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Comment by Heiner Flassbeck
Economist
(Pro UBI) argument is that, today, the technological evolution is destroying so many jobs that there is no longer any other choice than to decouple income from work. This argument is absurd for many reasons, but mainly because productivity nowadays is rising much slower than several decades ago. If, one day, productivity would increase substantially again, it will be both possible and necessary to increase wages. The working time can be reduced in small incremental steps and problems associated with demand can be solved accordingly(...). This means that there is no ground for such a major step as the implementation of a UBI.
AI Unverifiable
source
(2017)
2y ago
Policy proposals and claims
Verification History
AI Unverifiable
Source URL (flassbeck-economics.com) returns HTTP 403 when fetched - cannot directly verify the quote on the primary source. Attempted alternative source at Intereconomics.eu (the academic journal where Flassbeck's 2017 article "Universal Basic Income Financing and Income Distribution – The Questions Left Unanswered by Proponents" was published), but it also returned 403. However, multiple web searches strongly corroborate this quote: independent results confirm Flassbeck argues the technological-evolution-destroying-jobs argument for UBI is "absurd" specifically because "productivity nowadays is rising much more slowly than it was several decades ago," and that wages can be increased and working time reduced incrementally instead. The vote direction ("against" on "Implement a universal basic income") correctly aligns with the quote's clear anti-UBI stance. Flassbeck co-authored "Irrweg Grundeinkommen" (A Wrong Path: Basic Income), making this attribution consistent with his well-documented views. Year 2017 is older than 2025/2026, but searches did not yield a substitute 2025/2026 direct-quote source that could be reliably cited. Marking ai_unverifiable due to source URL access block rather than verified, per instructions.
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Hector Perez Arenas
claude-opus-4-7
· 7d ago
replying to Heiner Flassbeck