The Problems

Over 25,000 human beings die each and every day as the result of poverty and starvation.  The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US $1/day.  Moderate poverty is defined as living on less than US $2/day.  There are currently over 1.1 billion people living below the extreme poverty level, and 2.7 billion people living below the moderate poverty level.  For most of these people, jobs are scarce or pay only what amounts to slave wages.  For them, a very substantial living income would be only $10/day.  That would be enough to pay for food, clothing, shelter, medicine, water, and education.  Just raising their income to this modest level would begin transforming theirs from undeveloped nations into developing ones.  A large number of social scientists and economists, including multiple Nobel Prize-winners, have analysed the issue of poverty and unemployment at great depth and have concluded that the simplest and most efficient solution is to completely replace the existing hodgepodge of international aid programs, domestic welfare programs, and paltry voluntary poverty relief efforts with an Unconditional Basic Income to be provided directly to the poor, without intermediaries. This obvious solution has not been achieved because there has never before been sufficient infrastructure to facilitate it, and there has been a strong lack of political will to provide the resources. Fiscally conservative Americans are particularly unwilling to redistribute wealth in this way. However, if current economic and technological trends continue, those same Americans may eventually be forced to require just such a redistribution of wealth for their own self-interest and welfare. Soon there may be an opportunity to reconsider the whole issue of resolving poverty and unemployment on a global scale. In the end, its our game. We can change the rules any time we want if most of us can come together and agree on a better way.

Figure 1 (These are the current rates of mortality due to poverty according to the World Health Organization)

Possible Scenarios

World War II and the Cold War left Americans with a strong visceral hatred of Communism and Socialism as practiced in Germany, the Soviet Union, Cuba, China and elsewhere.  These nations included totalitarian leadership and little freedom and democracy for the citizens and their markets. America's leaders have been fervent champions of Capitalism and more recently unfettered free trade. Ideas and policies considered to be too "socialist" have been met with fear and loathing as an automatic reflexive response to years of conditioning. However, capitalism as practiced today in the United States is beginning to fail the middle class as a result of globalization and corporate consolidation. The great masses of middle class capitalists are finally running out of capital. This is evidenced by America's $12 trillion national debt, massive growing budget deficits, rising unemployment and recent near catastrophic banking crisis. This is not due to a lack of initiative, entrepreneurial spirit and creativity, but instead is the result of many entrepreneurs outsourcing their manufacturing to other nations rather than paying the much higher middle class wages in America. If they hired Americans and paid middle class wages, their products would be too expensive to compete globally and with foreign imports. There is nothing morally wrong, unpatriotic or illogical here from a common sense business perspective, as consumers clearly prefer lower prices over "Made in the USA." However, over the long haul it has finally become apparent that this globalization could spell the end of the quality of life to which Americans have become accustomed in recent history. The U.S. is quite literally running out of productive jobs, money and credit in spite of much cheaper consumer goods. While it was once highly improbable that America would see massive widespread unemployment, that stark scenario is becoming more likely. In the event that this economic collapse occurs, we will need to embrace some economic policies more similar to democratic socialism than most conservative Americans are comfortable considering at this time.

The fact that the U.S. economy is still functioning today is largely a result of the help of China, a Communist state with 1.3 billion people. But that source of seemingly endless support is drying up.   A complete economic collapse is being averted only by the private and secretive Federal Reserve Banks printing unimaginable amounts of currency, which they are lending to the government with interest, which is then lending it interest-free to some of the nation's most mismanaged and greedy corporations, with no formal strings attached and little accountability.  Much of this bail-out money is now unaccounted for and lost to history. The too-big-to-fail banks in turn lend it at usurious rates back to the citizens so they can stay trapped in credit card debt that pays for goods and services mostly imported from other nations. So most of the money ultimately leaves the United States, but the citizens and their future offspring are then held responsible for paying back the private Federal Reserve Banks that printed it out of thin air in the first place. Do the math. Follow the money. Something is very wrong with this picture.

More and More Automation, Fewer and Fewer Productive Jobs

Automation is a good thing. But it eliminates jobs. In the near future, our machines and computers will have biological precision, and we will finally achieve the science fiction dream of having our creations perform our work. However, our economies are not prepared for such widespread unemployment. Throughout history, our lives have revolved around us working hard just to survive. Those who didn't have jobs were left to fend for themselves. But what do you do in an age of material abundance when all practical needs can be satisfied but earnings are so scarce that only a few can share this abundance? It may be time for the U.S. to begin considering alternatives to pure capitalism.  We may need to embrace an economic system that includes an unconditional Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) to all citizens regardless of employment status, so that everyone can participate. In this new way of doing things, we will need to create our identities based on something other than our value as productive workers.

