Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking. Login or Take a Tour!
Ok, it did fail once. The Speenhamland system of UBI was tried in 1795, and was ended 40 years later. But it was a scheme to keep rural farmers on the farm and farming for the rich landlords, rather than moving to the city for the new jobs provided by the industrial revolution. And it wasn't applied equally to everyone. And the value was set to a "subsistence" level, not to a "basic income" level. And there were many other problems with the implementation as well. This is the single case where a UBI has failed, and it quoted in every study and article on the topic. (Every modern instance of the UBI has worked, unequivocally.)