Universal income or universal leash?

tldr: UBI is a terrible idea unless it is absolutely unconditional – same sum for every citizen with no behavioral conditions – because the moment survival money depends on behavior it becomes a universal control mechanism. Here I show that universal and unconditional – would be very hard in practice.

Unless it is absolutely unconditional

UBI (universal basic income) is an absolutely terrible idea… unless… unless it really is absolutely unconditional. Absolutely. Unconditional. Or it’s always a dystopia in the long term. Because it is so hard to make it truly unconditional and fair and impossible to weaponize, it will most likely collapse into a control state.

The moment you add behavioral conditions on top of legal status, it becomes weaponizable. The moment one starts to see that there are any conditions – it becomes a tool for oppression and manipulation. One who controls your income will control your life. The moment this "income" starts to depend on your behavior (whatever) – the moment you are being enslaved.

Yet, has anyone ever made a strong and stable system that would surely work?

What unconditional means

It is written in the constitution that the entity responsible for fund distribution does not answer to any current ruling party OR any other institution (maybe except the Anti-Corruption Org.) and everyone who is in the citizens registry is equally eligible for income. Everyone and unconditional. Same sum for everyone. (stuff like disability benefits comes separately from ANOTHER branch of govt with its own rules) Regardless of your own income or profession, or any markers. Citizen = get paid. The only condition – clear legal status (even if extended to (tax)residency). The registry is once: you are in it or you are not, and that is it, no boundaries to keep proving. Presence is the opposite: you have to constantly prove something – that you are here, that you showed up, that you filled the form again. And if you have to prove something constantly, then it is not fair.

Even if you are a thrice-convicted terrorist/criminal who literally committed genocide against your own people. Regardless of current policies and so on.

If a system has conditions of "good" – today’s criminal means doing violent acts, tomorrow – anyone badmouthing the current prick on the throne. In China, being a ‘criminal’ can mean practicing the wrong religion. In Russia, criticizing the war. Your government will always define ‘deserving’ in ways that protect power.

"Really we want to provide income to criminals???" => yes, if it’s universal – then it’s a universal right for everyone. The example was to show high contrast.

Note the clear conditions to be eligible – citizen/perma-res. First they come and work for the system, then they can benefit.

"Your ‘independent entity’ is fantasy" => Why not, make it a central bank – responsible for keeping a stable economy, independent from whatever the ruling party is. It must follow its own internal regulation with public oversight. No system is perfect, but we make it as resistant to manipulation as possible. The point was that other branches could not pressure it into using that as population control. So no politician can promise to raise it for everyone (other than just raising the baseline economy). Make it transparent from day one – zero privacy and open access for anyone to come anytime and check the books. A system which is responsible for the quality of life of a massive part of the population will naturally receive scrutiny (even as opposed to a central bank where we sometimes have no idea what it’s doing).

Okay, you think you figured it out, you write in your constitution what everyone gets, the promise is solid, written in law, everyone has to accept that, guarantee as strong as you think, you hope that piece of paper is actually gonna save you. Think about the history of how your current promises by your constitution are constantly undermined day after day.
From freedom of speech, to ownership of property, to fair trial and all that, you can think of a million cases already where the promise is getting crept over and violated constantly. You think with income it’s gonna be any different? HA!
That concept of strong and powerful constitution which stands guard on your freedoms is not working today already. You think it would work later?

How conditions become weapons

First you have to be in the country to activate it (cuts off everyone who can’t visit because of political persecution), then you have to fill a form (with some quirky questions!), then one party threatens to raise/lower it unless you vote for them… You see how it goes.

If such a system requires you to be in the country to receive it, it becomes another prison for you. Sure, it would be rational to make it local first – after all we care about only our own, the entire thing is just to stimulate so you don’t go hungry.
And yet it becomes a psychological dependency that takes much more effort to escape than if you just worked instead. Learned helplessness gets here too: doing nothing is easy, doing something takes effort, and effort is complex – so many just stop trying.

And at that point it’s just too convenient for you to not resist. That allows them to manipulate more.

God forbid you have to get a job just to have the ability to fight for your freedom. And then they add some "social rating" so only those can get funds… If there is any way one can be denied or preferenced – it is only a matter of very short time before it is used for oppression and blackmail against ‘disloyalists’ (whatever that may be).

Unconditional is a myth. It may be called that way, but truly unconditional means it’s installed at once and for all. Really think that would happen that easy?

