To UBI or not to UBI?

What's Behind Universal Basic Income?

To UBI (Universal Basic Income) or not to UBI? That is the question, to bastardize the famous line from Hamlet. I must admit it’s a tempting prospect to have a guaranteed income for the rest of my life, but I have serious concerns about the implications. Especially the ones we’re not being told about. The legislative mechanism being used to introduce the UBI program in Canada, Bill C-273, which had its first reading in Parliament on February 22, 2021, is vague on the specifics. The bill contains a consultation section requiring the Minister of Finance to consult with provincial governments, leaders of Indigenous communities, representatives of municipal governments, “experts in guaranteed basic income pilot projects, the academic community and key stakeholders,” including those involved in labour and “entrepreneurship and innovation.”[1]

The bill stipulates that a “pilot project in one or more provinces” must be established “to test models of implementation… (and) create a framework of national standards” to guide implementation of the program, support related research programs and provide data analysis. The minister is required to table a report based on this pilot project research “within two years after the day in which this Act comes into force.” The bill does not say whether a separate act of legislation is then required to make the program law.

But if Minister Chrystia Freeland thinks this is a slam-dunk, she is mistaken. A quick Internet search using the terms “universal basic income” reveals far more who are against the idea than those who are in favour. By now it’s no secret that Freeland and her boss Justin Trudeau are part of the World Economic Forum (WEF) cult established by Klaus Schwab that seeks to impose on the world his vision of a “fourth industrial revolution.” Schwab has been recorded boasting about how Freeland, Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern, Emmanuel Macron and other heads of state are graduates of his young leadership program that has, in his words, “penetrated” governing cabinets around the world. By the actions of these global leaders during the Covid lockdowns it’s clear this gang is not the least interested in what their subjects think of their plan. That should be Red Flag Number One: you will have no say in how this plays out. Yet “it has been made very clear that nothing will stop the planned outcomes, according to one whistleblower.”[2] Clearly, to the WEF clique, the democratic process is an annoyance, a relic of the past to be brushed aside.

You have to suspect “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” when both socialists and capitalists are against the plan. As Jimmy Doran, writing for the Irish journal Socialist Voice, said:

“This proposal is a Trojan horse for the capitalist class. Make no mistake: if it were to be introduced it would not be a helping hand to the most vulnerable in society; it would be a method whereby governments could withdraw from the provision of all public services. All would be privatised, one by one, and handed over to the real power-brokers of the developed world: transnational corporations and finance capital.”[3]

The finance website Silver Doctors reported as early as October 2020 that they had received intelligence from a whistleblower in the Liberal Party of Canada’s Strategic Planning Committee that the WEF’s “Great Reset” vision of a new global economy would include “the introduction of a digital currency, a universal basic income, vaccine requirements for travel, and ‘The World Debt Reset Program.’”[4] Not even the entire Canadian cabinet is on board: “The whistleblower said at least thirty percent of the committee members strongly oppose these plans but their voices are being drowned out.”

In fact, the “pilot program” has already been rolled out in both Canada and the US, though the public was never told this is what it was. Canada’s CERB program paid workers $2,000 per month to stay home during lockdowns. In the US it was implemented in 2020 through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), “a guaranteed loan program that forgives the debt if the borrower follows specific instructions.”[5] Keep in mind that this was written just six months after the first lockdowns in March 2020. You have to wonder how exactly the global elites knew that lockdowns would create such a swath of economic destruction so early in the game.

And that’s not all they knew beforehand. In my book Words from the Dead, I quote directly from Klaus Schwab’s book Covid-19: The Great Reset: “Unlike certain past epidemics, Covid-19 doesn’t pose a new existential threat,” write Schwab and co-author (or ghostwriter) Thierry Malleret. “Whole populations will neither be exterminated nor displaced as a result of the pandemic.” [6] It would be interesting to know exactly how Schwab and Malleret knew this so early in the “pandemic.” Their book was written in June 2020, scant months after the emergence of Covid-19. [7] Doran’s observation is right on the money. The “Plandemic” and the proposed UBI are Trojan horses for the new world order envisioned by Schwab and his cronies.

