Book Review.- Give People Money
HOW UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME WOULD END POVERTY, REVOLUTIONIZE WORK, AND REMAKE THE WORLD
Author: Annie Lowrey
Pages: 288
Year: June 10th, 2018
In Brief: A short book (200 pages, the rest just notes for further review) that makes a recount of small scale application of “Universal Basic Income” (UBI) programs around the globe showing the ins and outs/advantage and disadvantages, making the case for full-scale implementation of UBI as the best response to address poverty, inequality and the coming automation revolution in almost all industries.
In detail: The main argument that the author wants to make, continuously in all chapters, is that people know way better how to use money -especially supplemental income as UBI- for their own benefit than any government agency, NGO, and/or group of experts; which goes against the existing paradigm which assumes that people with limited income or abject poverty is not sophisticated enough to make money decisions for their betterment. The book makes the case with different examples from India, Brazil, and Africa which shows that many of the government/NGO programs that provide certain goods like foods or services like small loans with certain caps (like how many food stamps per person or how much money according to family size, etc) are wasteful in terms of scope and usually underutilized with limited results compared with UBI programs in which people are fully in control on how much or what their resources would be used.
Another argument frequently used against UBI programs, especially looking at the expected behavior of poor people, is that giving people money without any kind of attachment would be wasteful since there would be no incentive for people to find a job or change their living conditions for the better; the fear is that giving poor people money they would become completely dependent of the UBI, becoming a permanent burden, never looking for work or becoming productive, never willing to improve their standard of living. The book instead shows time and time again the opposite; people that receive the UBI continue to look for a job, and once they got one, they use the UBI as seed capital for small business pushing to have a better income and use the UBI as working capital for the new endeavor to cover basic needs; in short, poor people with UBI become small business owners in a very short period of time in almost all cases which is incredible by itself but shows how deep the bias exist against people living in poverty.
The examples described in the book are really interesting and encouraging; makes a good argument than instead of provide economic relief to people in need via different targeted/goal-oriented programs, just give people money -a meaningful amount enough to live comfortable with UBI and let people’s creativity to find their own way for their betterment and let them with their own will defeat poverty for good.
With Regards
Gunther Sotomayor