Okay, let’s enumerate how many conditions you would have in here.

Having a passport. Yes, acceptable.
Being in the right group when it starts. You think we started all at once, at all, like everything suddenly eligible? I doubt that. More likely it would be rolling in waves. And there you have stratification happening immediately.
Being able to register in whatever office where people register to receive such income.
Oh, again, you possibly have to log in, being able to log in, and all that. And even if they made it online, you still possibly have to use another service to register. Like they would accept only the popular email services, where you lose privacy right away or something.
Having a bank account. Questionable already. As if they haven’t already made a thousand bars, so that they can lock anyone out of the banking system.
Being able to actually spend it. HA! You think they would not create some kind of form of CBDC at that point? So, only domestic spending allowed. Or something. Or only at stuff that you would be able to sustain yourself with, like only paying for food and rent and nothing else. Don’t underestimate how creative they will be when faced with financial and economy issues to launch such a system.

At the start, they may fail to make it for everyone and then they start definitions of who gets what and how it gets what. For example, if you own the means of production or you have capital, then you are exempt from it. You only pay to the pot and receive nothing. And who’s gonna decide what? And which range? A thousand new answers again, you are getting fucked up. You have a fancy car? Oh nice, you can work in taxi, you don’t need income. You have a robot that can work your garden? Yeah, you can make your own food, you don’t need that. You have a 3D printer that could print bricks. Oh, fuck you. You can get your own home. No rent for you.

And once who-gets-what depends on which income-producing assets you hold, you face a false dilemma at every turn: forgo your fancy car for movement independence, or keep it and lose the income? You constantly do the math of whether owning something is even worth it. And guess what – most of the time it is probably not in your favor. That is another way you lose ownership of everything and everything becomes centralized.

They might turn it into food stamps. You get the amount, you have to spend it this month, or you are gonna lose it. In fact, you technically have the money, but it is not real money at all. And of course, potentially even only in state-approved stores, so the system cannot be gamed. Yeah, forget about using that money as actual money to invest, to get loans, to use it as a real resource to improve your life. That is more like scraps, so you can sustain yourself by buying basics.

Or we can introduce another way of proof of participation in economy. So, you can’t just sit on your couch and eat junk food all day. You have to do something meaningful. Who decides what meaningful is? Nobody. Or somebody. Whatever the current vibe is. Whatever the current bulk of politicians thought of today. What they define as good for society. Suddenly the dream to relax and do nothing is completely crushed by the so-called fake jobs they create in place.

Or even more, some kind of proof of spending. You not only have to spend all your allocated income, but you have to spend extra. So the economy still benefits more by you participating more in that than you gain and all that. Suddenly you are faced: you either lose because you don’t spend enough or you spend more and lose anyway. Again you are forced to make some compromise. You have been forced to play a game instead of actually leveling up your character.

One may think of many additional conditions they can create, but in fact that system has the potential to transform into something that is the base plus privileges. Before you had nothing and certain demographics got privileges like disabled people or veterans or somebody who has to get uplifted. Now you have a base, where everyone gets something basic, but uplifted only the desired ones. Who is loyal, who are working on desired communities and industries, ones who do well in the social credit, meeting the green quota, high standards and all, blah blah blah, well, you get the idea.

Suddenly the basic income is $10, but the benefits all around are like $50, which is the actual money that is useful. Here is how it works: the base stays flat for everyone, so on paper it is still "universal" – but the uplifts are where the real money lives. Loyal? Bonus. Working in the desired industry? Bonus. Good social credit, green quota met, high standards? Bonus, bonus, bonus.
Each uplift has its own committee, its own form, its own review – and each one can be tightened without ever touching the sacred $10. So the base rots into pocket change while the privileges become the actual income. You think it’s far-fetched? Consider how KPIs work today already when you have a small salary and your actual salary comes from your performance.

Think its crazy? But what else bureaucrats with control kink gonna do with their free time?

Be aware if someone tries to sell it as "universal" when in fact not:

Everyone gets it (so it seems "universal")
…but it’s like $500-800/month – not enough to live on alone
Rich people don’t care about $500
But for the poor/working class, that $500 is 25-50% of survival income
NOW the government has a lever on the vulnerable population specifically

OR like:

Sell it: "Everyone gets it, no strings!"
Implement it: technically everyone eligible
And then…

Year 2: "Just need to verify citizenship annually" (reasonable!)
Year 5: "Just answer these questions about your activities" (concerning…)
Year 10: "Social credit score below 600 = suspended pending review" (dystopia achieved)
And by Year 10, the poor are too dependent to revolt, and the rich never cared anyway.

