http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03kptyk
BBC audio
What if governments paid all their citizens a basic income? Whether
rich or poor, you would receive the same amount of money, and you
would keep it whether you went out to work and received a salary or
not. It is an idea that has been around for centuries, but one that
has been gaining traction in recent times as welfare payments become
ever more complex and expensive to administer. Proponents also argue
that it would remove the 'poverty trap' where people are dissuaded
from seeking work because they would lose their benefits if they did
so. There is also the issue of machines taking over many of the jobs
that we all do to earn a living - not just basic manual tasks, but
increasingly 'intelligent' work that will in the future be carried out
by robots. Join Owen Bennett Jones and his panel of expert guests as
they discuss the future of work and how we pay for it. Should we give
free money to everyone and let robots take the strain?
