It's time for universal basic income

Finland's grand experiment, albeit in small scale, in providing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) without preconditions, ushers in a new dawn in modern societal design. The idea is already late for many countries as accelerating technology makes routine jobs irrelevant and any education less than college, nearly valueless. It is a regime change in such a short time that disallows gradual adjustments and it affects large swaths of populations across the world. Finely tuned welfare programs that create a disincentive for the poor to seek work and policies such as minimum wages that curb opportunities for the young to gain experience, has been creating stress in the social fabric for many decades. UBI will not only correct such disincentives but also remove the cost and inefficiencies associated with the bureaucracies that manage such programs.

The objective function for a modern society is clear - maximize aggregate happiness. Most research on happiness indicate an inverted U relationship with significant disutility in the absence of basic necessities or the fear of not having them in the future. UBI will remove such fear but avoid any disincentive effects. More importantly, UBI could provide optionality for each individual with private utility functions to select optimal pathways to maximize own happiness. If each individual has the flexibility to design such pathways, then society will unambiguously maximize aggregate happiness. What's missing from the status-quo of centrally administered myriad of welfare programs is flexibility for the individual to maximize own utility, unencumbered by the lack of basic necessities - food, shelter, health and information. UBI could provide that at a lower cost than current programs.

Universal Basic Income is conceptually and practically elegant. But to implement it, politicians have to acquire a desire to do something good during the course of their long and uninterrupted careers.