What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?
The prevailing view seems to be: robots will take our jobs, therefore we will need UBI, which allows people to live without work.<p>The way I see it, the main problem that UBI is solving is inequality, it&#x27;s a rich to poor transfer. Excessive inequality is bad because the aggregate utility goes down (rich people don&#x27;t gain much from an additional dollar, so it&#x27;s more effectively used by a poor person).<p>Transfering cash directly is the most efficient way of decreasing inequality, so UBI is the right approach. At this time, the amount of UBI should be below what allows a comfortable life, because it would lead to a feedback loop in which people would be increasingly demotivated to work.<p>And what about robots? There is a danger that automation will further exacerbate income inequality, so redistribution is a natural response, because it would increase the effective wages of low income jobs. It seems unlikely that robots will literally take our jobs, you can probably always be someone&#x27;s slave (not literally) for $5 &#x2F; hour.