Universal basic income (UBI), a federally-funded stipend paid regularly to all citizens, is a concept that has long seemed to be more in the domain of dewy-eyed dreamers than that of the political mainstream. However, a number of public figures and politicians are now expressing their support for the concept, real-world basic income experiments are now planned within several countries, and dark-horse 2020 US presidential contender Andrew Yang has made a $1000 [≈ Traditional cell phone cost per year]/month basic income the core of his platform. American public support for a basic income guarantee has shot up from 12% to 48% over the past decade. Amid this surge of interest in the UBI concept, its economic and social benefits have been extensively discussed (see here), but what often goes unsaid is that it has the potential to transform our very culture for the better.
The American dream is fast becoming a lie as the income divide grows to monstrous proportions and upward mobility falls. But its vision of anyone being able to make a living in America through nothing but hard work remains embedded deep within our cultural psyche. It sadly has become less of an admirable ideal and more of a way to defend the failings of capitalism. When the poor can’t get by, American culture blames it on their failings instead- “they must be lazy or unambitious; otherwise, they’d be homeowners with a nice car, college-bound kids and a brimming retirement fund”.
The capitalist American economy optimizes for profit and profit alone, as that much-desired house, nice car, and whatnot cost money. Everybody must work and make money to achieve that materialistic vision of success that society promotes. This leaves little room for activities that aren’t profitable but have great non-monetary value. Artists, musicians, writers, and other creatives are forced to work uninteresting day jobs to survive, consuming time and energy that could be used on creative work, or else luck out enough to make a comfortable living from just their creative work, which is very rare.
Outside of the creative realm, the liberal arts and their study have been atrophying as living expenses inflate. Many of those who studied the liberal arts in college can barely find sufficient work to survive, much less earn enough to be considered successful. America’s widespread financial insecurity hits university professors especially hard- in any field, even more so in the arts and humanities. Even in cases where employers welcome liberal arts majors, they and society only take note of the work-related skills liberal studies can impart and the profit those added skills can make them. A quick Google search turns up a torrent of thinkpieces talking about how liberal arts departments instill critical thinking, writing skills, management prowess, and so on and so forth while neglecting to praise the knowledge, wisdom, and learning for their own sake that the liberal arts used to represent. This hasn’t just created financial trouble for arts and humanities majors. Abstract, intellectual studies are fundamentally immaterial, and so largely fail to aid their purveyors in ascending to America’s material ideal of happiness. If something doesn’t help someone achieve that ideal, it’s dismissed by American society as an impractical, pretentious waste of time. Thus, the financial impracticality of liberal studies is among the biggest causes of the American people’s contempt for intellectual pursuits.
This is where universal basic income comes in. With a basic income guarantee, professors, teachers, thinkers, and creatives wouldn’t have to juggle multiple jobs just to pay the bills, living paycheck to paycheck- their basic survival would be guaranteed, and they would have the ability to follow their genuine passions with their full time and energy. The immense financial insecurity of American teachers is causing them to burn out or leave teaching, and leaves very few young people saying “I want to be a teacher when I grow up!”, for obvious and perfectly rational reasons. With UBI, it’s very likely large numbers of people would flood into educational and creative career paths, as they’d be free to pursue their dream jobs without fear of crushing financial insecurity.
The introduction of a basic income guarantee has the potential to virtually eradicate the specter of financial insecurity hanging over teachers, professors, intellectuals, and creatives. There would still be reason to work in technical and business fields because of their higher wages, but nobody would be forced to pursue them simply to assure financial well-being. As the students of the time of implementation entered college and the workforce, new blood would flood into once-financially impractical careers and fields, institutions of higher learning would be revitalized, and a cyclone of fresh air would enter the artistic and literary corpus of America. Over the following years, with the pursuit of intellectual fields no longer a risk factor for financial insecurity, it is likely the American stigma towards their purveyors would die a slow and much-needed death. The mindless materialism of American culture would die with it, as wiser conceptions of happiness and success took root with the surge of less material pursuits. With this potential for cultural transformation taken in conjunction with the massive economic growth and equalization potential of UBI described by others, it seems even more worthwhile to implement.
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