Debating Universal Basic Income Pros, Cons, and Alternatives

This book presents the most compelling arguments for and against implementing a basic income guarantee today, in the voice of proponents and critics, in alternating chapters. Tables, figures, and pictures illustrate the key concepts and evidence, which include benefit cliffs and disincentive deserts, time series macroeconomic data, business, economic, and technological change (BETC), artificial intelligence and other general purpose technologies, along with advanced robotics, the environmental Kuznets Curve, income distributions, democracy, social justice, dependence, autonomy, and economic freedom. A neutral, non-partisan tone introduction defines UBI and covers the history of universal income plans, while the conclusion summarizes the main arguments for and against UBI before surveying alternative policies, including universal basic asset, credit, service, job, and training plans.

1. UBI Basics.- 2. In Favor: Something for Everyone.- 3. Opposed: Less for All.- 4. In Favor: Safety from Artificial Intelligence.- 5. Opposed: No Country for New Robots.- 6. In Favor: Another Weapon Against Climate Change.- 7. Opposed: The Centralized Control Conceit.- 8. Opposed: Too Dear or Too Little.- 9. In Favor: UBI Pays for Itself.- 1.0 Opposed: Democracy Destroyed.- 1.1 In Favor: Democracy Enhanced and Social Justice, Too!.- 12. Opposed: Dependency.- 13. In Favor: Autonomy.- 14. Summary and Alternatives

Robert E. Wright Ph.D. is a Senior Faculty Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) and the (co)author of 24 books on economic policy and history.

Aleksandra Przegalinska Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and Vice-President of Kozminski University, Poland. Aleksandra is responsible for International Relations and ESR as well as Senior Research Associate at the Harvard Labour and Worklife Program. Aleksandra is the head of the Human-Machine Interaction Research Center at Kozminski University and the Leader of the AI in Management Program. Until recently, she conducted post-doctoral research at the Center for Collective Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. She graduated from The New School for Social Research in New York. She is the co-author of Collaborative Society.