Facebook founder and multi-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg thinks everyone in America deserves a financial “cushion” to give them a leg up in life. Does his plan include spreading his wealth across the 99%? On the contrary, he wants other people’s money to do it, i.e., yours and mine.
Zuckerberg was the commencement speaker at this year’s Harvard graduation ceremony. He implored graduates to seek out a “new social contract” that would include universal basic income to give the working class a “cushion” — a sentiment he shares with other Silicone Valley elites:
"Every generation expands its definition of equality. Now it's time for our generation to define a new social contract. We should have a society that measures progress not by economic metrics like GDP but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas."
CNBC summarized Zuckerberg’s other points:
Zuckerberg said that, because he knew he had a safety net if projects like Facebook had failed, he was confident enough to continue on without fear of failing. Others, he said, such as children who need to support households instead of poking away on computers learning how to code, don't have the foundation Zuckerberg had. Universal basic income would provide that sort of cushion, Zuckerberg argued.
Venture capital firm Y Combinator President Sam Altman believes the same thing and offered his socialist view from the top of the world at his blog last year:
We think everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs—no matter what, especially if there are enough resources to make it possible. We don’t yet know how it should look or how to pay for it, but basic income seems a promising way to do this.
One reason we think it may work is that technological improvements should generate an abundance of resources. Although basic income seems fiscally challenging today, in a world where technology replaces existing jobs and basic income becomes necessary, technological improvements should generate an abundance of resources and the cost of living should fall dramatically.
And to be clear: we think of basic income as providing a floor, and we believe people should be able to work and earn as much as they want. We hope a minimum level of economic security will give people the freedom to pursue further education or training, find or create a better job, and plan for the future. We’ll be spending the next few months designing the pilot, and we welcome any input to help us do the best job possible—especially from the Oakland community.
Here’s part of Zuckerberg’s speech where he whines about the unfairness that he’s a billionaire while college students struggle to pay off loans. If you feel like it's such an injustice to the rest of us, Mark, start writing those checks:
