The problem in today's society is that there are many non-jobs. These are vocations that do not produce any value to the society, jobs that are being created for the sole purpose of existing - it draws down unemployment. Yet the current economic model is based on producing benefit to the society: if you create value, you get paid. This is true for many 'classic' jobs like scientist, police officer, etc. These jobs serve a purpose other than existing. Now many people even see blogging as a job that earns them money while all it does is create more information that has to be taken in. That means taking less information in from credible sources and contributes to the massive information dumpyard we already have. Sure, it may bring some entertainment, but really, we have more than enough of that. Very few blogs actually initiate or propagate thought processes, but very many spread myths and theories with no logical basis.
Another problem is the amount of people earning less than would be necessary for basic livelihood. They are in a relatively inescapable rut - they haven't got the resources to make them hireable in order to get resources. They cannot benefit the society because they hardly make do on their own. Poverty is spreading and there is no cure in sight, except this new idea of having basic income as a human right. Perhaps saying 'human right' is too much as it would be relatively less absolute than human rights in general (which are far from absolute, see Gitmo and other 'civilized' torture institutions). The idea is to give every person a minimum income regardless of what they actually do. This gives every person the chance for a decent life, decent food, actual place to live etc. If they are employed, they earn more. But every single person would be able to contribute to the economy by consuming goods (now that many can afford basic necessities) and increase the chance for a 'poor' person to be employed (now that they can afford somewhat higher education, sometimes even the chance to buy proper clothing and take a shower will do). It would probably even decrease the amount of thefts - there is no longer such a need for it. This new system would eradicate the need for food stamps and other welfare systems. The rest of the money can come from more taxation - giant companies will increase their revenues even if taxes go up simply because more people will be giving them money. Windfall taxation for companies would motivate more research and other projects while regressive (yes, REgressive!) taxation for people would motivate more people to work (their net profit would increase relatively faster than in the case of flat taxation or progressive taxation). Naturally the 'basic income' would have to be the new tax free minimum.
However, this idea does not come without its problems. First and foremost is the lack of motivation to work. Currently countries (such as Spain) are rather full of people who decide not to work. The unemployment benefits are high enough in large households to not facilitate the necessity to earn extra wages. So these people simply glide through life in their bubble, going through their own relationships and slowly dying while not contributing anything to society. If we were to create a society wherein everyone gets paid no matter what they do, why would people do anything? People would have motivation only to take jobs that they enjoy, creating a gap in some professions (not many people aspire to being a janitor, for example). Many of these jobs (e.g shop clerks) can be replaced by technology but only to a limited degree. The present system works because people need the additional funds, or at the very least feel that they do. In the new system, there would be few people who would actually need additional funds to get by, which is part of the second important problem.
Among the many extraordinary qualities people possess, reasonableness is not necessarily the first that comes to mind, not when one contemplates the average person. And our basic income receiving people are very average. Many are chain smokers, alcoholics, drug addicts, gamblers. A lot of people would use the money for more booze (taxable), cigarettes (taxable), drugs and other vices. This effectively means counteracting the value being created for the society. Sure, poverty is considered to be one of the main contributing factors to alcohol and drug abuse, but that is largely due to unemployment. The new system does not create new jobs, on the contrary, it frees up people's time to do anything. And really, what do people do when they cannot think of anything sensible to do and have the freely available means to do anything? They do the insensible, and that is never a good thing. And I won't even get into the massive inflation all this would cause.
Yes, the system is a possibility. But creating it would require a huge change in taxation only possible if someone were to spearhead it with little opposition. To be frank, if the United States government cannot push through medical care (or funding therefor) for all of its citizens, pushing through financial security is but a fallacy. Even if it could be done, getting people to use the privileged resources for their own or greater good is impossible. Quite frankly this would work in one out of two situations: Dictatorship or Unification.
