Finland has been running a limited experiment with Universal Basic Income, and has decided to pull the plug.
The experiment with so-called universal basic income has captured global attention as a potentially promising way to restore economic security at a time of worry about inequality and automation…. [However the] Finnish government has opted not to continue financing it past this year, a reflection of public discomfort with the idea of dispensing government largess free of requirements that its recipients seek work.
There are UBI experiments going on in other parts of the world, but the fact that Finns are skeptical of the no-strings-attached approach to basic income, that suggests that other countries with less social cohesion and trust in government will find UBI to be a steep climb. Further, as the article notes,
This may be the main reason that basic income has lost momentum in Finland: It is effectively redundant.
Health care is furnished by the state. University education is free. Jobless people draw generous unemployment benefits and have access to some of the most effective training programs on earth.
“In a sense,” said Mr. Hiilamo, the social policy professor, “Finland already has basic income.”
I find the idea of a basic income intriguing, but I’m not really sure what to make of it. My concern isn’t that giving Those People money will just lead them to waste it; the studies I’ve seen suggest that on the whole, people in UBI experiments are more thoughtful stewards of that money than the Rich Kids of Instagram. But the idea that UBI can be used to bribe people into accepting the robot revolution, or that people will trade cash for the dismantling of the state (which is what people like Milton Friedman and Charles Murray have envisioned when they advocate UBI, as I understand it), don’t fill me with confidence that it would be good policy.