Why UBI is different from other welfare

"How is that different from other govt functions we need to worry about so much" => UBI specifically makes everyone vulnerable – having money is a base requirement for existing! Usually that happens in a world that is either fully automated OR where markets screwed up so much there are no jobs. Then it becomes as basic a thing as having clean water access. UBI in a post-automation world becomes survival infrastructure – and whoever controls survival infrastructure has absolute power.

"Food stamps, disability, unemployment – all have conditions. Are those tyrannical too?" => Those are applied only to a small part of the population and most often temporary. UBI would affect everyone at once, if it’s true UBI and not a targeted subsidy. The point of selectiveness is still the same – once there are non-objective conditions based on ‘being a compliant citizen’ present – screwed. Even with those subsidies – you still have options; UBI would appear in the first place in an already different economy. Once UBI reaches critical mass of the population, the temptation to add behavioral conditions becomes irresistible to those in power, AND the impact is society-wide, not just marginalized groups. Universal Basic Income that’s actually universal = universal control mechanism potential.

"Why should we subsidize the lazy?!" => it’s a general UBI question, but my point is about the "U". Universal. Everyone gets it, regardless of rich/poor. Fairness for everyone, even if not everyone actually benefits from it (net contribution). I am arguing that conditional implementation actually leads to more strife and potential abuse. Real scenario – everyone gets it but it’s not enough to live on, but for the poor it may account for 25-50% of their income – that makes a large enough population to manipulate.

(the poor/vulnerable): "I NEED this $500 to survive, so I’ll comply with whatever conditions they add. Can’t risk losing it. Better not protest, better not criticize, better fill out their forms…" – Self-censorship and compliance from fear. (the rich/successful): "Wait, I’m funding this AND not getting it? That’s unfair!"

Also consider that today you are rich, tomorrow not so much. Knowing that a stable system exists with no potential to screw you allows greater risk.

You think that people would gain freedom of free time, they would suddenly care about freedom and all that, and would not let that happen. Yet look at the current elderly in pension systems. What are they doing? Who are they voting for? What are they voting for? Yes, they vote only to keep the status quo, to get more money out of the system, to have stability at the expense of everyone else’s freedom, so they can just live out their years in peace and fuck the whole world.

Independence is a myth

You think they would truly keep it universal for everyone, huh?
Today’s people are screaming "why should we support criminals and pay to keep them in prisons, let’s just execute them!" Tomorrow they’ll start crying "why should we give income to those people?" Like, those criminals, regardless of what they did, are already in prisons, they already pay for them – so why should we pay them?
Okay, some would consider what is reasonable. Like, okay, let’s exclude those people. And then the list of exclusions will grow. Now everyone who is forced to wear an ankle bracelet is also excluded. Next, anyone excluded who did not meet some standards. Anyone who is not vaccinated. Anyone who has not installed the tracking chip. Anyone who littered on the ground in the last 5 years.
The list will only grow.

Next, consider the opposite group, who would be crying that some people who, for example, are not citizens, also deserve that. And some people are even deserving more than everyone else. They start demanding privileges.
They will argue why: because these people are more exemplary than the other ones, because they did that, they deserve more.

Every state has mechanisms to support vulnerable groups, like people with disabilities, veterans, some retired government officials, some other groups that need a little boost in their life. But that is a completely separate mechanism and expect that it will bleed out into the regular one.
Or they will make it more messy than it currently is. They will make you not only prove what you deserve for these benefits, but they would claim that income replaces all of your benefits and you don’t need anything anymore.

Many nations try to make their central bank independent and isolated from regular politics, so it could not be utilized or weaponized by one or other party. And yet it still happens – they can never be truly independent and are constantly being pressured. That idea of independence is being questioned all the time. None of the banks is truly independent. None of the institutions like that could be truly independent from the whims of a government.

Well, this model is quite stable and worked well in both democratic and authoritarian states. If idiots in power were restrained and not fucking up with the banks and not making demands of them and all that, that might not always be true.
You have examples where the state did not fuck up with the central bank and they had a more stable economy or the dictatorship survived longer than necessary. And you have examples where, as a result of fucking up your banks, you have full state collapse.

