# The UBI dystopia: a glimpse into the future via present-day abuses

*Disclaimer: This does risk being a little culture-war-adjacent. This is more political than I normally see on LessWrong, but the spirit of it is intended to be less "Smash Capitalism" or "Become Ungovernable" and more "look at these things that are happening in Australia."*

*Inspired by:* [*Basic Income, Not Basic Jobs: Against Hijacking Utopia*](https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/16/basic-income-not-basic-jobs-against-hijacking-utopia/)*,* [*SSC Gives A Graduation Speech*](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation-speech/)*.*

Summary
=======

Some bad things are happening today to people who depend on the government for money. This suggests that similar bad things could happen in the future if more people depend on the government for money.

If you're an advocate for UBI, or it's a linchpin in your plan for how we'll live well post-AI, it's important to consider two connected worries carefully:

1.  Creating the scheme as truly universal (and keeping it that way) may be politically untenable in a democracy.
2.  In many likely worlds, some people will depend on this non-universal UBI for survival, leaving them vulnerable to coercive control and arbitrary punishment by the government (lawfully), government officials (unlawfully), even corrupt bureaucrats.

* * *

Worries along the lines of "*UBI could make us all serfs*" and various techno-futuristic dystopian visions are already common enough. There's also a growing part of journalism/civil society/activism concerned with an industry that "[farms the unemployed](https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6433730/catch-22-madness-life-on-the-dole/)" — billing the government for services it ostensibly provides to poor people, while in fact spending their time on coercive control and a moralistic form of discipline. A "digital poorhouse" per Virginia Eubanks.

I think the average LW reader has *also* probably heard worries about Government Issued Digital Currency (GIDC), which is certainly part of the concern here. Others have expressed worry about payment processors and banks being politically manipulated.

But I think many people here are less familiar with arguments about problems within the **social welfare system** that already exist today.[^epxzxtcggcc] These problems are suggestive to me that, absent a change in the culture of these institutions, a UBI might lead to serious abuses.

After listing some reasons it might be hard to actually make an actual universal policy, or 'make it an inalienable human right', etc., I then briefly survey some of the abuses of welfare recipients that have recently occurred in Australia, due to the ability of the government, public servants, and employees of private companies to 'turn off the tap' on their money.

Two main problems
=================

1\. You probably can't make it universal, and you probably can't keep it that way.
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The most compact way to pump this intuition is to imagine a caricature of a political debate, where a outrage-stoking populist politician is tearing shreds off a nervously stammering, principled, liberal, establishment centrist candidate.

> *Are you seriously proposing to give access to our hard earned tax dollars to* [*migrants*](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/12/german-government-approves-bill-to-stop-eu-migrants-claiming-benefits)*?* [*Refugees?*](https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-austria-election-migrants-idUKKCN1BF1RI) *Oh, you're not? How can we trust you on this? So you'll demand government-issued photo-ID and proof of citizenship for people signing up?*[^zijz1utahs]  
> *Ok, what about convicted terrorists?* [*What about people*](https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/aussie-jihadists-were-on-the-dole/news-story/dcba3f4043e19b6a9f36cd46005ec5e1) *(accused of)* [*traveling abroad to join terrorist organizations*](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-28/no-foreign-fighters-have-had-their-welfare-payments-cancelled/6503422)[^4w9oleyz4gu]*(accused by members of the government or security agencies without a trial)?*[^e0kgtd7o74] *What about 'terrorist* [*sympathizers?'*](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/terrorism-supporters-to-lose-dole-payments-says-tony-abbott-20140816-104ufr.html)  
> *We won't be giving it to convicted felons, though, right? Oh we ARE? But not while they're in prison, right? *[^06q40ehjxey]  
> *And obviously child sex* [*offenders*](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-06/paedophile-superannuation-should-go-to-victims-xenophon-says/100970030) *are barred from the UBI for life, right?*[^qfyxzyzcqz]  
> *What about* [*people*](https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/queensland-teachers-and-school-workers-face-pay-cut-over-covid-19-vaccine-refusal/d40qt7qwd) *who* [*refuse*](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-20/coronavirus-vaccine-link-to-government-payments/12577618) *to get vaccinated or* [*vaccinate their children*](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-32274107)*? *[^sutho4shjks]  
> *What about people who take part in* [*unpopular*](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/03/peter-dutton-accused-dictator-urging-welfare-cuts-protesters) *protests?*  
> *What about* [*draft-dodgers*](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/02/failing-register-draft-women-court-consequences-men/3205425002/)*? Taxpayers would be paying for them to sit on their behinds while everyone else who gets conscripted does their duty and answers the call.*  
> *What about billionaires? ('Boo, hiss!')*[^az7oq2jc2cf]  
> *How are you going to guarantee there's no fraud? You can't? So it's ok to be a welfare cheat? How can we ever trust you not to allow any fraud to go unpunished?*[^jbf95of6ddq]

I think at least one of those points probably hit for >70% of readers, and each of you feels that either: (1) the point that convinced you is an obvious, common-sense exception and I was silly to include it or (2) the point is unlikely to come up because it would be outside the Overton window[^dqzg6vhsekq].

