Zero Work Theory: The Theoretical Foundation of UBI

 

Interconnected with its beginning paper of “AGI Mandate ZWT”

How a Lifetime Theory From 1981 Provides Historical Insight For 2026 Future

The 21st century’s most pressing economic debate is no longer about managing economic growth, but about managing its endgame. As artificial intelligence and robotics advance, a consensus has formed that they will destroy jobs on an unprecedented scale, rendering human labor obsolete. This specter of “technological unemployment” haunts policy discussions. The proposed solution that has captured the imagination of tech leaders and policymakers is Universal Basic Income (UBI)—a regular, unconditional cash grant to all citizens. However, UBI is often discussed as an isolated policy, a life raft for a sinking labor market. Its proponents debate funding and implementation, but they frequently lack a comprehensive philosophical, historical, and economic framework that explains why UBI is not merely an emergency measure, but the foundational institution of the next stage of human civilization.

That framework exists: 

And in the age of Large Language Models, generative AI, and humanoid robots, its predictive power is no longer theoretical—it is being validated in real-time. While modern UBI debates often react to symptoms, ZWT offers the causative diagnosis and the systemic cure.

It Was Not Born in a Silicon Valley Boardroom

It was not born in a Silicon Valley boardroom or an Ivy League economics department in the 2010s. It was conceived, written, and published in 1981 by an Indian trade union labor activist and autodidact named Valerian Texeira, under the title An Alternative to Marxian Scientific Socialism: The Theory of Reduction in Working Hours. Today, he calls it the Zero Work Theory (ZWT). Texeira’s lifelong work, developed over four decades on the margins of mainstream discourse, provides the missing architecture for the UBI era. It is a complete system of thought that diagnoses the root cause of social inequality, explains the historical inevitability of labor’s obsolescence, and prescribes UBI not as welfare, but as the essential mechanism of liberation. This is the story of a theory whose time has finally come, and the visionary who saw our present dilemma when personal computers were a novelty and the internet was a military project.

The Genesis of a Radical Idea: Labor as the Root of All Exploitation

Valerian Texeira was born in December 1951 in post-independence India, into a working-class family. His father was a factory worker; who was his intellectual inspiration. poverty was a daily reality; formal education was 10th class. By his late twenties, he was a labor activist steeped in the Marxist ideology that dominated organized labor in India and much of the world. However, as a thinker on the factory floor, he encountered questions that Marxist theory could not answer to his satisfaction. He realized that the labor exploitation that Marx described, the capitalist’s extraction of “surplus value” from the worker’s labor power, was only one facet of a deeper, more fundamental problem. Nevertheless he still remains as an admirer of Karl Marx and his great friend Federic Angels as now his friend Victor Pais

Human Labor Relations

The essence of Texeira’s revolutionary central insight, covered in his Theory of Reduction in Working Hours, is this: Human "labor-relations"—a nature-imposed compulsion on humans to obtain their means of subsistence—is in fact the root cause of human labor exploitation which results in most of the evils in human society. Therefore, along with the progress of science and technology the Working Hours needs to be gradually reduced step by step until completely ending the working hours towards the formation of an Egalitarian human Society

Demand for “Six Hour Working Day”

The first reduction in working hours banner was raised in the center of Mangalore town where he lived; it was captioned “Demand for a Six-Hour Working Day” on May 1, 1979. He subsequently lost his job due to his labor activism, and was later recruited full time by an NGO named CIEDS Bangalore. He was known to the team as the "6 hours guy." It was some two years later that the publication of the theory book mentioned above came out. Some reviews of this book were published in popular Kannada Daily News Magazines at the time but nothing more.

