Over the years, a number of basic income pilots have been conducted, social experiments which involved unconditionally giving out money to people (the precise sums given out varied from pilot to pilot) and then measuring the impact on society. Malcom Torry’s book Money For Everyone summarizes a great deal of evidence, from various pilot studies, which support the view that the social impacts of basic income are profoundly positive. Sarath Davala, Renana Jhabvala, Guy Standing and Sournya Kapoor, have meticulous catalogued the effects of Basic Income, on various Indian villages that participated in a pilot study, in their collective work Basic Income: A Transformative Policy For India. Scott Santens has also written on the Finnish UBI pilot, among others, while GiveDirectly are a charity which give money directly and unconditionally to the inhabitants of extremely poor regions of the world.
Practically every basic income pilot study has demonstrated that the results of even quite modest sums, when paid out regularly to the inhabitants of a community have a significant and positive across-the-board effect on that community, in health, reduced crime and drug use, education and even productivity.
Paying Basic Income out to residents makes communities nicer, more prosperous places to live.
Furthermore, there is a multiplier effect, every additional $1 of basic income results in roughly a further $2 (in addition to the original $1) circulating in the economy. This is partly because when people have access to tools and capital, they can be more productive with their time.
If areas where basic income is paid out are truly better places to live compared to areas without basic income, would that not suggest that the real estate value of areas where basic income gets paid out might be higher than the real estate value of areas where it is not?
Could that not in turn suggest that, at least under some circumstances, the appreciation in land values, that basic income is likely to produce, might be sufficient to fully-fund the income itself?
Basic Income is an investment in a community, and all the evidence suggests it is a good one at that. Good investments tend to yield returns, if so, it should be possible to privately fund basic income payments to communities and profit from the resulting appreciation in land values they are likely to give rise to.
Socibuild believes in the policy of universal basic income so much that we are willing to stake the future of our entire business upon the belief – based on the evidence of its improving effect upon communities – that we can use it to improve societies, to such great effect when issued in our own currency and combined with other policies, that the resulting real estate appreciation will fund the entirety of the income and even produce some profit on top.
Socibuild is still at a very early stage in its business plan, so, for the time being, this remains an aspiration for the future. Nevertheless, someday paying a Basic Income, funded by land rent, out to every inhabitant on planet earth is our company’s core long term mission.