www.mein-grundeinkommen.de is the website of an organization in Berlin which crowdfunds basic incomes of 1000 Euros and gives them away (in a lottery) for a year. The idea is to prove that people who get the money will not just lean back in their armchair, get sloshed and watch telly until it’s too early to get up, but do something constructive with it. There are many stories of people continuing their education, changing jobs, opening a small business, etc.
I think basic income is not just a good idea, but possibly the only solution to improving our increasingly brutish social climate. Yesterday I overheard a conversation that two guys in the tram were having. One, a regular looking guy in his early twenties, talked loudly about the one person in his village who is claiming unemployment benefits, or Hartz IV as it is known here. (The term itself has become loaded and is now synonymous with white trash.) The guy said that they once went to her house very late at night to wake her up. Apparently, she was up when they rang the doorbell and told them she was stressed and had sleeping problems to which their reply was that if she worked she would be able to sleep. “How can she possibly be stressed? She’s one of those people, who has never done an honest day’s work in her entire life!” – The ghastliest aspect of this story was that the guy telling it was so young. The introduction of a basic income would hopefully stop such taunting, restore people’s self-respect and enable them to get back on their feet.