The UN Declaration of Human Rights states that we all have fundamental human rights. These include rights to life, a decent standard of living, and security in hard times. If we agree that we all have these rights, isn't it time we did something to secure them? A world basic income could be an effective and efficient way of making sure everyone has the basics covered.
World inequality is out of control, and few mechanisms exist to tackle it. Meanwhile, many of the things we all need for life simply exist, like land, water and natural resources. As no one had to work to create these things, it seems sensible to believe that every person in the world has a right to share in any money made from their use. If this income was distributed to all, worldwide, unconditionally, this would be a world basic income.
Poverty today is unnecessary and deeply unjust. The world produces enough food to feed everyone, has enough space to house us all, and the world’s factories and workers could keep us all abundantly supplied with goods of all kinds. The problem is that the world’s money ends up in the wrong places, leaving many people with not enough to buy what they need. World basic income provides a direct mechanism for getting money from the wrong places to the right places, which would go a long way towards relieving and eventually abolishing income poverty.
Machines and computers are now so advanced that we can produce most of what we need using hardly any human workers. The money we spend on the things we need mostly ends up with the people that own machines - factory owners, app designers, company shareholders. But if they hardly need any workers, how can we earn a share of it back, so we can spend it again? Without opportunities to earn money through work, most people would soon become destitute, while the economy may grind to a halt for lack of customers. Basic income gets money back into people's pockets, so they can live and the economy keeps rolling.