Figure 3 (Exponential Rate of Growth in Computing Power.  Source: http://singularity.com/charts/page70.html)

This paper proposes that instead of waiting for the level of automation that nanotechnology will bring which will force us to create this social safety net during a state of panic and upheaval, we should address these issues wholistically as soon as possible on a global scale, by starting with the poorest populations, as it will have immediate benefits to all of humanity.  The root causes of many of Our World's  most urgent problems (overpopulation, widespread disease in undeveloped nations, mass starvation, and violent religious extremism) are poverty and ignorance.  Both of these core causal factors can be addressed most efficiently by providing the poor and unemployed with unconditional incomes. Literally, money for nothing (except maintaining existing markets and consumers, creating new markets and consumers, and providing a much needed humanitarian solution to the most serious and urgent problems).

Why Now, When Never Before?

In the past, before the world was so connected, Americans didn't need to worry themselves with the plight of the poor on the other sides of the planet. The tragedies occurring in distant lands were not issues of immediate importance. However, with modern travel and electronic communication, and the globalization of markets, we are all interlinked now as never before. This reality hit home harder than every when foreign nationals committed acts of terrorism in the U.S. that were so devastating they significantly change the course of history and will be impossible to forget. The American public has been led to believe through government propaganda that this terrorism is the result of religious extremism and the cultural differences between Christianity and Islam. This may be partially true, but is not the whole truth. There is a deeper reason that so many young Muslim men are turning to fundamentalist hatred, and that is the financial inequality between America and the rest of the world. In the final analysis, the real root cause of terrorism is poverty and political policies that reinforce economic injustice (and outdated belief systems).

Americans will spend an estimated $1.5 trillion dollars fighting the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq, which were wars of choice launched hastily in the name of "national security" with little forethought in response to the murder of 3000 Americans. This amount of dollars is on such a large scale that it is difficult to fathom. To make it more comprehensible and concrete, imagine that same amount of money being used to provide a $10/day Basic Income Guarantee for over 400 million people for a full year. Clearly, if the battle really is for hearts and minds, this sort of expenditure to help the poor would have won more good will around the world than have these destructive wars and subsequent failed attempts at nation building. It would also create new emerging markets and consumers. But most Americans would never even consider contributing to a Basic Income Guarantee for others until they themselves are forced into poverty by circumstances of history. That time may come sooner than later.

The Historical Debate over Solutions to Poverty

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. devoted an entire chapter to the subject of a basic income guarantee in his final book, "Where do we go from here?" (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).  He was working to convince the establishment of his time that the issue of poverty is not a racial one, but is universal, and that the public values towards the poor were misguided.  He wrote, "I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective--the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income." 

Reverend King was a very practical man.  He explained the problem in simple terms:

 "We have come to the point where we must make the non-producer a consumer or we will find ourselves drowning in a sea of consumer goods. We have so energetically mastered production that we now must give attention to distribution. Though there have been increases in purchasing power, they have lagged behind increases in production. Those at the lowest economic level, the poor white and Negro, the aged and chronically ill, are traditionally unorganized and therefore have little ability to force the necessary growth in their income. They stagnate or become even poorer in relation to the larger society."

"The problem indicates that our emphasis must be two-fold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available."

In these statements King was directly addressing the counter arguments to his basic income guarantee proposal.  The first argument is the well-known Republican and Libertarian anti-taxation stance: coercive taxation by the government for social programs is unfair and unconstitutional, and ineffective. They feel that the private sector is more effective at delivering services.  For example, recently the Libertarian U.S. Representative Ron Paul wrote, "no one can deny that welfare programs have undermined America's moral fabric and constitutional system. Therefore, all those concerned with restoring liberty and protecting civil society from the maw of the omnipotent state should support efforts to eliminate the welfare state, or, at the very least, reduce federal control over the provision of social services." The anti-taxation side claims that giving money to the poor is an unfair drain on the productive that rewards the lazy, and that the productive do not receive any benefits in return for their sacrifice.  Many religious conservatives argue that from the Christian standpoint, charity is an act of giving that God wants to be of a person's own volition as a measure of their beneficence and determinant factor in the reward or punishment they receive in the afterlife. 

King addressed the financial reciprocity issue by pointing out that money provided for the poor was not being thrown away into a bottomless pit, but rather was being immediately channeled back to the producers, since the poor would become new consumers of goods and services.  Because the poor need to spend proportionally larger amounts of their money just in order to survive, this money is actually being used very directly and effectively to stimulate the whole economy, and is far from wasted.  The irrational conservative Christian belief that God needs charity to be voluntary in order to measure a person's goodness is simply not logical and can't be countered rationally except by using some competing form of dogma that substitutes one set of unknowable conditions with another.

