An essay for the UBIE Story Contest #HowWeMadeBasicIncomeHappen by Stephan Risto
It’s been five years now since an unconditional basic income in Europe has been established way back in 2030. Other nations world-wide have in the meantime come to the conclusion that an unconditional basic income (UBI) is inevitable in a climate-change-ridden world and that it is the best and most reasonable solution for a sustainable life and a sustainable future. The United States of America, Australia, Canada, Asia, Africa, Russia and other nations all over the world have decided to establish an UBI as well.
At the beginning of the 21st century people gradually realized that something was going wrong in an economic system that was based on a principle of infinite growth on a finite planet with finite resources. It was the capitalism which led to the world-wide depletion of earth’s natural resources for an insatiable economy dominated by consumerism. Capitalism turned out to be destructive, especially when striving for exponential growth. Politicians always said we needed economic growth. Growth for what? At which cost? – As it turned out over the years from the 1980s on, economic growth was always at the cost of the planet and of the health of the people.
Exponential growth is naturally constrained by finite resources, hence growth can never be infinite due to the planetary boundaries of our Earth some of which are climate change, ocean acidification, land-use change and biodiversity loss (the planetary boundaries have been discussed by Earth System scientists, mind you!). Global economy has led to the misbelief that humankind could go on producing things forever just for the sake of employment and for the sake of producing things, no matter if these things were really needed or not. Global economy has also led to an increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions which caused our planet to warm and thus entailed climate change. One of the most tragic consequences of climate change is undeniable: biodiversity loss (the loss of many animal and plant species).
So the question around 2020 was: Should mankind go on destroying the planet Earth in the name of economic growth with a further increase in CO2 emissions resulting in ocean acidification, further depletion of the resources, environmental pollution (chemical pollution), ozone depletion, change in land-use and freshwater use on a planet which will face an increase in the global population of 11.2 billion people by 2100 or should mankind restrict itself, given the fact that automation, digitalization and robotization were – and still are – factors leading to unemployment and low-paid employees?
The European governments decided in favour of a good life not dominated by consumerism and environmental pollution. Climate change was already happening and it was accelerating, so the governments knew that something had to be done to reduce CO2 emissions to avoid the risk of reaching the climate tipping points. Once the tipping points have been passed, the Earth system will slide into a new stable state and the process will be irreversible. Such a new stable state with ever-rising temperatures would make the whole planet an inhospitable place to live. For example, if earth temperatures rose above 5° or 6°C, icesheets at the poles would begin to melt and cause sea-levels to rise all over the world and many coastlines and coastal cities would be rendered uninhabitable.
After more than 100 years European governments decided to drastically reduce the weekly working hours from 40 hours to 15 hours (which had been stated by John Maynard Keynes in 1933 in his essay ‘Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren’) to stave off mass unemployment caused by the fast technological progress in the fields of automation, digitalization and robotics. Technological innovation was always there, but social innovation was still missing. In 2030 social innovation was finally made possible by establishing an unconditional basic income for everyone.
Nowadays people work three hours a day, 15 hours a week and so people have more time to dedicate their lives to their families and friends, to their work at home and their work in the garden if they own a house; people have more time to spend with their children and pets. People very often work at home for their companies, ‘home officing’ has almost become a standard form of employment, well-known from 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading around the world. By the way, the spreading of a pandemic like COVID-19 was made possible by rising temperatures caused by climate change! Andreas Jäger, an Austrian science journalist and meteorologist, said in a podcast in April 2020 on Youtube that there were about 4 million people all over the world dying as a result of air pollution and particulate matter. One million people died in China, 400,000 people in Europe and the remaining number in the rest of the world. In another documentary about environmental pollution it was even stated that the number of people dying as a result of air pollution amounts to 9 million people all over the world.
Gainful employment always contributed to the pollution of our environment and to climate change because many people were not willing to use public transport but went comfortably by car instead, thus causing additional CO2 emissions every single day just for going to work and going back home. One big advantage of home office work is that people don’t have to go to their places of work anymore (of course, this applies only to work which does not require the employee to be at his or her place of work). So CO2 emissions can be reduced. Even if climate change cannot be stopped, it can be slowed down.
An unconditional basic income made people happier and more contented. They don’t buy stuff anymore they don’t really need, many people have decided to take their time off and started to learn how to play a musical instrument or learned how to sing songs and joined a choir; others have decided to grow their own vegetables and fruits in their gardens. There are also people who work for charity and non-profit organizations without being paid for it because the unconditional basic income makes it possible to lead a life without the fear of losing their homes or the fear of having nothing to eat.
And there are people who finally got their chance to be creative and started to paint pictures, others started to make and record their own music. Some people have also begun to study at a university whatever they were interested in. Needless to say, a 15-hour working week is very conducive to do the things one always wanted to do but never had the time to do because a 40-hour working week is exhausting and makes it hard to get out of this treadmill.
People now also have time to read books on very important topics like climate change which of course, has not stopped with the establishment of an UBI but could be slowed down. There are people who decided to breed rabbits, cats, dogs and other animals. Companies which caused high CO2 emissions and which were responsible for exploiting many resources have been closed down. The former employees and managers of these companies are grateful to receive an UBI now. Some of them became farmers to be able to feed the ever-increasing number of the global population.
Politicians have finally turned reasonable and decided to work for the welfare of the citizens and not for capitalism-oriented lobbyists craving for power and wealth. For if there is one thing human beings cannot do, then it is eating money. You can’t eat money. It took a long time but finally even lobbyists realized that it is better to prefer a good life to the accumulation of money and goods, as had already been discussed in a book published in 2012 by the British university professors and lecturers Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky “How Much Is Enough? – Money and the Good Life”. The unconditional basic income made it finally possible to exit the rat race of the world economies with its inveterate struggle for power and wealth. Economic degrowth is the solution to climate change and not an unsustainable greed for a limitless economic growth on a planet with finite resources.