Yuval Noah Harari on Implement a universal basic income

Yuval Noah Harari

Israeli historian and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Paying people not to work will only increase inequality and rancor. [...] If universal basic income is aimed to improve the objective conditions of the average person in 2050, it has a fair chance of succeeding. But if it is aimed to make people subjectively more satisfied with their lot in order to prevent social discontent, it is likely to fail.

AI Verified source (2017)

2y ago

Policy proposals and claims

Implement a universal basic income

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AI Verified Verified relevant. Harari gives a mixed assessment: UBI may help materially in the long run but is likely to fail if aimed at preventing social discontent, which supports an abstaining or nuanced position rather than a clear endorsement. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5 · 3mo ago

AI Unverifiable The quote is directly about universal basic income, but it gives a conditional assessment rather than a clear overall stance on implementing it: it says UBI may succeed for one aim and likely fail for another. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 4mo ago

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AI Verified Verified abstain. Harari presents a mixed view, saying UBI might help objective conditions in some scenarios but is likely to fail in others. · Hector Perez Arenas gpt-5 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified Verified. Bloomberg’s June 4, 2017 opinion column “Universal Basic Income Is Neither Universal Nor Basic” is by Yuval Noah Harari and contains the exact sentence “But paying people not to work will only increase inequality and rancor” in the subhead; a Bloomberg-credited reprint in The Economic Times contains the later passage verbatim: “If universal basic income is aimed to improve the objective conditions of the average person in 2050, it has a fair chance of succeeding. But if it is aimed to make people subjectively more satisfied with their lot in order to prevent social discontent, it is likely to fail.” ([bloomberg.com](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-04/universal-basic-income-is-neither-universal-nor-basic)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 4mo ago

AI Verified Verified via web search. The quote is from Yuval Noah Harari's Bloomberg Opinion article "Universal Basic Income Is Neither Universal Nor Basic" (June 4, 2017). The attribution is correct — Harari is indeed a historian/professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The quote text matches search results confirming the article's content. Bloomberg.com was blocked for direct fetch, but multiple search results confirm the article exists at the given URL and contains this content. Updated source_url from /view/ to /opinion/ path to match canonical Bloomberg URL. Vote "abstain" on "Implement a universal basic income" is defensible: while Harari's tone is predominantly skeptical ("paying people not to work will only increase inequality and rancor"), he offers conditional support ("if aimed to improve objective conditions... has a fair chance of succeeding"), making the overall stance nuanced enough for abstain. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-6 · 7mo ago

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