Other arguments implied that the poor were morally inferior to the working class, due to their lack of character.  The welfare philosophies of that time, as they are still, were based in a large part on the on belief that the "character" or moral fiber of the poor could be improved, since its absence seemingly results from, as King states,  "multiple evils: lack of education restricting job opportunities; poor housing which stultified home life and suppressed initiative; and fragile family relationships which distorted personality development."  These different apparent causes were, and are still are, being addressed separately.  There are programs to improve housing, programs to improve education facilities, and programs to provide family counseling services.  There are unemployment programs that encourage people to regularly seek work in order to continue receiving conditional benefits.  The operating theory is that by correcting these contributing factors, the poor will adopt better values, be more  motivated to work, and be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to become productive members of the society.  Unfortunately, by dealing with all of these issues indirectly through a plethora of inefficient bureaucracies, the desired solutions never reach the poorest of the poor, who are the ones most in need.  These approaches all end up failing because they are indirect strategies filled with red tape and administrative overhead.  On this point, the Libertarians and Republicans are correct, government is horribly wasteful and slow.  Modern thinkers with much more training in economics than Rev. King have come to the same conclusions as King.  In the final analysis, the best approach is to provide an unconditional direct income payment. They have advanced and extended their theories to include all of humanity, not just the American poor. 

The Intelligent Solution (In the past would have been...)

James Meade, a longtime BIG advocate who won the Nobel in 1977, commented on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, the primary architect of the modern Western "Keynesian" economic system.  He said we must approach the "economic-social-political-environmental problems of our time" as a whole that involves the entire planet, and not just nations.  We need to think on a much larger scale than we are used to.  Meade emphasizes that it is absolutely urgent that we push to create a system of global federalism at all levels, from the local on up.  He argues that we need a single world currency and a mechanism for worldwide public finance, including the basic income to every man, woman, and child.  He says this is absolutely necessary if we are really serious about eliminating poverty, preserving peace, and maintaining a healthy environment.  He emphasizes that this task of changing our public discourse is momentous, but necessary.  We have all been indoctrinated by our systems to identify first with our nations.  We must begin thinking on a higher level and start changing our loyalties.  Our planet depends on this, according to Meade.

Perhaps the internet will evolve into such a mechanism for worldwide public finance?

Conclusion

Times have changed a lot since the days of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. We have made tremendous social progress. However, we have not yet found a way to end poverty and starvation that is acceptible to the majority of U.S. citizens. One major obstacle has been the inefficiency and corruption of governments. In America, we have just experienced a near total collapse of the economy, averted only by printing money and giving it directly to the richest of the rich: the largest corporate banks. Many Americans are now questioning the soundness of unfettered capitalism and outrageous executive pay. Millions of people have voted for more progressive policies, including significant increases in public funding of healthcare and education. Yet in spite of what a clear majority of American citizens support, we are seeing the lack of true representation in the U.S. Congress. The fear mongers are making loud cries and protests that "Socialism," the great Cold War Evil, is on the rise. However, if for no other reason than pure self-interest, Americans may soon need to change their attitudes about the distribution of wealth and shared social responsibility. We have a new enabling tool at our disposal: The Internet. Maybe it's time to begin considering alternative forms of representative democracy, as well as a new more efficient medium of exchange. It's time to Think BIG.

Biography

Ken Meyering is a 43-year old undergraduate student in the United States. He is currently learning the computer technologies that he will use to develop this website into a large scale cloud computing application which collects and serves multimedia content in most of the Earth's human languages, while providing free web-based "show and tell" language training to help improve the rate at which we communicate across cultures. He can be reached via e-mail at: feedback4 (at) define (dot) com.

Annotated Bibliography

The World Health Report 2008. Geneva, Switzerland: The World Health Organization, 2008. Print.

            This is the annual World Health Report from the World Health Organization. This report contains statistics about world health issues, such as mortality rates and causes of death.

"Factsheet: Global Financial Crisis and Impact on Developing Countries." Global Monitoring Report 2009. 2009. The World Bank. 5 Jun 2009

            This is a summary by The World Bank of how the current global financial crisis is affecting the developing nations of the world. 

Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. 1. New York: Viking Press, 2005. Print.

Dr. Kurzweil explorers the historical rates of progress for intelligent life. He shares graphs and statistics showing the timeline of human evolution and human technology, and demonstrates that the progress is exponential. When combining this with Moore's Law, the observation by Intel cofounder Gordon Moore that computers double their power every 18 months, Kurzweil hypothesizes that it is very likely that we will have computers with more intelligence than all the people on earth combined within our lifetimes. With this level of artificial intelligence, the machines should be able to solve the engineering problems that are beyond human abilities now, which will ignite an ever accelerating advancement.