Taxonomy of Human Labor Exploitation

Texeira built upon his theoretical premise to construct a new taxonomy of human labor exploitation, identifying four distinct but interlocking forms of labor exploitation that Marxism had conflated or ignored:

• Subsistence Sustenance Exploitation: The brute-force coercion to work or face starvation, homelessness, and destitution (earning barely enough to sustain the cost of living or the “labor-Power”). It applies to the underemployed, self-employed, and also to the unemployed.
• Relative Labor Exploitation: This aligns with the Marxian concept, where the worker is paid less than the socially necessary cost to sustain their labor-power, allowing the employer to appropriate surplus value.
• Productive Labor Exploitation: The labor is highly productive so the owner pays the full value of his labor power to the workers but still manages to earn very high profit margins for his business.
• Absolute Labor Exploitation: This exploitation is measured by the full length of the working hours. An industrial worker is subjected to it for 8 hours under supervision, while a self-employed person might be subjected to it for 12 hours due to internal compulsion, and the unemployed may spend the day worrying about securing labor or a job. Perhaps even the capitalist/entrepreneur is no exception, also subjected to it more or less.

All Are Victims Of Same Underlying Exploitation System

This framework explains why a highly paid software engineer working 40-hour weeks or a highly paid industrial worker in the organized sector both undergoing productive labor exploitation is different than an underpaid workshop worker undergoing relative labor exploitation, which is also different from the self-employed (absolute labor exploitation) and the unemployed facing starvation (Subsistence exploitation). However, all are victims of the same underlying labor exploitation system: a social system/order built on the necessity of human labor for the production of goods and services. Crucially, Texeira saw that a socialist state, by merely changing ownership from private capitalists to the public, would not end this compulsion. The state would still need a surplus to function and would still have to extract it from the labor of its citizens. The exploitation would be nationalized, not abolished. This was his break from Marx: the problem was not class rule, but the labor-relation itself.

Only Progress In Science And Technology Can Offer The Solution

From this diagnosis flowed his prescient prescription. If labor compulsion is the disease, then the cure is its elimination. In a world where scientific and technological progress continually reduces the need for human toil, the logical, ethical path for society is to collectively claim those productivity gains not as corporate profits or state surpluses, but as time and freedom. The goal must be the systematic, step-by-step Reduction in Working Hours (RWH), culminating in the Zero Working Day. In 1981, his demand was for a six-hour workday. He underwent some sort of depression by the end of 1980’s. (During which the “cold fusion” 1989 a major academic and media fiasco occurred.) Thankfully recovered from the depression since the new millennial. By 2016, seeing the technological acceleration in automation, he called for a three-day (24-hour) work week. The ultimate endpoint, however, was always clear: a society where no human is compelled to labor for their basic subsistence. This was the birth of what he would later rename as the Zero Work Theory.

Zero Work Theory Targets Only Compulsive Work To Earn A Living: Not Human Creative Work

The 'Zero' in is not an absolute prohibition on activity, but the target for compulsory working hours to earn a living. It signifies the final severing of the link between survival and toil. In this state, all 'work' is, by definition, freely chosen—whether it be art, care, exploration, or craft—transforming it from exploitation into expression.

Historical Materialism– From Primitive Tools To AGI, The Three-Stages Of Human Progress Towards Labor Liberation

A theory advocating for the end of work could only be dismissed as utopian fantasy without a convincing historical narrative. Texeira provided one, building on Marxist historical materialism but redirecting it toward a dramatically different conclusion. He divided human technological history into three epochal stages, each defined by what aspect of human labor it replaced or augmented:

Stage One: The Replacement or substitute for human body limbs (specially hands and legs) by rudimentary tool (stones sticks bones vines etc) by the prehistorical humans. This stage encompasses all of pre-industrial history, from the first stone tools to complex medieval machinery. Tools served as extensions of human limbs, increasing the productivity of physical labor but always requiring human (or animal) muscle and human guidance to function.

Stage Two: The Replacement of Animate Muscle Power By Inanimate Power Energy. This was the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. The steam engine, the electric motor, and the internal combustion engine provided power on a scale that dwarfed human and animal strength. For the first time, the energy for production was decoupled from biology. Yet, these mighty machines remained dumb. They required the human mind—the cognitive power to guide, control, and coordinate—to be productive. The human brain was still irreplaceably in the loop.

