—Universal Basic Income—A Look Into America's Future?

Dateline: 11 February 2016

If you have not yet heard of Universal Basic Income, you really need to understand this. Crazy as it first sounds, this economic scheme is being seriously considered and tested in other countries. The short video above is an introduction to Universal Basic Income.

I'm persuaded that some sort of Universal Basic Income is ahead for America. We are, after all, a socialist nation. Social Security is obviously a Socialist program. Universal health care is a Socialist program. Hillary Clinton can't explain the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist. An avowed Socialist (with the appropriate initials of B.S.) is running for President of this country. And his Socialist agenda is appealing to a lot of young people.

Too many Americans have accepted the concept of Government providing for their needs (and too many Americans actually do depend on government for their needs)  for Universal Basic Income to NOT become a reality in this country.

I'm persuaded that it will be ushered in by impending financial crisis. That is, after all, how revolutionary social change is most easily implemented.

 This Article in The Telegraph Today indicates that the global financial crisis now unfolding could "destroy capitalism as we know it."  Further down in the article the author writes, in response to the possible financial crisis....

"Central banks, in desperation, would embrace the purest form of money-printing: they would start giving consumers actual cash to spend, temporarily turbo-charging demand while destroying any remaining respect for the idea that money needs to be earned."

Give everyone in the nation money to spend—a regular stipend even—and that will spur the economy, bringing financial prosperity to the nation. That's the basic idea. It could actually work.... for awhile. 

But, of course, it would eventually fail. All these utopian schemes only last for a season before they utterly fall apart.

What is amazing to me about this idea of a Universal Basic Income is that it dovetails perfectly with the ongoing development of Technocracy and a technocratic economic system, as I wrote about In This Blog Post.

Universal Basic Income payments could easily be distributed to everyone via debit cards. The debit cards could be based on allocated carbon-based energy credits. This is difficult to comprehend because we are all used to an economic system based on capitalism and cash money. But the replacement of what we have always known has been in the works for a long time.

The following quote comes from Patrick M. Wood's excellent book Technocracy Rising. The Technocracy Study Course he refers to was written in the 1930's by two intellectual visionaries (one of which was M. King Hubbert)...

The Technocracy Study Course also called for money to be replaced by Energy Certificates which would be issued to all citizens at the start of each new energy accounting period. These certificates could be spent for goods and services during the defined period but would expire just as a new allotment for the next period would be sent. Thus, the accumulation of private wealth would not be possible. Neither Scott or Hubbert viewed private property or accumulated wealth as allowable in a Technocracy. After all, it was capitalism that caused all the trouble in the first place, and the accumulation of wealth due to ownership of private property was the primary culprit. In a Technocracy, then, all property, resources and the means of production would be held in a public trust for the benefit of all. They reasoned that since all needs for work, leisure and health were to be so abundantly met, people would willingly trade private property for the utopian dream.

That paragraph should bring every thinking person to pause, while considering two remarkable things. First, it was written some 80 years ago—long before the computer tracking technology to properly implement the idea was in anyone's mind. 

Second, and more importantly, in order for this Technocracy to work, private property rights must yield to the public trust, for the benefit of all. 

Private property and property rights are fundamental to freedom and prosperity. The protection of private property and property rights are the Constitutional birthright of all Americans. But they are disappearing very quickly in this country. They are being lost because of widespread apathy,  ignorance, naive trust in government, foolish dependency on government, and fealty to socialist principles.

We are on the threshold of epic economic and social change.