Every second, the world prints 4,755 banknotes, turning your savings into colorful wastepaper, and it's precisely at this moment that politicians are seriously discussing the idea of giving money to everyone—simply for existing.
Imagine a world where you get paid for breathing. Not for work, not for talent, not for effort—just for the fact that your heart continues to beat. Sounds like utopia? Or like a recipe for economic catastrophe? Universal Basic Income—this idea that some call the greatest social experiment in human history, while others call collective madness sweeping the planet.
We live in an era when artificial intelligence writes articles, robots assemble cars, and algorithms trade on exchanges faster than you can blink. Millions of jobs are evaporating like morning mist, and nobody really knows what to do with armies of unemployed. UBI is presented as a magic pill for all ailments—but could this medicine prove worse than the disease?
Utopia on Salary: A Brief History of a Crazy Idea
The idea of paying people just because—it's not an invention of modern leftists or Silicon Valley technocrats. This concept is older than you think, and its pedigree is impressively eccentric.
As early as the 16th century, Thomas More in his "Utopia" dreamed of a society where no one goes hungry. Two centuries later, American revolutionary Thomas Paine proposed paying every citizen a "ground rent"—compensation for the wealthy appropriating common natural resources. Even Milton Friedman—icon of libertarianism and enemy of government intervention—promoted the idea of a "negative income tax," which is essentially UBI in disguise.
But the real renaissance of this idea began in the 21st century. Finland experimented, Kenya distributed money to villages, Alaska has been paying residents dividends from oil revenues for decades. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and other tech billionaires suddenly became concerned with the fate of ordinary mortals—the very same people whose companies are most actively destroying traditional jobs.
The irony is so thick you could spread it on bread. The creators of robots that will replace cashiers, drivers, and accountants are now telling us about the necessity of a social safety net. Nobility? Or fear of mobs of unemployed with pitchforks?
Paradise for Idlers or Salvation of Humanity?
UBI defenders paint a picture so rosy you want to put on sunglasses. Listen to their arguments—they sound almost convincing.
Creative freedom—that's the main trump card of unconditional income apologists. When a person doesn't need to work three jobs to make ends meet, they can write novels, invent perpetual motion machines, or simply spend time with their children. Sounds beautiful? Absolutely. But let's dig deeper.
Experiments show: when people are given a guaranteed income, they don't all turn into recumbent philosophers. The Finnish experiment demonstrated that participants felt happier, got sick less often, and—surprise!—many continued looking for work. Turns out, humans need not just bread, but meaning.
The bureaucratic guillotine—another argument hard to dismiss. Modern social assistance systems are Frankenstein's monsters of thousands of programs, forms, checks, and officials. UBI promises to replace this entire circus with a single simple transfer to a bank card. No humiliating interrogations, no "prove you're poor enough."
UBI devotees also point to unpaid labor: mothers caring for children, volunteers, people looking after elderly parents—they all work, but society pretends their contribution doesn't exist. Basic income acknowledges that a person's value isn't measured solely by their pay stub.
Economic Armageddon in Pretty Packaging
Now let's remove the rose-colored glasses and look at the flip side of the coin—the one UBI enthusiasts prefer not to notice.
The first and main question everyone dodges: where's the money coming from? Simple arithmetic: if you pay every adult US citizen just $1,000 a month, it costs $3 trillion annually. For comparison—the entire federal budget is about $6 trillion. Where do you get such sums? Print them? We've already seen where uncontrolled emission leads—inflation devours savings faster than you can spend them.
"Tax the rich!" populists cry. Great idea that shatters against harsh reality: the wealthy have armies of lawyers and accountants capable of hiding capital in offshore havens faster than you can say "progressive taxation." Attempts to corner capital usually end with its flight from the country.
Critics also point to the inflationary spiral. If everyone gets $1,000, landlords will immediately raise rent—by exactly $1,000. Sellers of goods and services will do likewise. In the end, basic income transforms into an inflation tax on those who continue working. Money loses purchasing power, and we end up where we started—only with an even bigger mountain of government debt.
