Basic Income from Wikipedia: An basic income is a form of social security system in which all citizens of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money from the government to cover their basic needs: food, shelter and health insurance for them and their loved ones.
It goes against the cultural grain, especially the US self-made ethos, to give money without someone having worked for it: “People are lazy and they will just sit at home and watch TV!”
What if it is an investment? An investment into us. An investment that frees us up to make the best out of our lives.
The Venture Capital model works, because they spread their risk over many many StartUps. Most don’t succeed, and the ones that do, make up for the loss of the others.
Basic Innovation Income would be very similar. By giving all citizens money to tinker, we spread our risk and the successes of our collective tinkering will ideally bring in the money to pay for it.
Value in a society is much much more than the goods and services that we create. Big benefits are derived from strengthening our social fabric: neighbors helping each other out; sick people being cared for; kids finishing school; fewer teen pregnancies …
The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend APFD) is like a partial Basic Income. Every citizen of Alaska gets a certain amount of money every month. A recent study showed that the APFD has a positive impact on birth weights of newborns.
If our basic needs are taken care of, we would collectively have time to care for ourselves, for our family, neighbors, the world.
The big opportunity is that we all start to do our little part to improve us and the world around us. How can we set up a system that would nudge us into doing exactly that?
We could collectively agree to share at least one thing every month when we receive our Basic Innovation Income. It could be something that helped us to be a better person, one recipe that created yummy food, one joke that made us smile.
Basic Innovation Income is an investment that we are paying all of us as the foundation for all of us to come fully alive and thrive.