Handing out money to all citizens, no questions asked, so that everyone can pay the rent and no one needs to worry about tomorrow’s lunch: That’s the idea behind a universal basic income, or UBI for short.
No longer a fringe concept, it’s also an idea whose time has come, as Laura Brämswig and Albert Wenger explain in their DLD All Stars conversation. Brämswig leads Germany’s Expedition Grundeinkommen – one of many projects worldwide that are testing the concept of a UBI in practice.
Wenger, a Partner at Union Square Ventures, is known for both his business acumen (he was a lead investor in Etsy, for example) but also as a thought leader in business and society. One of his projects is the e-book World After Capital, which is free to read in any Web browser.