And what about Bill C-273’s provision for consultation with Canadian academia? Already done. The University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the University of Calgary spent three years studying UBIs and have released a 529-page report. It concluded that, “a basic income for all is not the best way to address poverty and other social problems. Instead, the report said, governments should boost existing social support programs for vulnerable groups through improved disability assistance, dental care programs and more money to help the working poor pay rent. A more targeted approach to help the disadvantaged, as opposed to a universal program like UBI, would do more to lift people out of poverty, the report concluded.” [8]

The moderate socialist position expressed by Doran proposes instead of UBI that, “workers should have UPS—universal public services. With all the wealth that is produced by workers, the very minimum that the state should guarantee is universal public health, housing, and education, coupled with a state guarantee of a job, whereby all workers have the protection of a union with full collective bargaining rights.” [9] Unfortunately Doran’s faith in unions is misplaced. During the Covid crisis they have proven to be as useless at advocating for their members’ rights—at least here in Canada—as the professional associations that are forcing experimental “vaccines” on doctors and medical staff.

Unsurprisingly, the Liberal caucus “overwhelmingly” endorsed a resolution calling for the establishment of a UBI in Canada, “while also rejecting a call to hike the capital gains tax.” [10] This is hardly a surprise with Trudeau and Freeland at the helm. It echoes note-for-note the WEF’s position that, “It is time to add a new element to the policy packages that governments are introducing, one we know but have abandoned: Universal Basic Income.” Like Schwab, the WEF saw Covid as a golden opportunity to implement their global program: “So a new social contract needs to emerge from this crisis that rebalances deep inequalities that are prevalent across societies.” When did you last get a ballot in your mailbox asking you to vote on this new “social contract”? In fact, the social contract was a nice idea introduced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau but one that has had little traction in reality. The 19th century American libertarian Lysander Spooner, analyzing the US Constitution, “could find no evidence of anyone ever making a contract to set up a government, and argued that it was absurd to look to the practice of voting or paying taxes as evidence of tacit consent.” [11]

Aside from the very real concern that the UBI would be tied to digital ID and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) on a Chinese Communist style social credit system, when have government bureaucrats ever had citizens’ best interests at heart? When have they ever given money away with no strings attached? As Ron Paul observes, the UBI “can help ensure compliance with the Great Reset’s authoritarian measures… The lockdowns show the dangers of government control over the economy and our personal lives.” [12] And the minute government finances go south, warns Doran, your monthly UBI cheque could either be scaled back or disappear altogether. And governments that have run roughshod over constitutional rights the past two years are unlikely to be able to resist the use of UBI as a means of ensuring public compliance with their globalist policies. Ultimately, it is a social credit system. This is what Justin Trudeau probably meant when he expressed admiration for China’s system of government.

Charles Hugh Smith sums it up chillingly when he writes:

“…rather than deliver a Utopia, UBI institutionalizes serfdom and a two-class neo-feudalism in which the bottom 95% scrape by on UBI while the top 5% hoard what every human wants and needs: positive social roles in our community, meaningful work that makes us feel needed, and the opportunity to build capital in all its manifestations. UBI is the last gasp of a broken, dying system, a “solution” that institutionalizes all the injustices of serfdom under the guise of aiding those left behind by automation.” [13]

Not only will your compliance to authority be mandated, but you’ll be reduced to an aimless life devoid of the satisfaction that hard work can bring in accomplishing personal goals. In the words of the now-disappeared WEF mantra, “You will own nothing and you will be happy.” And guess who will own everything? That’s who you’ll be renting everything from. The French economist Thomas Piketty hinted in his book Capital in the 21st Century (2014) that something like this might be coming from what he called the “rentier class” of global elites. Piketty wrote that this class owes its wealth not to hard work or entrepreneurial genius but by interest earned on inherited fortunes and the rents they collect from various sources. A reviewer of his book sums up Piketty’s contention “that the sharp reduction of economic inequality in rich nations, which culminated in the celebrated post-World War II era expanded middle class, is being reversed and hardening into enduring oligarchy.” [14]

Instead of an elitist “Great Reset,” we should pay attention to what Vandana Shiva calls a “Resurgence of the Real.” It’s a holistic vision that involves a return to localism rather than technocratic globalism. As I write in Words from the Dead, “It calls for working in harmony with the wisdom of the Earth and respecting the collective wisdom cultures have acquired over thousands of years of learning to work within their unique microclimates.” [15] It’s a principle that has been stated with elegant simplicity by a dear friend whose family emigrated to Canada from Austria after World War II to create one of British Columbia’s first biodynamic farms. “I always default to the idea that people should just be given a hectare of land that they can farm,” he says. “There are countries like Russia that will give people a free piece of land if they grow food on it. Forty percent of Russia’s food comes from these dachas.” The Russian initiative “gives an opportunity to every Russian citizen to obtain one hectare of land in the Far East for free use for the first five years and then acquire ownership of their land allotments at no cost ... About 30 million Russians—especially the young—are ready to go east and take up the offer.” [16] At a time when Russia is being demonized by the West—again—this strikes me as an incredibly enlightened policy.

