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The idea of giving people free money is so radical, even some recipients think it's too good to be true.
Later this year, roughly 6,000 people in Kenya will receive regular monthly payments of about a dollar a day, no strings attached, as part of a policy experiment commonly known as basic income.
People will get to use the money for whatever they want: food, clothing, shelter, gambling, alcohol — anything — all in an effort to reduce poverty.
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But instead of accepting the cash transfers with open arms, many Kenyans have recently been saying "No, thank you." It's a legitimate concern: As GiveDirectly moves into its larger basic income experiment, the last thing it wants is for people to turn down the money.
Basic Income is a concept often mentioned on SN, and this is an experiment to do exactly that. Many potential recipients of the basic income are skeptical about the goals of the experiment, though, and rumors have arisen that it's tied to a cult or devil worship.
Opponents of such wealth transfers argue they lead to indolence, while another school of thought believes they would reduce poverty and directly produce economic stimulus because the poor would immediately spend the money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:11AM
It works well for the rich.
Automated production, control of resources, high recycling = pure profit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:29AM
Miss the point! Miss it!
Totalitarianism works for the ruling class, too, until it doesn't. The USSR didn't even last a century before it collapsed.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:28AM
The USSR came under military attack at its inception.
http://www.criticalenquiry.org/history/polarbear.shtml [criticalenquiry.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War [wikipedia.org]
Later, it was able to repel the Germans--and enlarge its territory in the process. Then it spent decades in a costly arms race with NATO--and flew Buran, an automated, reusable spacecraft in the process.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:34AM
> It works well for the rich.
For a while.
Long term they are going to need to figure out how to automate police oppression.
They are working on it though: software based sentencing [propublica.org], predictive policing [mic.com], etc)