Blog on The Greshm Institute

UnAutomating the Economy: More Labor but at What Cost?

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 01:00:00 -0400

Imagine an economy where robots, AI, and advanced machines do much of the work that used to require human labor. Not a dystopian or utopian future of full automation—just one where most goods and services can be produced with far fewer people working than we see today.

In this world, wages matter less. Most people live on Universal Basic Income (UBI) while a smaller human workforce still earns extra through paid jobs or running businesses.

We Must Challenge the Job Ethic

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 01:00:00 -0400

I recently co-authored an essay arguing that a Universal Basic Income (UBI) might attain the goals of Guaranteed Income advocates better than a targeted Guaranteed Income would. I stand by the points we made in that piece, but in this one I want to do something different. I have been a UBI supporter for more than two decades. The main reason I support UBI isn’t that it could outperform targeted cash; it’s something else. I want to spend this piece explaining what that something else is.

Guaranteed Income Is Not UBI

Sat, 06 Sep 2025 01:00:00 -0400

In his final book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Martin Luther King, Jr. called for direct cash as a solution to poverty. He wanted to guarantee that every person had sufficient income to ensure not only basic subsistence, but a certain standard of dignity. His anti-poverty goal was universal. The guarantee applied to everyone.

What Problem Does UBI Solve?

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 01:00:00 -0400

Ask ten different people what problem Universal Basic Income solves, and you’ll get ten different answers. Scott Santens could probably give you a hundred. This is understandable: A world with UBI differs from today’s world in innumerable ways, and it’s actually quite difficult to imagine a problem that UBI would not at least help with. It is money, after all. Money solves lots of problems.

UBI and the Environmental Cost of Overemployment

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 01:00:00 -0400

Imagine for a moment that we paused all economic growth. The pie isn’t getting bigger, but it isn’t getting smaller either.

Now, imagine we invent an efficiency improvement—some new technology. This means the same amount of goods and services can be produced with less employment of natural resources.

UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

Sat, 27 Jul 2024 01:00:00 -0400

Earlier this week, I attended The BIG Conference, where OpenResearch presented results by Vivalt et al. from their three-year study of people who received unconditional money. Unsurprisingly, the study participants became less inclined to work jobs.

Noah Smith, among others, interpreted this as bad news for Universal Basic Income. But the key insight that the Noah Smiths of the world seem to be missing is that, in today’s world, we artificially elevate labor demand to keep people employed. UBI means not having to do that anymore.

Universal Income: Basic or High?

Sun, 02 Jun 2024 01:00:00 -0400

I wanted to respond to an article recently posted by Scott Santens because he’s highlighted something I see as a major problem in basic income discourse. Elon Musk has been talking about “Universal High Income,” which he distinguishes from regular Universal Basic Income (UBI) in two ways: a) it’s higher, and b) it presumably exists somewhere in the medium-to-long-term future, not the short term. This has annoyed Scott in ways that I both agree and disagree with. The debate reflects a broader misconception about the relationship between technology and UBI.

UBI vs MMT 1: What Do Words Mean?

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 01:00:00 -0400

Ellis Winningham recently wrote a ten-part blog series examining Universal Basic Income (UBI) through the lens of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Here, I will respond to the first post in the series, entitled “Terms Matter.”

Printing Money Cures the "Covid-19" Crash

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 06:00:00 -0400

There’s no doubt that the economic carnage that has rocked the world in the last week or so was triggered by a contraction in economic activity associated with Covid-19 and the efforts to contain it. But there’s also no doubt that this shock exposed underlying issues, setting off a cascade of chaos and fear through an economic system overloaded with private debt, especially in the business sector.

Photo by Pepi Stojanovski

The Robots Are Not Coming

Mon, 30 Sep 2019 06:18:56 -0400

If you follow technology, you could be forgiven for believing that humanity is standing on the precipice of a robot apocalypse. It’s only a matter of time before automation eliminates so many jobs that humans will simply no longer be “needed.” Right?

Five years back, YouTuber CGP Grey made this case in his popular Humans Need Not Apply video.

Give Immigrants Money

Sun, 04 Aug 2019 00:16:00 -0400

People move to a new country if they expect their lives to improve. Robust infrastructure, favorable climate, and stable governance all contribute to a country’s appeal. Basic income takes this to the extreme. A country with basic income actually pays people to live there.

Photo by Nitish Meena

Money Does Not Circulate

Wed, 27 Feb 2019 12:23:51 -0500

Money is a claim on goods and services in the same way that airline tickets are claims on seats. It is standard practice for airlines to overbook their flights — they sell more tickets than there are seats. They do this because they know that some passengers won’t show up.

Photo by Nicole Geri

Poverty Is Optional

Mon, 04 Feb 2019 12:23:38 -0500

Basic income is commonly described as an amount of money that’s sufficient to ensure some pre-determined minimum standard of living. I have previously dismissed this characterization as inaccurate. But who am I to insist that the popular definition of basic income is wrong? Why should I not admit that this blog is about something slightly different?