A couple of examples of how dictatorships survive or fall depending on whether the bank stays independent or bends to politics.
You have Russia as an example that survives well enough exactly because there are competent people in the bank – the dictator actually listens to them. Nabiullina hiked the rate to 20% on Feb 28 2022 and slapped on capital controls, and that is why the ruble did not die on day one of sanctions and the war could be dragged out longer with the economy healthier than anyone expected. Exactly because the bank kept its independence. And you have Turkey which is completely fucking wrecked because they just print, print and print – Erdogan fired governor after governor from 2019 to 2021 for refusing to cut rates, forced the cuts anyway, and the lira logged its worst year in two decades.

Same story in Venezuela: once the bank bent to Chavez/Maduro and printed to cover politics, you get 1,000,000% inflation by 2018 and the regime survives only on repression, not on economy. Flip side is Chile: the 1989 autonomy law locked the bank away from politics, inflation fell from 27% to single digits through the 90s, and that stable money is part of why the state stayed standing through transition. Non-interference makes the regime itself stronger – interference eats it.

That foreshadows for you the future of how such a redistribution system would work and how it would actually look. And the failures it would have. But wait, here’s more. That is actually more dangerous than the bank.

Regular bank or central bank has responsibilities which may not be apparent or noticed too much by average person. They think they care most about the key rate and while it is something not everyone hears and talks about, they also provide quite a lot of services to make your economy stable. And yet it is accepted that it is almost like a black box. It is expected to operate on hard math, hard economy science, where decisions are based by numbers and not by whatever politicians currently want.
And yet we constantly see how this system has cracks and cracks and is pressured into decisions it may not like. Or actually makes decisions against its people for some ideals held by those in power who sit there already entrenched.
But still the bank operates under rather simple principles. The economic science already figured most of it and they have playbooks most of the time. What to do if the economy does this? Like you see inflation, you raise the key rate, you see it lower, you do something else. You know when you need to save one bank, or let it drown or how to sell and how much to sell to have effect on the markets.

Yes, it is an issue of their dependence, a debate, how much independence they should have, and it is already being questioned quite thoroughly.

And yet, it is not as much of a topic as regular politics. The bank is expected to operate outside of politics, to do what the economic science dictates, and nothing else.

But with a system or institution that redistributes income, that becomes the life source of thousands and millions of people, almost everyone, you could say. That would be a huge mess.

First of all, every issue becomes political. Just as with taxes, when you literally play with people’s money, and in case of basic income, you play with people’s lives, with their possibilities, whether they are gonna be living in a nice place or in a cardboard box, whether and how well they would be eating, that will quickly become the most hotly debated political issue everywhere.

You can’t abstract it as a bank under the concept that it should operate independently, because everyone would immediately have an opinion of how the money should be redistributed.

Consider how those decisions affect the lives of people more directly than a bank does. Will you raise the key rate up to 1%? Well, yeah, everyone shrugs and continues living on. Everyone just already lives under a paradigm that the bank decisions are not something one can control. It is not something one can vote for in the next elections. Not something one really complains too much about if you’re not really an economist and understand how all it works.
But how much money and under which conditions are you gonna be receiving? Thaaaaaat literally affects half of your life.
Nobody is gonna be sitting quiet when those issues are being discussed.

You would see parties form and reform with their main idea being to come take control of the redistribution institution and promise something to the people.

And I forgot the main part: the central bank has to operate with variables tied to the economy. They don’t have absolute dominion over it, they know they can only steer it, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

And yet the income redistribution system would have to operate also in the fluid, uncertain economy where there is no insurance: whether they will have money, how much they will have, whether the next economic shock is gonna hit it and potentially collapse it, or whether the good times are about to come and they can increase the amounts. That would be something much more complex than anything ever dealt with in economy, therefore it will always be up to decisions about how much the amount is and who gets what.
There is no dream that they decide everyone gets a thousand dollars every month and that’s it that is set in stone. They could make that promise, but eventually that would face the actual reality of keeping that promise. And this is where it all goes to shit.
Oh, well, even in the success case, they actually give that promise, and yet you see inflation rising, economy growing, and you start to question, well, maybe we should write it up? And again, how is decision gonna be made?

Well, you get the idea. Every attempt of central planning eventually faces thousands of issues. Except this time, that is not a boring bureaucratic issue. This is the issue that affects your life the most directly.

The managers hold your life

Your financial well-being ends up in the hands of the managers of this system. Elect the wrong guy, he is gonna fuck up everything. Nothing is independent, set in stone, solid in constitution – they are gonna make rules that violate the promise of truly unconditional and all that.

