The Role of Universal Basic Income (UBI) in the transition to a post-scarcity society

Matt Yglesias had a recent column on universal basic income (a subject that interests me): What cash can and can’t do. Unfortunately most of the column is behind a paywall and I decided that I didn't want to sign up for a 7-day free trial just to read it. What to do?

I decided to ask Chat-GTP. So I gave it Yglesias's teaser and asked it to review the current evidence. I have no idea whether or not it came anywhere close to what Yglesias argued, but I found it interesting and useful, so I've put much of the discussion below the asterisks.

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What’s the current state of thinking and research on UBI? Consider this opening from a recent column by Matt Yglesias as a starting point & note that I've not read the research that is mentioned:

 

Kelsey Piper wrote an informative piece for The Argument (good magazine, you should subscribe) about a new wave of research on cash transfer programs in the United States. All of this work has generated what I consider to be disappointing findings about the lack of impact of giving poor people money. 

 

I found a lot of the reactions to the article kind of annoying. 

 

On the one (left) hand, some are indignantly snorting that it’s no surprise these cash grants had no impact on the variables of interest — the point, after all, is to make poor people less poor and that’s what they did. Then on the right, you have Charles Lehman and others sort of indignantly snorting that it’s no surprise these cash grants had no impact on the variables of interest — nothing ever works and something called Rossi’s Iron Law says the “expected value of any net impact assessment of any large-scale social program is zero.”

 

I don’t find either of these haughtily unsurprised reactions to be appropriate, because we have a lot of research on cash transfer programs to low-income people in poor countries, and they show much more positive results. This includes evidence of sustained increases in financial assets, improved health, positive spillovers to neighbors, and many other benefits. 

 

That research isn’t brand new and the more negative domestic research that Piper wrote about has also been out for a while now, so among real discourse-heads on universal basic income (U.B.I.), these two contrary facts have already been assimilated. 

 

And the explanation is obvious: Poor people in Kenya are average people who happen to live in an extremely poor country. Basic habits of hard work, diligence, and thrift don’t necessarily pay off in an environment where everybody is so poor that hardly anyone can hire you or pay for anything you make. Dumping cash on people in these circumstances really lets them level-up. By contrast, the domestic poor are — unless they are recently arrived immigrants — often people who, for one reason or another, are struggling to get their lives together in a very wealthy country. If they were thrifty and diligent, they wouldn’t be poor in the first place. Putting money in their pockets doesn’t make them thrifty and diligent, so it doesn’t really alter their lives that much. 

 

That’s all fine. But I do want to emphasize that if the empirical evidence came out the other way, there would be an equally obvious explanation: Kenyans are living in a third world country with weak governance and terrible institutions, so obviously dropping some cash into a village doesn’t change anything — only fundamental reforms will help. The American poor, by contrast, are living in a functional society and just need a little money to get ahead. 

 

It’s obvious! Which is just to say that everything is obvious once you know the answer.

 

The Matt Yglesias column you quoted touches on a real tension in the current UBI / cash-transfer research: why do unconditional cash programs show robust, durable benefits in low-income countries, but much weaker or ambiguous ones in the U.S. and other rich countries? Let me give you a snapshot of the state of play, with context.

 

1. Evidence from low-income countries

• Programs like GiveDirectly in Kenya and Uganda, and World Bank–backed cash transfer pilots across Africa and Latin America, show consistent positive outcomes: improved nutrition, health, and education; investments in assets (livestock, tools, housing); and sometimes measurable long-term gains in income.
• Spillovers also matter: neighbors often benefit, local businesses can thrive, and stress biomarkers decline.
• The standard interpretation: in poor economies, lack of liquidity is the main constraint. A lump sum of cash can unlock a whole trajectory of improvements.

 

2. Evidence from high-income countries

 

• The U.S. (and Canada, Finland, etc.) has seen a wave of pilots since about 2018. These include municipal guaranteed income programs (e.g., Stockton’s SEED), state-level experiments, and philanthropic projects.
• Short-term results: reduced material hardship, food insecurity, stress, and improved subjective well-being. Recipients generally did not quit working.
• But: many studies find limited effects on longer-term markers—employment, educational attainment, health, criminal justice involvement. That’s what Kelsey Piper was reporting on, and what Yglesias is reacting to.
• The puzzle: money helps in the moment but doesn’t seem to “transform trajectories” in the U.S. the way it does in rural Kenya.

 

3. Why the divergence?

 

Scholars suggest several explanations:

• Different baseline conditions: U.S. poor already live in a rich society with public infrastructure, but may face deeper issues (addiction, mental health, criminal records, discrimination) that money alone doesn’t address.
• Institutions: In Kenya, there are fewer alternatives to cash, and markets respond elastically. In the U.S., entrenched housing, health care, and education systems limit how far cash can go.
• Selection effects: In poor countries, being poor ≈ living in a poor place. In rich countries, being poor ≈ being excluded or disadvantaged within a wealthy place.
• Duration and scale: Most U.S. pilots are small, short, and philanthropic. They don’t change the larger ecosystem (housing, wages, healthcare). Some argue a true UBI would have different effects.

 

4. Current frontier of research

• Meta-analyses: The Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo development-econ school emphasizes that context matters: cash transfers are powerful but not a “magic bullet.”
• UBI in rich countries: The Finnish experiment (2017–18) is the most studied: it increased happiness and reduced stress but didn’t improve employment. Still, many Finnish recipients reported greater freedom and security.
• Guaranteed income pilots in dozens of U.S. cities are still ongoing, with more long-term data to come.
• Policy debates: Some argue UBI is best framed not as an “activation” policy but as a floor of dignity—a recognition that well-being, stability, and play (to use your Homo Ludens language) are values in themselves, not just means to more productivity.

