Money for nothing

Would universal basic income create a kinder, more fulfilled society and is it a solution to the feared AI 'jobs apocalypse'?

- Donna Ferguson

When Elinor O'Donovan found out she had been randomly selected to participate in a basic income pilot scheme, she couldn't believe her luck. In return for a guaranteed salary of just over €1,400 ($1,500) a month from the Irish government, all the 27-year-old artist had to do was fill out a bi-annual questionnaire about her wellbeing and how she spends her time. "It was like winning the lottery. I was in such disbelief," she says.

The income, which she will receive until September 2025, has enabled her to give up temping and focus instead on her art. "It covers my living expenses, my rent, food and day-to-day stuff." The concept of a guaranteed basic income might seem novel or neoteric, but it dates back to 1795, when the American founding father Thomas Paine suggested a "national fund" should pay every adult "rich or poor" a "ground rent" of £15 on turning 21. Earth is "the common property of the human race", he argued, so everyone has been collectively dispossessed by "the introduction of the system of landed property" and was entitled to compensation.