I have argued before, that one of the best means to increase the wealth of society, would be the introduction of a universal income, divorced from work. Because of the emergence of peer production, we now know that a substantial portion of freely chosen time would go to the creation of new common value. It is usually argued that this would would mean a post-work world, but this is misleading. It is just that more work would be going on outside the limiting context of salaried work, and that a lot of the prior distinctions of the modern or industrial age, as for example between work and leisure, would become obsolete. It by no means signifies that people would no longer produce ‘value’, on the contrary.
This is, I think the context, in which Dale Carrico refuses to associate the notion of post-work, with the introduction of the basic income. But he makes an important added argument in favour of the universal wage: that it would weaken the situation of dependence of workers vis a vis capital and management, as a form of insurance againt abuse, while given people the regular option to opt out of the salaried system in order to create social value.
“Now, it seems to me that a world in which conscript and duressed labor is eliminated by the introduction of a global basic income guarantee wouldn’t in fact be a “post-workâ€? world at all. It isn’t even clear to me how the question of basic income has much bearing finally on the question whether or not meaningful goal-directed activity is usually an important part of a flourishing person’s life.
The public provision of a basic life-long guaranteed income should be thought of first of all as the implementation of safeguards against arbitrary misuses of authority in peoples’ workplaces. It would provide everybody with the means to “opt outâ€? of the current circumstances in which they attain their livelihoods. Thus, it would provide a constant check on misuses of power in the workplace by institutionalizing a permanent position of security from which workers could renegotiate the terms of their employment and demand redress for abuses without fear of unjust reprisals. It would also encourage people to grow and take chances, try new things, learn new skills, invest in new enterprises to the benefit of all, and all without the threat of utter devastation to bedevil and constrain them. A world with a basic income guarantee would still be a world in which many worked for profit, surely, and in which many more would work voluntarily in projects that are especially important or satisfying to them, or provided unique benefits for them. ”