Look at the Norway Pension Fund. On paper they have a big fund with oil money, they support you, nice pensions, welfare state and all that – and yet you own none of that. All the natural resources your country has, you own none of it. All the taxes you pay, all the stuff they invest and reinvest, you own none of that. Is there a stamp in your passport meaning you are owed a share of that? They can say they do not want to pay you anymore at any point. You think you have a democracy – that makes it more dangerous. That same democracy can just vote to not pay somebody like you.

And also consider – how do you even imagine such an economy operating? All of those promises of basic income come from the future shiny fancy economy where you have AI and robots doing everything, thus creating oversupply, and where income exists only so the consumers have at least something to consume and as replacements for jobs to keep you docile.
And yet that implies that somebody will have all those means of production. Somebody will own that AI. Somebody will own all those robots. Those companies will have massive influence over everything, over politics, over your everyday life already. Because they decide what and how is built and how in what form, who gets what, who is allowed to get what and the rest.

Even if you have a better economy where there are not as many monopolies, you have up to maybe 10 to 20 players, also maybe competing and producing different things – you still have a problem: they are still paying taxes, they are donating their income, they pay from their potential profits. And they would be very interested to be able to have a say in where those taxes are going and how.

Once a company becomes the backbone of your economy, you lose the ability to say no and fuck off and just force them to pay taxes with a shotgun up their ass.
We already have precedent with Big Tech formatting the infospace, with many industrial companies forming industrial towns. You have banks that became monopolies, that became pillars of your economy and you have many others. Every kind of monopoly, whether true big one or localized one will always be somebody who wants to have a say.

And don’t presume that they would not care that they can just pay taxes and forget about it because that is just for all the people, for all the economy, so economy is healthy, and that if everyone is rich, they are going to profit too, blah, blah, blah. No, not that simple. Because they are paying taxes. So the same people who would be receiving that would be able to spend back on them.
They are funding the general churn and healthiness and all that.

The dream of a big pot everyone eats from would soon become destroyed by the actual queue around that pot.

Why start the fight? Well, yeah. I think my town should get more of this income, so the same people will be spending around my services. Or this particular demographic is actually benefiting my luxury business, so I would say they should also get more.
Those are just isolated cases. Imagine if they start forming cartels around how they should shape the economy by deciding what they produce and not what to produce. And consider how the monopolies could backfire again onto each other by creating another monoculture where technically you have everything produced, everything accessible, income is great, and yet the choice is actually shitty and limited.
And all the goods are only in price ranges way out of what this income allows you to have.

And imagine if that is successful and all that, and everyone is financially solid enough to pay taxes and your economy is sustainable with such income. Consider that the companies who now own the means of production become the golden geese. You can’t just fuck with them as easily. But that is more. The very same people who are benefiting from those companies being taxed would become protectors of them. And that means that these companies can do whatever the fuck they want because they know they hold the public hostage. If they stop paying, everyone is fucked. Therefore, they can do whatever they want. To some extent, yes, they cannot just do something completely crazy that would destroy their own position and commit financial suicide, but still, the thousands of political choices and influences lie right here. You would see the public protecting the dependency instantly.

Your best strategy is not to trust it from day one

Now, before I cited the central bank as an example of our average citizen, the black box, which works and does something, it has an effect, and you just have to adapt to it and work around whatever decisions they make, because you cannot vote, you cannot tell them, you cannot do your own independent analysis of the economy, because you lack the data and capability to do so.

So you treat the bank as almost a hostile entity, that does something that affects your life for you or against you depending on the circumstances. And you just treat them "as another shit a government is doing again."

So, when you would have this proposal to have UBI, your best strategy is to follow with the very same vibe. To consider that all this crap is temporary, that it’s gonna be taken away, that it’s not forever, that they are gonna fuck it up eventually and so on.
And how do you expect this system to be well developed, protected, well thought out, when the strategy of every individual is to distrust it immediately and see it like a temporary bonus and not something for a long time?
The bootstrap problem here is thrice as complex and there are also many more ways to fuck it up that will lead to tyranny.

Assume from day one the fund is run by idiots who will pick state stability over your well-being. That is why you distrust it.

Welp, I started with the idea that the good example of basic income would honor the universal in the most absolute sense. Else it would not be universal and become the point of strife. Here I try to explore how it can fail in multiple ways and could never be universal and unconditional.
Please remember it when they try to talk about or try to implement it in the next 5 or 10 years.