In an evolutionary perspective, the point behind organizing as a society is to improve our chances of survival and to thrive as a species, among other things. We are all individually able to accomplish much more and live comfortably as part of an organized society than if we were to live independently. What we can afford as a society is directly proportional to what we create as a society, so its important that people create things, whether it might be material, ideological or scientific. Assuming that we are motivated to create whatever we create as a society, how can we distribute it to individuals? One way of going about it is to distribute everything equally, which is the socialist way of doing things. No matter what are the contributions of an individual, resources generated by the society are shared equally, more or less. This can only work if individuals in society meet high ethical standards and continue to work and make progress. Another approach to this problem of distributing wealth is to link it to an individual’s contributions to the society. If an individual provides more valuable services, she gets to enjoy more benefits from the society. But who decides what is valuable and what isn’t? Society does. This is the Capitalist approach.

The whole idea of distribution comes into play because irrespective of what we produce, it comes from natural resources that we all have fundamental right over. As long as the effort necessary to provide services are within an order of magnitude of how society values those services, Capitalist approach seems fair and reasonable. However, when machines come into play, it introduces an unfair advantage to individuals who are capable of inventing and employing those machines to task at their hand. They extract more by putting in less effort over time. However, given that everyone gets to enjoy the benefits of automation, this works out well for everybody up to a certain extent. But what if we employ automation for everything? We can produce enough to meet everyone’s needs but automation doesn’t require as many people, so what value can individuals provide that allow them to afford these services? If they cannot, what’s the point of automating a service, if no one can afford that service?

One obvious approach to this problem is to become a socialist society where everyone gets to equally enjoy all the riches of the society without doing any work. In that case, what would motivate someone to work and push society forward? If this is the most progress we can make as a species or as a society, then we can call it a day for progress and choose this option, but that doesn’t seem like the case. So how can we enable everyone to afford these services and still have some motivation to progress? What if we give everyone some money just for being part of the society? It will encompass the best of both socialist and capitalist worlds and avoids above mentioned pitfalls. Basic income enables everyone to afford enough to live but still gives them some motivation to work. The society still works under capitalist philosophy.

If they can afford basic livelihood, would there be anyone working? Sure. Just like people still go out and drink coffee, even though their company provides them for free, there would still be people who will be looking out for something more than what basic income affords them. The key is to provide enough for small portion of population to get out of workforce, so that everyone who wants to have a job, has a job. Unlike giving out services for free, giving money ensures that people still have a choice on how to lead their lives. It also removes the chances of inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy handling the provision of those basic services. And the best of all, we don’t have to worry about automation anymore, as everyone’s livelihood is no longer tied towards their work. It’s a win-win situation for everybody.