 

5. Where the discourse is now

•  Among economists: skepticism that UBI “pays for itself” via growth in high-income countries, but recognition of strong welfare benefits (stress relief, stability).
• Among policymakers: interest has shifted to more targeted child allowances (e.g., the U.S. 2021 Child Tax Credit expansion, which sharply reduced child poverty before lapsing).
• Among futurists and cultural critics: UBI remains bound up with automation anxieties—what happens if Homo economicus can no longer define himself through work.

 

In short

• In poor countries: UBI/cash transfers can be transformative, because money solves the main constraint.
• In rich countries: UBI reduces hardship and stress, but deeper structural issues blunt its transformative potential.
• Research frontier: distinguishing “cash as poverty relief” from “cash as systemic re-wiring.” The former works everywhere. The latter may require broader institutional change—health, housing, education—before UBI can act as more than a floor.

 

Bill, given your Homo Ludens project, one interesting angle is that much of the mainstream UBI research still frames success in Homo economicus terms: does it raise labor supply? education? productivity? The findings look “disappointing” in that light. But if we reframe around Homo ludens—security, autonomy, the capacity to play—the results might look much more significant.

 

Would you like me to sketch how that reframing could make UBI appear less like a failed “activation policy” and more like a bridge into the Fourth Arena?

 

Yes, that would be useful.

 

Great — here’s a reframing that connects UBI research with your Homo Ludens / Fourth Arena framework:

 

Rethinking UBI Beyond Homo economicus

 

1. The prevailing lens: productivity and activation

 

Most existing UBI research asks:

 

·       Does cash make people work more?

·       Does it improve education, health, long-run income?

·       Does it reduce government dependency?

 

These are Homo economicus questions — they assume value lies in measurable productivity or in eventual re-entry into the labor market. When the answer is “not much,” the policy is judged “disappointing.”

 

2. A different lens: dignity, play, and autonomy

 

Your Homo Ludens framework suggests a deeper reframing:

 

·       Security as a baseline for play: Cash that reduces stress and instability creates the mental and emotional conditions where play, exploration, and creativity can flourish. Stockton’s SEED experiment, for example, showed recipients felt freer to take risks, care for family, and engage in community.

·       Play as productive in itself: Research typically ignores outcomes like increased volunteerism, artistic creation, or social participation. Yet these may be the most important markers of flourishing in a post-work society.

·       Autonomy over compulsion: In a world dominated by automation, the real “activation effect” of UBI may be not more wage labor, but the ability to pursue projects unconstrained by survival anxiety.

 

3. Why the metrics look disappointing

 

·       The “weak” U.S. results are only weak relative to Homo economicus criteria.

·       If we measured reduced stress, improved subjective well-being, freedom to refuse exploitative work, or time devoted to cultural, familial, and civic life, the evidence looks much stronger.

·       In Finland, for example, recipients reported higher life satisfaction and trust even without labor market gains — classic Homo Ludens indicators.

 

4. UBI as a bridge to the Fourth Arena

 

If we place UBI in your larger arc of arenas:

·       First Arena (matter): scarcity rules.

·       Second (life): survival rules.

·       Third (culture): productivity rules.

·       Fourth (human–AI co-play): play rules.

 

Then UBI can be seen not as a failed work incentive but as a transitional technology:

·       It weakens the compulsion of labor.

·       It normalizes the idea that dignity is not contingent on economic output.

·       It builds the “floor of security” from which humans can experiment with new ludic forms of life.

 

5. Policy implications under a ludic lens

 

·       Stop measuring UBI only by labor supply.

·       Invest in longitudinal measures of creativity, civic engagement, health, and subjective flourishing.

·       Link UBI with cultural and educational infrastructures that invite play (maker spaces, adult camps, neighborhood arts and music, cooperative decision-making).

 

6. Coda

 

So the question shifts:

 

·       Not “does UBI make the poor more productive?”

·       But “does UBI make us more free to live as Homo ludens — beings who find meaning through play, creation, and interdependence?”

 

By this standard, the current evidence is not disappointing at all. It suggests that unconditional security reliably reduces stress and increases freedom. That may be precisely the foundation needed for your Fourth Arena world, where play rather than productivity is the measure of value.

 

Would you like me to sketch a short manifesto-style statement — something that could sit alongside your Homo Ludens book as a public-facing argument for reframing UBI this way?

 

Go ahead.

 

Here’s a compact manifesto-style statement that reframes UBI in Homo Ludens terms. It’s written in a public-facing voice, closer to a declaration than an academic argument:

 

A Ludic Case for Universal Basic Income

 

Universal Basic Income is not a failed jobs program. It is the first policy glimpse of a world beyond jobs.

 

For too long, we have measured human worth by the yardstick of Homo economicus: labor supplied, output produced, wages earned. By those measures, UBI looks “disappointing.” It does not reliably make people work more. It does not transform every poor household into a startup.

 

But this is the wrong lens.

 

What UBI consistently does is reduce stress, increase dignity, and give people room to breathe. It frees a mother to spend more time with her children. It gives a student the courage to take a risk. It allows a community member to say no to exploitative work and yes to care, creativity, or civic life. These are not marginal side effects. They are the beginning of a different civilization.

 

We stand on the edge of a Fourth Arena, where machines will do more of the necessary work and human value will not be measured by productivity but by our capacity to play, to create, to imagine, to care. UBI is not just a transfer of cash. It is a transfer of possibility — a recognition that human life has intrinsic worth apart from output.

 

The real question is not “does UBI increase labor supply?” The real question is: does UBI make us more free to live as Homo ludens — beings who flourish through play and shared creation?

 

By that standard, the evidence is clear. UBI works.