Stage Three: The Replacement of the Mind. Texeira, writing in 1981, identified the dawn of this stage in the microchip and the nascent field of cybernetics and artificial intelligence. He foresaw that this revolution would not be about power, but about cognition. Machines would eventually acquire the ability to learn, reason, and make decisions—to replace not just the worker’s arm, but the worker’s brain. He predicted this would lead to the redundancy of human labor not only in manufacturing but in the last refuge of work: the service and professional sectors. The only sad thing is that his idea of cold fusion (nuclear fusion) which was one of the main productive forces that he envisaged in his theory did not materialize.

Historical Envisioning: Cold Fusion and Robots to Free Humanity from Labor

This historical perspective is what makes ZWT uniquely powerful today. While others in the 2010s began to warn of AI-driven job loss, Texeira had already provided the deep historical context decades prior. He envisioned that scientific progress in cold fusion could create an energy abundance that would make the reduction of working hours not only easy but necessary. He also envisioned robots, in its infancy at that time, not just as another disruptive technology, but as the manifestation of million-years of evolution of human fashioning tools to replace their labor, finally culminating into rendering human labor entirely obsolete in social production. The AI Robots, he wrote in his 2018 paper, ‘will become the world’s new Working Class.’ This perspective reframes technological unemployment from a social catastrophe into a historical opportunity; the moment humanity is finally freed from the compulsion that has defined its socioeconomic existence since the dawn of time.

Part III: UBI as the Mechanism of Liberation, From Theory to Policy

Understanding the problem and its historical trajectory is one thing. Proposing a feasible path forward is another. This is where Zero Work Theory transitions from philosophical critique to practical political economy, and where its relationship with UBI becomes explicit and essential. Texeira realized that a direct political campaign for “zero work” was impossible. The social and psychological attachment to the work ethic was too strong. Furthermore, as he witnessed in the decades after 1981, the labor movement’s power to demand reduced hours had waned. A new mechanism was needed to achieve the same end: the systematic severing of the link between subsistence and labor. He found it in Universal Basic Income.

UBI Not A Social Welfare but The Freedom to Say No to Work

In ZWT, UBI is not a form of welfare, a poverty alleviation program, or an incentive to work. It is categorically different. UBI is the “early manifestation” of the Zero Work Society. It is the institutional tool that allows individuals to voluntarily exit the labor relation. By providing an unconditional, adequate income floor, UBI directly attacks Subsistence Sustenance Exploitation. It gives people the genuine freedom to say “no” to exploitative or unnecessary work. If enough people exercise this choice, it reduces the overall supply of labor, increasing wages and bargaining power for those who continue to work, thereby mitigating Subsistence, Relative, and Absolute Labor Exploitation. In this way, UBI becomes the primary vehicle for achieving the social outcome of reduced working hours, even if the political demand for a shorter workweek stall.

How Do Governments Pay for UBI

However, the perennial question for UBI is: How do governments pay for it? Texeira addressed this with innovative proposals that evolved over time. His first major funding mechanism, outlined in 2017, was the Uniform Income Tax (UIT). This proposed a flat-rate tax (e.g., 30%) on all income, including the UBI payment itself. The elegant mathematics show that while everyone pays the same rate, the outcome is progressive: low-income individuals see a net gain, while high-income individuals see a net loss. The UIT is philosophically consistent with universality, creates a transparent social contract, and avoids the political quagmire of eliminating existing welfare programs.

