Let me have a look at a French state employee, who like many state employees around the world is usually not very much thrilled by her work. France has got a very high number of people who work for the state and they also very often go on sick leave (about 12% of their workdays).  I would therefore assume that many of them don’t have a very demanding job, perhaps not much to do or do rather senseless work. Why do people stick to their jobs in a situation like this? The answer is simple: It provides them a secure income. Why does the state employ so (too) many poorly motivated people? Because it needs to supply it’s people with an income.

In this situation an income is paid to a significant number of people, but the recipients are obviously not happy  with the conditions that apply, hence the frequent sick leaves. On top of the income, the state even has to provide offices, materials, commuting infrastructure, etc. for its employees, adding to the costs. This is a perfect example of a conditional basic income gone wrong. We hang on to the believe that people need to have a regular employment as the only justification to an income. Let’s give it a try, let people have an UNCONDITIONAL INCOME and make them happy. Let people do what they really want to do and not force them to organize their lives around a frustrating job, commuting and polluting every day, and additionally producing unnecessary cost to our society.

This way state offices will be filled with people who choose to work there mainly because they find the work interesting, not because they only hang on to their monthly pay check.

One way or another,  societies all over the world are and will be implementing more and more basic income schemes. Please note that currently (almost) none of theses schemes are UNCONDITIONAL.

I define “basic income” as an income that is paid to people, even though they don’t produce anything that can be sold nor do any work of immediate value to anyone.

We have come to the point where new technologies don’t produce jobs in significant numbers any more and where natural resources are privately owned and restricted. A society which wants it’s people to prosper now has to provide for them with an income, where and when there are no jobs or natural resources available.

Programs are increasingly applied all around, be it food stamps, unemployment money, child grants, public work programs, employment initiatives for the sake of giving employment, blown up public sector jobs, social welfare officers, tax collectors, arms industries, pension schemes, etc. The sole reason for this being the scarcity of available real jobs.

This is a possible way to go. Societies which are not sufficiently applying schemes like this get mainly trapped in social unrest, religious and political fanaticism and intolerable human rights situations. It is a way to go, but it is a queer, wicked and tiring way, that more and more people are not convinced of any more.