was due to the skyrocketing hype of Crypto-currencies, ICO and blockchain technology, and, on the other hand, we were looking for new opportunities for the implementation of our e-commerce project.
It was at the beginning of July that we successfully held pre-sale, and the more we studied all the possibilities of this technology, the more we understood the global nature of the changes this technology brings to our lives. What is happening now in the crypto world can be called the first faltering steps, and mostly to the touch. For me personally it all looks like an attempt to shift the old paradigm to new technology. This is about the same as harnessing horses in a car. At the same time, we completely forget that the blockchain philosophy is much deeper and more revolutionary. And in order to understand this, it is necessary to change one's thinking. One must imagine this world functioning on absolutely different principles.
The fundamental features of the blockchain are decentralization, openness of data and the inability to change or forge this data. That means, what was once recorded in the blockchain remains there forever, and anyone has access to this information. For example, you have bought an apartment and a corresponding entry was made in the blockchain. In the future you will not need an extract from the register of real estate, its certification from a notary and other bureaucracy. Now a huge number of institutions and employees are carrying out work that can be completely replaced by blockchain technology, from real estate documents to the judicial process. At the same time, the speed of operations in which they are involved, and their transparency will grow by tens. This state of affairs, of course, will not improve the situation with unemployment, although it is just the blockchain that can completely eradicate unemployment as an inalienable phenomenon of modern economy.
It is more correct to say that this will be facilitated by the introduction of the unconditional basic income. I first read about this concept in the article :
https://hackernoon.com/why-everyone-missed-the-most-mind-blowing-feature-of-cryptocurrency-860c3f25f1fb
The income that every member of society receives regardless of his social status, age, gender, etc. Later, I studied a lot of sources on this issue. The most interesting thing is that this topic dates back to the 16th century and is mentioned in many works of philosophers and statesmen. Since the 20th century this idea has been seriously considered at the state level of many countries and is included in the political program of various parties. Social experiments are conducted in many countries, proving the viability of this idea. But, unfortunately, the real implementation of this concept encounters a huge number of obstacles, the meaning of which can be reduced to one - a complex and expensive implementation process. One can only imagine what efforts will be required to turn a huge state machine toward an unconditional basic income. It will be necessary to change the existing system of social insurance, the pension system, the taxation system. To change the migration policy, since the introduction of basic income guarantee at the local level will cause a wave of migration from less developed countries.
The blockchain technology allows not only to do this with minimal expenses, but also to provide this system with the fundamental principle for unconditional basic income, i.e. the principle of fair and unbiased distribution. More details on the concept of basic income can be found here.
We decided to implement this concept. The result of our work was BIG.Foundation. Here we have combined the idea of basic income and modern technologies. For the basic income guarantee to come to life, a number of conditions must be fulfilled:
1. a person must receive income
2. he must be able to spend his income
3. there should be no centralized regulation of currency issue
4. the system should be self-regulating and should seek to reduce inflation automatically
The blockchain technology allows to decentralize the issuing of the crypto currency and to charge it in equal quantity to all participants of the system. Thus, the distribution of funds doesn't go from the top level down but is immediately distributed at the lowest level.
Adding goods and services that can be sold and bought provides the crypto currency with liquidity and minimizes the need to enter and withdraw crypto currency from this closed system.
There is an issue of inflation, though. If we constantly issue new money, then we will get hyperinflation. Hence, it is necessary that the basic income comes to all participants from the already existing money supply. For this purpose, a consumption tax is introduced. Any transaction in the system is subject to 10% consumption tax, which is immediately redistributed among all participants. Thus, if the amount of commissions in the system is less than the emission, then the necessary part to achieve a minimum basic income is issued by the system. But as soon as the amount of commissions equals or surpasses the minimum basic income, the system stops issuing, and the basic income is formed from commissions of the system. The higher turnover in the system, the higher the unconditional basic income is.
All the beauty of this system is that it is closed, self-regulating and decentralized.
The fulfillment of the idea of unconditional basic income is the necessity of a postindustrial society, when the level of automation and robotization of production and services has reached a level at which the need for manual labor, if not completely eliminated, tends to a minimum. Now many famous people, for example, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Ma, Elon Musk, etc., talk about the need to introduce basic income.
"Basic income protects us from the threat of AI. [...] It is obvious that AI is a challenge for the whole world, since it is likely that it will take a lot of jobs. [..] We all need to be enterprising enough to create these new jobs" (source).
Richard Branson
The current situation in the economy, in fact, has become a hostage to the need to increase the number of jobs, on the one hand, and the emergence of an increasing number of technologies that liberate people from manual labor, on the other. The result is a decrease in the cost of labor and an increase in the number of unemployed. At the same time, the so-called unemployment benefits do not help to solve this. They are either too low and do not fulfill the necessary support function, or if they are at the subsistence level (as in European countries), then for 80% of people receiving such benefits are a stopper for job search. Even if most of these people can find a job, it is likely to be unskilled and badly paid. And not many people would be interested in working for 8 hours a day for the salary almost equal to their benefit. If you receive the same basic income, any work will really increase your income. And then a person will be able to choose a job based on his or her own interests, and not just on the basis of the salary level.
"We need to explore ideas, such as basic income, to make sure that everyone has a" safety cushion" that will allow anyone to turn their ideas into reality" (source).
Mark Zuckerberg
Unfortunately, we live in a world where most people take the surrounding system for granted, often forgetting that it is man-made. Everything was created by people like us, but 100-500 years ago.
Mankind does not stand still. New knowledge and new technologies make serious changes in the existing reality. We live in an interesting time, and we have the opportunity to witness such changes that the previous generations could not even imagine.
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