The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase for evanescent profits,” said President Franklin D Roosevelt in his first inaugural address of March 1933, a speech more famous for its observations on the nature of fear. And now, an idea has resurfaced that poses a direct challenge to this notion of “joy” and “moral stimulation.” That idea is the Universal Basic Income (UBI), the proposal that governments should pay all citizens a basic income, irrespective of whether they work.
A crowdfunded 8,000-square-metre poster was placed in Geneva, Switzerland, ahead of a vote on 5th June over an “unconditional basic income”
In advocating this, some political thinkers on both the right and the left, in Britain and overseas, appear to be moving away from this concern with work towards what should be termed an “ideology of idleness.” The core of their argument is that technological advances—the combination of artificial intelligence, automation and distributed production—will eliminate the necessity of work for many people.
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