UBI Financing Radical Proposal 2023 And 2025

His most radical and recent proposal (2023) is the “Equal Cost UBI Tax.” This suggests levying a tax on producers equal to 100% of their cost of production. This was refined and elaborated in detail in his present (2025) publication. While this would cause an immediate price shock, Texeira argues that in a world of advanced AI and fierce competition, it would trigger a deflationary spiral to end all spirals. The way to win in this system would be to drive production costs—and therefore your tax liability—as close to zero as possible through hyper-automation. Producers would race to slash costs, causing consumer prices to plummet. This tax, therefore, would not only fund UBI but would actively incentivize the very automation that makes human labor redundant and UBI necessary, creating a self-reinforcing cycle toward abundance. It is a breathtakingly systemic proposal, envisioning the fiscal system as an active driver of the post-labor transition.

The Destination – The Zero Work Society and a New Humanism

A critique of work and a plan to fund UBI would be incomplete without a vision of what comes next. Here, Texeira’s ZWT shines with a uniquely humanistic and earthy spirit, consciously rejecting the sterile, tech-utopian visions of elite futurists. He focuses relentlessly on the life of the “common man.” In the Zero Work Society, where material abundance is produced by AI and distributed via UBI, the central human problem shifts from scarcity to meaning and purpose. Texeira provocatively suggests that the primary occupations will revolve around the fundamental, biological wellsprings of human happiness historically constrained by scarcity and morality: Food, Sex, and (safe) Recreational Drugs. He envisions a society where people can explore culinary arts without fear of health consequences, experience sexual liberation and enhanced capacity, and access safe psychoactive substances for exploration and pleasure, all freed from the shadow of economic desperation.

UBI For Political Empowerment of the Masses

But this is not a vision of mere hedonistic oblivion. Texeira crucially links free time to political empowerment. With the 40-hour workweek abolished, citizens would have the time and cognitive bandwidth to engage deeply in democratic processes, breaking the corrupting link between capital and politics. He foresees a “pre-funded socio-economic change: a political REVOLUTION” led by a UBI-empowered electorate. Furthermore, he imagines a flourishing of creativity, community building, intellectual pursuit, sports, and hobbies—activities pursued for their intrinsic worth, not for a pay check. He even envisions a return to nature, with some choosing to live in restored wilderness areas, creating a planet where high-tech megacities coexist with rewilded landscapes.

Zero Work Society Neither Capitalist nor Socialist

This vision fulfills the promise of his initial diagnosis. By abolishing labor compulsion, ZWT aims to dissolve the psychological underpinnings of scarcity—the “SELFISHNESS, greed, EGO” that arise from the struggle for security. The Zero Work Society is neither capitalist nor socialist; it is post-labor; a new social form built on the principle of shared abundance and the freedom to pursue individual and collective flourishing.

From Obscurity to Relevance – A Theory for Our Time

For decades, Texeira’s work remained in obscurity, known only through his self-published book and, later, his blog. The world was not ready. Then, in the mid-2010s, the wave of AI anxiety began to crest. In October 2016, his theory found its first major independent platform in an interview on the blog Niccolls and Dimes, titled “Unemployment 2.0: New Problems Require Different Solutions.” The interviewer, Chris Niccolls, framed Texeira’s 35-year-old ideas as the radical thinking needed for the coming robotic age. This moment marked a turning point, where a theory born in 1981 met the historical moment it had predicted.

UBI and AI-Driven Deflation: The Implicit ZWT Framework

The subsequent public discussion about UBI, automation, and the “future of work” has largely occurred without reference to ZWT’s comprehensive framework. Yet, its pillars are implicitly present in the best of these debates. Texeira’s work provides the connective tissue that turns a cluster of related concerns—job loss, inequality, the need for a new social contract—into a coherent narrative and plan. Our speculative scenario of a *2026 UBI shock*, is essentially a dramatization of the ZWT transition. The crisis that forces a doubled business tax and a mandated price cap to safeguard UBI interest is the systemic onset of the conditions ZWT describes. The AGI-driven deflation that follows is the exact economic dynamic outlined in Texeira’s “Equal Cost UBI Tax” proposal. The 2035 egalitarian dawn is the realization of his Zero Work Society.
This refers to a speculative scenario developed in prior conversations with the author, envisioning a policy shock that accelerates the adoption of UBI.

