Proposals to hand everyone in Scotland a basic, flat-rate income are an attempt to "euthanise" the working class as a political concept, a think-tank director has said.
Tom Kibasi, director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), insisted the scheme was to the UK's economic problems "what snake oil is to medicine". He argued it would mean "getting into bed with the billionaires" by letting capitalism off the hook and entrenching power inequalities.
Kibasi said a basic income was seductive "precisely because it's a big idea, but the problem is that big ideas aren't necessarily good ideas". He added: "My real objection to UBI is that it lets capitalism off the hook. It is giving in, it is embracing defeat."
He said the policy was widely supported by Silicon Valley tycoons such as Elon Musk, former Google chairman Eric Schmidt and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – as well as Richard Branson. He continued: "In politics, you always get strange bedfellows – that's absolutely the case. But if you're going to get into bed with the billionaires, you've got to ask yourself, 'Why are they in favour of it?'
He said introducing a basic income risked leaving 20 or 30 per cent of the population as a “dependent class”, and insisted it was “trying to attempt a form of kind of euthanasia for the working class as a political category and a political concept”. He also insisted UBI would "solidify and reinforce" gender inequality, because women would come under pressure to stay at home and look after their children.
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