It's worth noticing that it's impossible to maintain universality without being prepared to 'hold your nose' and give money to *Really* *Bad People,* and that arguing *for* that position is likely to be unpopular, politically salient, and plain suicide for lawmakers.

2\. If any people depend on the UBI for survival, they're vulnerable to coercive control.
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Rather than sketch a too-specific futuristic sci-fi scenario for how this coercive control could look, I want to point at the *existing* social welfare system[^epxzxtcggcc], today, focusing mainly on Australia (the country to which I've been paying the most attention.)[^nutbbk48tj]

Here are some of the abuses witnessed in Australia recently. I'll probably write a post about each of these soon. (Or, just read literally anything [Jeremy Poxon](https://twitter.com/JeremyPoxon)[^0r94qcor1g9f][ ](https://twitter.com/JeremyPoxon)posts on Twitter.)

*   **Cashless debit card for welfare** (intended to stop welfare recipients accessing cash and/or purchasing alcohol, tobacco, porn, gambling products).
*   **'Mutual Obligations'** welfare recipients [coerced](https://s37430.pcdn.co/businesslaw/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2022/03/AJLE251casey.pdf) to 'jump through hoops', perform work for free, and exposed to [summary punishments](https://twitter.com/JeremyPoxon/status/1638772745801723905?s=20) ([having their income cut off](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/30/heartbreaking-9100-homeless-suffer-jobseeker-payment-suspensions-amid-recession)) without trial or due process, via a system that empowers [~~petty tyrants~~](https://twitter.com/JeremyPoxon/status/1637670703947485185?s=20) entry-level employees of private '[job agencies](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/03/job-agency-refers-welfare-recipients-to-online-course-asking-basic-questions-about-computers)' to cut off people's welfare payments based on their own discretion, [often in error.](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/08/more-than-120000-people-whose-welfare-was-suspended-were-not-at-fault-data-shows)
    *   'Job Agencies' ostensibly help job-seekers to find work, but [much of their daily activity is disciplinary](https://twitter.com/JeremyPoxon/status/1638408274453360646), in some cases spending [30-40%](https://twitter.com/JeremyPoxon/status/1635472747567681536?s=20) of their time managing compliance with mandatory job-seeking activities (and doling out punishment for failures), rather than providing job-seeking assistance.
*   [**Unlawful**](https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/federal-government-loses-major-robodebt-case/11742494) **collection of** [**fake 'debts'**](https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/hundreds-of-millions-robodebt-bill-looms-for-taxpayers-20200601-p54yc1): a scheme that used a [*literally wrong*](https://theconversation.com/why-robodebts-use-of-income-averaging-lacked-basic-common-sense-201296)[^933o31vhbp]algorithm to identify [fictitious 'debts'](https://twitter.com/JeremyPoxon/status/1633728258662633472?s=20) alleged to be owed by people who had previously received welfare payments, sending threatening letters demanding immediate repayment, then selling those fake debts to [private debt recovery agencies](https://www.themandarin.com.au/204378-services-australia-handed-5-6m-more-work-to-robodebt-collector-panthera-following-accc-prosecution/).  
    *   After years, the government [settled a class-action lawsuit](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/16/a-bit-of-a-joke-single-mother-of-four-scarred-by-robodebt-scandal-ends-up-with-96-cents-compensation) and paid ~$1.2 billion (USD) (of which ~500 million was wrongly-collected money being paid back and ~74 million was compensation to victims for lost interest. They didn't have to pay [damages for the harm caused](https://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/robo-debt-client-stories).)
    *   When served with a 'robodebt', you were assumed guilty by default, and required to present evidence of your innocence. (For example, a complete set of payslips from a casual job you had while studying at university, six years ago.)
*   **Electronic surveillance** of welfare recipients to prevent fraud. Especially scary when combined with:
*   Unlawful **privacy violations** (leaks of personal information to the tabloid press) to **punish welfare recipients for political activism**.

**Conclusions**
===============

This is only a brief survey, and much more can be said about any of its points. 

If you're not engaged with these issues (maybe because they're mostly documented by firebrand leftists and framed in sweeping political terms), it's easy to miss how bad things have become in this sector of society. 