Photo by Andrea Sonda | Castelfranco Veneto, Italy

Life Is Just a Game

Sun, 13 Jan 2019 20:27:31 -0500

Does humanity need to exist? No. If we disappeared, nobody would be around to notice. But since we’re here, why not make the most of it? The first step is to keep ourselves alive and healthy. We feel better when we’re not sick or dying. This might seem self-evident, but there’s a reason why dying feels bad: Without an aversion to death, humanity would not have survived. Things start to get interesting when we move past basic physical health.

Inequality Is Not the Problem

Sun, 23 Dec 2018 22:22:42 -0500

When people ask me about whether basic income addresses inequality, I tend to punt on the question. I explain to them that basic income solves the problem of how to provide spending money to consumers. I remind them that there are important problems that basic income doesn’t solve. Specifically, basic income does not address inequality. It takes nothing from the rich. It merely gives the poor better access to the economy’s resources.

There's Only One Way to Pay for a Basic Income

Sun, 09 Dec 2018 22:22:16 -0500

Basic income gives consumers money to spend. The only way to pay for a basic income is by having an economy that gives consumers something to buy with that money. If our economy can’t produce enough goods to match the level of consumer spending, then we end up with inflation. There. I just gave you the answer. You can now skip the rest of this blog post. You’re welcome. For some reason you’re still here.

Andrew Yang: Almost Not Wrong

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 11:23:57 -0500

As I’ve previously mentioned, basic income proponents fundamentally understand that our economy has the resources to do better for humanity. Andrew Yang understands this. He also understands that the economy exists to serve the people. Yang is a candidate running for United States president in 2020. His campaign slogan is “Humanity First” and he’s running with basic income front and center on his platform. Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of seeing Andrew Yang speak at a town hall meeting campaign event in Henniker, New Hampshire.

The Wrong Thing to Tax Is Money

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 11:21:30 -0800

I explained last month that tax revenue is meaningless. But that doesn’t mean that taxes are all together useless. Taxation can have important positive (or negative) effects on the economy. It all depends on what we tax and how we tax it. And, as it turns out, money is always the wrong thing to tax. This must sound strange. Taxation is, after all, the taking of money. When I say we shouldn’t tax money, I specifically mean that the amount of money taxed should not depend on the amount of money or other financial assets that someone owns.

Justice Is Overrated

Wed, 07 Nov 2018 02:44:23 -0500

Many of us are dismayed by the injustice we see in the world. We want our society to treat people fairly. Our sense of justice feels absolute and right and good. Yet different people hold incompatible views about what’s fair. How can this be? Could it be that justice is indeed objective and that some people happen to be getting it wrong? Do some people lie about what they think is fair when it’s in their interest to do so?

Why Basic Income Makes No Sense

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 10:03:41 -0400

After having read my last post, a friend mentioned that basic income’s purpose had never before been clearly articulated to him. This is hardly surprising. People are confused about basic income. They’re confused about what it is and what it’s for. It bears repeating that basic income is a regular income unconditionally paid to every person. Basic income solves the problem of how to get spending money to consumers. It’s pretty straightforward.

Basic Income Clichés

Sun, 21 Oct 2018 19:22:45 -0400

Basic income is simple. It’s a regular income unconditionally paid to every individual. It solves the problem of how to get spending money to consumers. That’s all it is and all it does. Among the many things that basic income is not, it is not defined to be an amount of money that’s sufficient to meet people’s basic needs. It could be less. It could be more. The income is basic.

We Are All Disabled

Sat, 13 Oct 2018 13:14:05 -0400

My first post mentioned that the most remarkable thing about basic income is that it’s actually possible for us to hand out money to people. Interestingly, what makes basic income possible is also what makes it possible for us to pay out other cash benefits. Namely, the economy has sufficient resources to produce what people will buy with the money. In March of 2013, This American Life aired an episode about the increasing number of Americans receiving federal disability benefits instead of working.

Tax Revenue Is Meaningless

Sat, 06 Oct 2018 02:49:54 -0400

Let’s conduct a thought experiment. Imagine that the government is a black box whose internal workings are completely opaque to us. We know that this black box can add money to the economy through spending or remove money from the economy through taxation. But we have no idea why the government is administering fiscal policy (spending and taxing) the way it is. This thought experiment allows us to consider the effects of fiscal policy without becoming distracted by its underlying politics.

How I Cracked the Code on Basic Income

Sun, 30 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post was revised on Apr 9, 2019

Hi! I’m Alex. Welcome to Project Greshm. My goal is to fix the world’s economy using basic income: a regular income unconditionally paid to every individual person.

Alex Howlett | Photo by Joe Baz | 2013