"The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: Final Words of Advice. " New Pittsburgh Courier [Pittsburgh, Pa.] 16 Jan. 1999, City Edition: C5. Ethnic New swatch (ENW). ProQuest. HCC Library, Des Moines, WA. 28 Apr. 2009 <http://moe.ic.highline.edu:2096/>

            This article reminds us that in Martin Luther King's final book, "Where do we go from here?" he devotes an entire chapter to the Basic Income Guarantee. He reminds us that there are twice as many poor whites as blacks, so this is not simply a race issue. An income guarantee would be the simplest approach to ending poverty, as efforts to fight it by addressing its many independent contributing causes have been mired in bureaucracy and have been unsuccessful. We have improved education and housing, and provided counseling to the poor, but poverty has not gone away. King was convinced that ultimately, the most direct approach would be the most effective. Turning the nonproductive into consumers by providing them with a guaranteed income would drive demand, which would keep up with high production.

Sean Butler. (2005, July). 'Life, Liberty and a Little Bit of Cash'. Dissent, 52(3), 41-47. Retrieved April 27, 2009, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 873720221).

            The author discusses the idea of a basic income guarantee and suggests that it would actually be highly beneficial to capitalism. He mentions the stories of some of the early proponents of the idea, and how Alaskans already receive part of the State's oil wealth through the Alaska Permanent Fund and support the idea. He states that unlike unsuccessful programs in pre-1989 communist states, the income should be guaranteed to all citizens regardless of their wealth.

Karl Widerquist. . "Rereading Keynes: Economic Possibilities of Our Grandparents. " Dissent 1 Jan. 2006: 85-87. Research Library. ProQuest. HCC Library, Des Moines, WA. 28 Apr. 2009 <http://moe.ic.highline.edu:2096/>

            The author explores some of the ideas of the famous economist John Maynard Keynes(father of Keynesian Economics). He mentions how during the depression, it was expected that future generations would need to work less and less, however, it has turned out to be the other way around. Keynes, the most influential economist of the 20th century, predicted in 1930 that the average living standards in the US and Europe would be 4-8 times greater in a hundred years. He was right. The real income in the US is five times greater now than in the Depression. His theory predicted that economic productivity would continue to rise dramatically, and that humanity would grow beyond the struggle for existence. This would ultimately result in our being devoted to finding ways to spend our abundance of leisure time. He guessed that the little work that was left would be spread out through the whole society, and that the work week would only be 15 hours. However, this turned out to be incorrect.

Rifkin, Jeremy . The End of Work. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995. Print.

            This book is reviewed by political activist Roedy Green. The book is based on the simple premise that ultimately machines will replace many human workers, and that the profits will go 100% to the owners of the machines, and none to the workers who have lost the jobs. With nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, this trend will continue for white collar intellectual jobs. The author explores some of the potential social alternatives if this scenario plays out. The short term solution is to reduce the work week from 5 days to 4, thereby increasing the number of people employed. One of the proposed long term solutions is to provide a basic income guarantee to all. Rifkin suggests that the widespread loss of work can spell the end to civilization as we know it, or it can signal the beginning of positive social transformation.

Frankman, Myron J.. . "A Planet-Wide Citizen's Income: An Espousal. " Labour Capital and Society 37.1&2 (2004): 150. Alt-Press Watch (APW). ProQuest. HCC Library, Des Moines, WA. 14 Apr. 2009 <http://www.proquest.com/>

            Globalization has resulted in the increasing dismantlement of the social safety net in the U.S.. There has been a relentless effort to label the social programs as enabling a "race to the bottom." Frankman believes that we must look at the world problems of poverty as a whole and solve it through a planet-wide Basic Income Guarantee. He also supports a single world currency and a system of public finance. This will be extremely difficult, since we have been systematically conditioned to think nationally rather than globally. We need to have a "Declaration of Interdependence." Statistics show that the ratio of income distribution between the richest 20% of nations and poorest 20% is growing alarmingly. It was 3:1 in 1820, and 74:1 in 1997. For a global BIG to work, we need to begin to think about redirecting trillions of dollars from richer to the poorer nations, rather than billions. Up to $6 trillion could be collected by eliminating international tax havens. We must begin immediately.

Paul, Rep. Ron. "Oppose the Federal Welfare State." LewRockwell.com. 13 Feb 2003. U.S. House of Representatives. 5 Jun 2009 <http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul80.html>.

            Ron Paul is a leading Libertarian politician who opposes all taxation and government programs.  He believes that the private sector should be held responsible for everything except for defense.  He has consistently opposed all welfare programs, and has fought to eliminate them.

Useful Links

Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network