Money System

'If in the future human labour is less needed, keeping societies stitched together may require us to reinvent the welfare state. Not all economists think that's worth worrying about just yet. But those who do are reviving an idea that dates back to Thomas More and his 1516 book, Utopia - a universal basic income. It does seem utopian, in the sense of fantastically unrealistic. Could we really imagine a world in which everyone gets a regular cash handout, enough to meet their basic needs, no questions asked?
Some evidence suggests it's worth considering. In the 1970s, the idea was trialled in a Canadian town called Dauphin. For years, thousands of residents received cheques every month. And it turns out that guaranteeing people an income had interesting effects. Fewer teenagers dropped out of school. Fewer people were admitted to hospital with mental health problems. Hardly anyone gave up work. New trials are under way, to see if the same thing happens elsewhere.
It would, of course, be enormously expensive. Suppose you gave every American adult, say $12,000 (£9,000) a year. That would cost 70% of the entire federal budget. It seems impossibly radical. But then, impossibly radical things do sometimes happen, and quickly. In the 1920s, not a single US state offered old-age pensions. By 1935, Frances Perkins had rolled them out across the nation.'