I was first introduced to Universal basic income from a book by James Carroll called Utopia Now. Here, basic income refers to a government’s subsidiary program where citizens are given a certain amount of money periodically, with no strings attached. In other words, people are free to do whatever they want with this money, and they don’t have to pay it back.
Does Universal Basic Income Work?
Whenever I speak about basic income, most people would tell me this idea won’t work. Will the economy collapse? Will the poor people spend this money on drugs? Is it not sustainable? Carroll addresses all these questions with precise scientific data of numerous case studies, which point towards the fact that this idea works.
The only reason why this idea never stuck is that it was stopped prematurely for whatever reason. There was never a good reason to stop either. People just got weirder out by the idea of giving free money to people. And yet, we could live in a world where everyone receives this basic income. Indeed, it would be a better world, and the economy would be better off because of it, too.
Corona Virus, Basic Income, and Happiness
The idea of basic income was specially picked up during the coronavirus epidemic, whereas numerous countries give free money to individuals and companies to keep the economy going. Surprisingly, it didn’t lead to a total collapse of the economy, and everything is still going afloat. As such, coronavirus became one of the most significant social experiments ever of basic income distribution globally, helping individuals and societies work.
Of course, giving money to people, especially those who need it, improve people’s well-being and, therefore, happiness. In other words, by providing a basic income to people, we are preventing a lot of dissatisfaction, which respectfully positively affects everything else.
Private Universal Basic Income Idea
Yet, here is an idea not previously considered by the primary income model. What if instead of governments giving basic income to people, people would do it to each other, especially people who can afford it? No longer do we need to wait for some higher power to make this happy, but we can help make this world better ourselves. Indeed, I want to do it as soon as my happiness business becomes stable.
Indeed, we don’t need to have that much money either. We just need enough money to cover our basic needs and have a little more security, but after that, we can start helping other people. As such, we don’t need to become millionaires to begin helping others. We can start doing it today and help to make this world a better place.