If we can't make a 'clean break' when we create the UBI, and it thus inherits some of the cultural and institutional baggage of current-day social welfare systems, there could be many challenges to individual autonomy and liberty.

[^epxzxtcggcc]: I think it's likely that UBI will grow from existing social welfare programs over time, with eligibility criteria widening as more people require the assistance. Even if it's created as a brand new universal payment, it seems likely the existing infrastructure and expertise will be recycled when implementing it. At a minimum, if the UBI is culturally treated as 'welfare', the existing cultural norms around work and welfare might still apply to it, in some ways. 

[^zijz1utahs]: This is the most obvious and probably justified exception, but it's worth noting that (1) there are tens of millions of undocumented migrants living in the US, and (2) requiring ID, proof of citizenship, etc. will create the same problems that exist today, where e.g. homeless people, mentally ill people struggle to handle the bureaucratic hurdles. If you're a pretty capable person and you already have ID, a fixed address, etc, it's easy to forget how hard it is to bootstrap from 'doesn't have documents in order' to 'documents in order.' (My own experiences just getting a simple bank account when I moved to a different country showed me how hard this kind of thing can be. You need proof of address, which you can't get until you have bills arriving at your house with your name on them, and you also need three forms of ID, which you can't get until you have proof of address. You also need ID and bank statements to start a rental tenancy. I'm pretty organized, and it was hard to figure out what order to do things in, and it took time. Try doing it while mentally ill, after sleeping rough and not eating properly for a couple of weeks.) 

[^4w9oleyz4gu]: This may not have actually happened to anyone, but that seems to be because the supposed problem never existed, not because of any legal or ethical norms preventing the government from acting. The government minister responsible seems almost embarrassed the law was never applied because they couldn't find anyone to apply it to. 

[^e0kgtd7o74]: Beyond just cutting welfare payments, the rights of citizens accused of terrorist offenses are very poorly observed. Several Western governments, including the UK, have passed laws allowing them to revoke citizenship from individuals, without a trial or any means for appeal, when those individuals are simply accused of traveling overseas to assist in terrorist acts. The US has even killed its own citizens without a trial on at least one occasion. 

[^06q40ehjxey]: Existing norms and laws often don't support paying social welfare to felons. "In addition to not being allowed to serve on a jury in most states, convicted felons are not allowed to apply for federal or state grants, live in public housing, or receive federal cash assistance, SSI or food stamps, among other benefits." Source. 

[^qfyxzyzcqz]: No politician wants to ever be in the position of arguing that any punishment is too harsh for child sex offenders. It's a uniquely despised crime. 

[^sutho4shjks]: Without debating the merits of the 'vaccine mandate', it should be uncontroversial to note that many governments that stopped short of making the vaccine literally mandatory, did impose restrictions on unvaccinated people that blah blah.  

[^az7oq2jc2cf]: Once you try to link UBI to any kind of means testing or wealth cutoff, you've opened a can of worms and need to create a huge bureaucracy that would eat into the savings you're supposed to be making by reducing bureaucracy. 

[^jbf95of6ddq]: See footnote 8. The cost of surveillance and enforcement would be high. Welfare fraud is a common tabloid and populist trope, and it's easy to imagine UBI fraud becoming a populist talking point. 

[^dqzg6vhsekq]: I was surprised when writing this to discover that an hour of google searches couldn't turn up any examples of people losing their payments (or politicians calling for them to lose their payments) for just being political extremists, neo-Nazis, ANTIFA, insurrectionists, etc. This was not the gestalt impression I had formed from idly browsing Twitter and listening to the concerns around UBI there. The norm of not cutting people's payments as explicit punishment for political affiliations appears fairly strong. (Attending political protests is another matter, though.) 

[^nutbbk48tj]: Because I live here, and because Australia punches above its weight in terms of violating the law and moral norms in its dealings with social welfare recipients.  

[^0r94qcor1g9f]: Some choice tweets from Jeremy's close watch of the submissions to the Inquiry into Workforce Australia: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 

[^933o31vhbp]: "Professor Whiteford said a key flaw of the Robodebt scheme was that ‘overpayments’ for many people were based on averaging recipients’ income over the financial year.  ‘Debts’ were then based on the difference between this averaged income and the income that people actually reported while they were receiving payments [reports are every two weeks and payments ONLY consider the previous eight weeks in their calculations of entitlements.]“I warned about this misstep in 2017 and thought at the time ‘they can’t possibly have done that’,” Professor Whiteford said. “Sadly, as the Royal Commission into Robodebt has discovered, this is precisely what they were doing.” Source