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People doing regular work have to do physical labour, cognitive labour, emotional labour. People getting welfare or charity generally still have to, at minimum,
by JulianMorrison 11y ago
People doing regular work have to do physical labour, cognitive labour, emotional labour. People getting welfare or charity generally still have to, at minimum, do emotional labour, looking suitably pitiful before the handout and then suitably grateful after. And often physical and cognitive labour as well, filling in forms, schlepping to mandatory signing-on, etc. This is why welfare is demotivating. People reasonably feel they have already done the work, they as feel drained as if they were in a job. They know that if they don't do the things, the welfare vanishes.
Whether it's a job or welfare, everyone in our current system is scrabbling. And so everyone is stuck in a scarcity mindset.
Basic income is different. There is no scrabbling needed, not even emotional work, it just arrives. And so I expect that will flip people from a scarcity mindset to a leisure mindset. They won't be slacking, because slacking is a way of scrabbling. They'll want to do something, although without the need for a day job any more, that might be more towards the creative side. Some will "retire" on BI and write their novel or go back to university. Others will want to work to make more than the BI.
Expect a period of labour shortage, manufacturing turning to robots in reaction, a surge of cultural product such as has never been seen, and mass education with a broadening of the scope of people's interest into "blue sky" non employable fields.