Guest
Suppose we give everyone in the Netherlands a basic income, without conditions. Is the basic income (money for free) too good to be true? VPRO Backlight explores the possibilities of the basic income, also called universal basic income. Suppose we give everyone in the Netherlands a basic income, without conditions. Free money sounds too good to be true? Now we know that some of the existing jobs will disappear due to robotisation and algorithms, and that the current system of benefits and surcharges is too complex and accusatory and fraud sensitive, isn't the basic income at least worth investigating? According to Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT Center for Digital Business, our western society is on the threshold of a new era. It is no longer just the physical activities that are increasingly being done by machines; robots and algorithms are also going to do more and more middle class work. Accountants and office staff, but also lawyers and stockbrokers and engineers, will increasingly have
