The case for a universal basic income
Why do we work? To earn money so we can live, many say. “Work to live.” But why, then, do we allow ourselves to spend the majority of our good, waking, sunlight hours, for almost our whole adult life, working, if we actually want to live instead?
Personally, when I was younger I was one of those weird people who believed the opposite philosophy. I “lived to work”. “How awful”, my Mum used to say — who then spent her whole Sunday working — though not working, as she was preparing for actual work (as a teacher, she was preparing for lessons)… but then surely that wasn’t living, either? Anyway, I lived to work because I had aspiration. I wanted to make a difference. Do something meaningful, etcetera — as, I’d hope, most people would want to when they’re young and bookish.
So I was encouraged academically, because I was aspirational. There was an unwritten assumption — the better I’d do academically, the more impact I would have when I was older. So I went all the way until I started on a PhD (after trialling a couple of pretty un-aspirational jobs). After beginning my project I met an inspiring graduate who suggested getting the most out of your PhD by taking on extra opportunities. So I aimed to boost my CV further by doing an internship, which I successfully landed. This is where I am now.
But the longer I continued on this journey, the more I thought, and I realised two pretty dispiriting things:
· I had, basically, no practical skills whatsoever, and felt like the people that Jess Phillips, the Labour MP, referred to in her speech last year when she said she knew people who “earn way over £30,000 a year (that’s not me, alas) but have no discernible skills whatsoever, literally none”, and
· Each of these jobs/placements/learning opportunities I’d done was providing me too much time and headspace to conclude that what I was doing was unlikely to have any useful, important impact — at least not any time soon and in the “real world”.
So what to do?
I wish I could launch some kind of revolution against all this — the 9 to 5ish, “working slowly towards minimal impact” type job. Hell, I was even starting to wish I’d done less well academically so I could have gone into a more practical vocation — or applied to something academic yet practical like medicine or engineering. But I’d never been any good at practical things, so I’d never thought to go for them — or was it just that I never had the chance to give them a proper go, because I was funnelled towards a non-practical academic path? After all, school isn’t so good at arming you with a scalpel or a screwdriver. You’re supposed to somehow work that out for yourself, or be blessed with parents who can offer relevant work experience.
Perhaps there’s something wrong with me, because if it was the system, surely people wouldn’t sell themselves to it — or again, do they have no choice? To keep a roof over one’s head and provide for a family, not many are likely to wave goodbye to a stable income. Perhaps I am just depressed or something. Except outside of the office, with my partner or family, this doesn’t transfer. The only negative emotion I feel sometimes is frustration — that my time with them is confined to ‘weekends’, or ‘annual leave’ — an arbitrary number of days, some of which I must take on compulsory bank holidays.
Sometimes I assume I must be either lazy or else despondent in some way. But I’m hugely passionate about some things — like the inflexibility of this status quo. I care and worry that there is either a huge, demotivated workforce out there — or one who is in denial about it for the sake of their financial security. In this system we can’t imagine other options except retirement (when/if we get there) or worse, this death-like word ‘unemployment’, which aside from financial stress everybody associates with daytime TV watching rather than freedom. I hate the fact that the 9–5 turns me into someone who has no time to devote to other projects nor energy to do anything except TV watching. I want the time to talk and meet interesting people, learn to do practical things which can actually make positive change, or just be able to read and write more articles. But I worry I’ll be locked in this unsatisfying loop forever, which will only cut tighter when I start a family and the prospect of poverty seems all too frightening.
There must be another way.
