Some of the sharpest thinkers in Australia and from around the world will, late this month, talk about why we should embrace an unconditional universal basic income. The Basic Income Earth Network usually meets annually somewhere in the world, but after a Covid-19 enforced break causing a year-long delay, the congress is being hosted next month by the University of Queensland at its St Lucia Campus.

What exists, the present market driven economic system is just one method of distributing money and the Universal Basic Income (UBI) is nothing more, or less, than simply another method.

Those with individualistic ideals favour the first, a market driven process, but those whose sympathies rest with sharing and helping others, favour the UBI. Most of us have a clear understanding of the first as the market system favours a few and sweeps the rest aside, some into poverty, or living precariously and others into deepening inequality.

That’s an idea championed by nearly all and favoured by most in the developed world, but it fell into disrepair late last century and has continued to deteriorate as this century has unfolded.

The second, the UBI, is less well understood and so like dogs that bark at unfamiliar noises, we jump at shadows when it is suggested people, that’s all people, are given free money.

Free money simply doesn’t rest easily with the individualistic, market ideas ground into us for decades, if not centuries, by the agents of what exists and so they always turn for support to the mantra of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, and why fix something if it’s not broken.

I’d argue, however, that the existing economic system is broken and beyond repair.

Let’s look briefly at what an unconditional, Universal Basic Income is:

It’s a regular periodic payment (for example every month) and not a one-off grant; it’s cash and not food, services or vouchers; it’s paid to individuals and not households; it’s universal and is paid to all without a means test; and it is unconditional in that there is no requirement to work or demonstrate a willingness to work.

Emotionally reassured that they have a guaranteed income, people will embark on ideas about which they are both personally passionate and enthusiastic, the foundations of success.

A UBI ends the seemingly endless national arguments about funding for the unemployed (we wouldn’t have any); gone would be those rabbit burrow-type discussions to help people, including farmers, during droughts, fires, floods (all of which become more frequent as climate change worsens); also gone, importantly, would be demoralising social stigma attached to those whose wellbeing hinges on the largesse of Centrelink (or Services Australia as it now quaintly known); homelessness would largely be eradicated; gone also would be pensions as they simply wouldn’t be needed; and replacing all those things would a group of people who, until now, felt discarded and like second-class citizens, but through the simplicity of the UBI would be given a sense of equality with their fellows.

And please don’t argue we can’t afford it as Australia is among the richest of the world’s countries at humanity’s richest moment, and in what is a striking contrast the Federal Labor Government is adhering to a plan to hand over billions in tax relief to the nation’s richest people, not to mention the nearly $20 000 handed out to the fossil fuel companies every minute, yes, $19 000 a minute!

The UBI also goes to the rich, but importantly, and critically, those at the other end of the spectrum are also among the recipients.

Beyond avoiding any arguments about cost and affordability, try to abandon adherence to what exists and think about the UBI through the prism of decency, sharing, compassion and it being the epitome of the Australian mantra of a “fair go”.

Introduction of a UBI, of course, would be loaded with difficulties, but before jumping to any idealogical-driven decisions, just remember that troubles associated with what exists saturate our news services everyday.

Arguments that people wouldn’t work are simply not true as trials around the world have found the reverse to be the case - yes, people love to do something, they love to contribute to society.

Australia has been built on and prospered because of hard work, but would a UBI change that?

No, not at all, but it would be equally rich, but the measurement of that wealth would be different gauging such things as happiness, emotional and physical health, equality and eudaemonia (that’s a combination of well-being, happiness and flourishing) and it would say nothing about the accumulation of stuff.