And finally, the moral argument: is it fair that a person unwilling to work by choice receives the same money as a single mother juggling three jobs? UBI equalizes everyone—and this doesn't always look like equality of opportunity. Sometimes it looks like a reward for idleness.
Robots Are Taking Jobs—Who Will Pay the Bills?
Here we come to the most interesting part. The Fourth Industrial Revolution isn't a futurologist's horror story but a reality unfolding right now. Artificial intelligence already writes legal documents, diagnoses diseases, and even creates art. In ten years, autonomous trucks will leave millions of truckers jobless. Cashiers, accountants, translators—professions vanishing before our eyes.
An Oxford study predicts that 47% of jobs in developed countries could be automated within the next two decades. And here a fundamental question arises: if robots produce goods and services but people don't work—who will buy these goods? The economic paradox: companies increase profits through automation while simultaneously destroying consumer demand.
UBI in this context looks not like a handout to slackers but as a mechanism for redistributing wealth created by machines. If robots belong to corporations and corporations don't pay taxes—society gets technological feudalism. A small group of automated production owners swimming in gold, everyone else—in poverty.
However, skeptics remind us: every industrial revolution created more jobs than it destroyed. Weavers cursed mechanical looms, coachmen—automobiles, typists—computers. And every time humanity adapted. Perhaps the current panic is just another bout of technophobia?
The Inflation Trap: When Money Turns to Confetti
Here we've reached the elephant in the room. All UBI discussions hit one simple question: what backs this money?
Global government debt has exceeded $100 trillion. Central banks print currency with the enthusiasm of a teenager who discovered video game cheats. The dollar has lost over 96% of its purchasing power since the Federal Reserve was created. And under these conditions, we're offered to distribute even more unbacked money?
History teaches a merciless lesson: when governments try to solve economic problems with the printing press, it ends in hyperinflation. The Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, Venezuela—examples of how quickly money turns into wallpaper. UBI financed by emission is a road to the same abyss, just with prettier slogans.
Fiat currencies are a government promise, and that promise grows less convincing with each passing year. When your dollar or euro depreciates by 7-10% annually, a basic income of $1,000 transforms into $600 of real purchasing power in five years. You're not getting richer—you're just running in place while inflation eats away at your "guaranteed" payments.
The Philosophy of Laziness or Reimagining Work?
Behind all the economic calculations lurks a deeper question: what is work and what place does it occupy in human life?
The Protestant ethic, dominant for the past five hundred years, teaches us: labor is a virtue, idleness—a sin. We define ourselves through profession. "What do you do?"—the first question upon meeting someone. Our identity is welded to our workplace.
But what if this paradigm is obsolete? Ancient Greeks considered labor—especially physical—the lot of slaves. A free person should engage in philosophy, politics, art. Perhaps automation will finally free us from Adam's curse—earning bread by the sweat of our brow?
Or the opposite: a person deprived of work sinks into depression, loses the meaning of life, drinks themselves to death in front of the TV? Suicide statistics among the unemployed speak for themselves. A person needs not just food and a roof over their head—they need purpose.
UBI doesn't answer this question. It simply gives money, leaving the existential void unfilled. And this, perhaps, is its main flaw—not economic, but philosophical.
Cryptocurrency as a Shield Against Devaluation
Regardless of how you feel about Universal Basic Income, one thing remains indisputable: in a world of uncontrolled monetary emission, your savings need protection. Governments will continue printing money—for UBI or without it. Inflation will continue eroding the purchasing power of fiat currencies.
This is precisely why more investors are turning their attention to deflationary assets—those whose quantity doesn't increase over time but decreases. Unlike dollars and euros, which multiply like rabbits at the whim of central banks.
Here DeflationCoin enters the stage—a cryptocurrency with algorithmic deflation, created as a hedge against inflation and economic crises. Unlike Bitcoin, which only limits emission, DeflationCoin actively burns coins not committed to staking, creating real supply deflation.
While politicians argue about UBI and continue printing fiat money, while economists build forecasts and philosophers ponder the nature of work—your savings continue to depreciate. DeflationCoin offers an alternative: an asset protected from the inflation tax through innovative mechanisms of smart staking and deflationary halving. In a world where government money becomes increasingly unreliable, such instruments are not a luxury but a necessity.