“ The future of basic income isn’t free money, it’s more subsidized and free services and utilities. It’s better access to affordable education and healthcare. It’s better ways of subsidizing investing in your skills for the long-term.”

That was the heart of (one half of) John Maynard Keynes’s proposed economic paradigm: using a progressive income tax to subsidize the middle class. Middle class people have the money to consume, save, and speculate in the proportions that are optimal for the functioning of the capitalist economy. Rich people save and, especially, speculate too much and poor people don’t have enough money for either of those. That part of his thought is as viable today as it was in 1936. (He also proposed having government ‘manage’ the economy via fiscal policy, but politics undid that idea.)

As for a UBI, I have a better idea, a DDI (“democratically distributed income”).I have been working on it for some time. For the record, I do have an M.A. in economics.

Like, say, the right to vote, the DDI would not accrue to everyone but would be available for an unlimited number of people. Like all rights, the DDI would be cost-free because the money for it would be created as needed; the total of the DDI would form the supply of money (as currency) for the economy. Using a DDI to supply the economy with money would provide the means to eliminate unemployment and poverty.

A DDI really is a way to align income with the transformation into which society is starting to enter. This paradigm could also be used eliminate taxes and public debt. The DDI can be expanded to eliminate exploitation — without limiting income or property/wealth or requiring changes to economic behaviors.

A “3 min.” introduction to the DDI is available here on medium.com: “DDI: A Minimum Income That Performs Like a Right.”