Patent expert Dr. David Martin sees the Great Reset as “great theatre” rather than a realistic option. Martin says: “But the entire illusion is being run because they’re out of ideas. And… when the incumbency is out of bad ideas, they try desperately to force you into a behaviour that you would not otherwise accept. All you have to do is just say no. Just don’t play along.” [17] Vandana Shiva, having witnessed the depredations of Bill Gates and his disastrous vaccine pilot projects and GMO agriculture in India, was onto the Great Reset game from the outset. In her book Oneness vs. the 1% she made it crystal clear that Gates and his ilk are just the latest conquering colonists, only now their goal is to colonize our minds and bodies for profit. And their new empire is the world. As Martin urges, it’s critical that we collectively shout a resounding “NO!” to their plans. Shiva sums it up eloquently:

“Breaking free of the 1% and their constructs is not just possible, it has become necessary. It is an ecological necessity because the worldview of separation combined with an illusion of limitless extraction and exploitation of nature is pushing us to an ecological precipice. It is an economic necessity because a 1% world will render the 99% disposable, extinguishing our diverse creativities, potentials and possibilities. It is a democratic necessity because the 1% is a violent dictatorship. It destroys our fundamental freedoms, and the freedoms for all beings to evolve in an interrelated world, in an Earth family.” [18] —Vandana Shiva

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[1] Bill C-237: An Act to establish a national strategy for a guaranteed basic income, Section 3 (2), “Consultation.”

[2] “World Leaders Planning New Lockdowns To Introduce “The World Debt Reset Program” (Which Includes Universal Basic Income And More),” The Silver Doctors, October 19, 2020: https://www.silverdoctors.com/headlines/world-news/world-leaders-planning-new-lockdowns-to-introduce-the-world-debt-reset-program-which-includes-universal-basic-income-and-more/

[3] Jimmy Doran, “UBI: A Trojan horse,” Socialist Voice, December 4, 2020: https://socialistvoice.ie/2020/12/ubi-a-trojan-horse/

[4] “World Leaders Planning New Lockdowns To Introduce “The World Debt Reset Program” (Which Includes Universal Basic Income And More),” The Silver Doctors, October 19, 2020.

[5] “World Leaders Planning New Lockdowns To Introduce “The World Debt Reset Program” (Which Includes Universal Basic Income And More),” The Silver Doctors, October 19, 2020.

[6] Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret, Covid-19: The Great Reset, Forum Publishing, Geneva, 2020, edition 1.0, pp. 15, 16.

[7] Sean Arthur Joyce, Words from the Dead: Relevant Readings in the Covid Age, Ekstasis Editions, Victoria BC, 2022, p. 27.

[8] “Liberal delegates endorse a universal basic income, reject capital gain tax hike,” CBC News, April 10, 2021: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-universal-basic-income-1.5982862

[9] Jimmy Doran, “UBI: A Trojan horse,” Socialist Voice, December 4, 2020.

[10] “Liberal delegates endorse a universal basic income, reject capital gain tax hike,” CBC News, April 10, 2021.

[11] Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, PM Press, 1992 (2010 ed.), p. 22.

[12] Ron Paul, “The ‘Great Reset’ is about Expanding Government Power and Suppressing Liberty,” Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, January 4, 2021: http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2021/january/04/the-great-reset-is-about-expanding-government-power-and-suppressing-liberty/

[13] Charles Hugh Smith, “A Radical Critique of Universal Basic Income”: https://www.shiftfrequency.com/ubi-universal-basic-income-critique/

[14] Robert J. Antonio, University of Kansas, “Piketty’s Nightmare Capitalism: The Return of Rentier Society and De-democratization,” Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 43, No.6, American Sociological Association, JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43185667

[15] Sean Arthur Joyce, Words from the Dead: Relevant Readings in the Covid Age, Ekstasis Editions, Victoria BC, 2022, p. 170.

[16] “Russia gives away one hectare of farmland and forest to its citizens,” The Siberian Times, July 27, 2015: https://siberiantimes.com/business/others/news/n0329-russia-gives-away-one-hectare-of-farmland-and-forest-to-its-citizens/

[17] David Martin, quoted by Dr. Joseph Mercola, “Patents Prove COVID Fraud and Illegal Dealings” October 5, 2021; content taken down by October 8, 2021.

[18] Vandana Shiva, Oneness vs. the 1%: Shattering Illusions, Seeding Freedom, Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont/London, 2018, p. 149.