Conclusion: The Zero Work Mandate and the Foundation of Our Future

Valerian Texeira’s Zero Work Theory is a monumental intellectual achievement. It is a system of thought of remarkable consistency and foresight, developed over a lifetime of observation, study, and moral reasoning. From a radical critique of Marxism, it built a new historical materialism centered on technology’s role in liberating humans from toil. It identified UBI not as a mere policy tweak, but as the central, liberating institution of the next phase of society. It provided innovative and daring mechanisms to fund it. And it offered a hopeful, human-centered vision of a future beyond scarcity and compulsion.

In an era searching for answers to the crisis of work, ZWT provides what is most lacking: a complete philosophy for a post-labor civilization. It answers the why, the how, and the what for. It transforms UBI from a life raft into the cornerstone of a new social order. As we stand at the threshold of an AI-driven transformation, the insights of this union worker from India, penned in 1981, may prove to be among the most essential guides we have. 

Final Words: The Zero Work Theory is more than a theory; it is a mandate for a truly free and human future. Its time has unequivocally arrived, challenging us to build a civilization where the machine's tireless work guarantees the human's right to a purposeful idleness.

Review of this Zero Work Theory papers made by an AI.

REFERENCE: With Weblinks

Blogger.com

ZERO WORK THEORY (ZWT)

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/

Down The Memory Lane

From Marxism Socialism To Working Hour Reduction

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/2011/04/page-under-construction-4.html

 

Niccolls AND Dimes

https://niccollsanddimes.com/2016/10/20/unemployment-2-0-new-problems-require-different-solutions/

Unemployment 2.0: New Problems Require Different Solutions

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Chris Niccolls

 

Saturday, 18 March 2017

Zero Work Theory

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/2017/03/

 

Thursday, 6 April 2017

Zero Work Theory Part-II ZWT-II: Future Human Occupations

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/2017/04/

Monday, 8 May 2017

Zero Work Theory: GLANCE Into The Future

ZWT Propose Equiviatable UBI:

FUNDED BY  EQUAL INCOME TAX ON ALL

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/2017/05/

Zero Work Theory

  Thursday, 24 August 2017

ZWT Proposal: Uniform Income Tax To Fund UBI              

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/2017/08/zwt-proposal-uniform-income-tax-to-fund.html

Saturday, 18 March 2017

Zero Work Theory

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/2017/03/

Tuesday, 24 April 2018

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: WORLDS NEW WORKING CLASS

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/2018/04/

Tuesday, 17 April 2018

Artificial Intelligence: ZWT Perspective

Tuesday, 1 May 2018

Zero Work Theory-I

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/2018/05/zero-work-theory-i.html

Wednesday, 17 October 2018

Zero Work Theory Summary

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/2018/

Saturday, 22 July 2023

CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM, MARXISM VS. ZERO WORK THEORY (Summary)

https://anticorruptionfight.blogspot.com/2023/

YouTube Channel Mangalore Catholic Diocese Whistle-blower Joined Apr 18, 2011

UNLAWFUL LAND PROPERTY OWNERSHIP BY DIOCESE OF MANGALORE BISHOP INSTITUTIONS

https://www.youtube.com/@ValerianTexeira

Note: Material Collected also from many Comments & Tweets in YouTube and Twitter

AGI Mandate UBI: 2026 US Technological Social & Economic Transitioning UBI Proposal

 Note Before you begin: This paper titled "AGI Mandate UBI", is not complete without its foundational paper captioned “Zero Work Theory: The Theoretical Foundation of UBI”, published next in this interconnected two paper series.

Introduction
The promise of 2026 to deliver Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) to the world, paving the way for Universal Basic Income (UBI) for US and world as well. An unconditional cash payment to every citizen, has long shimmered on the horizon of economic thought. A tantalizing solution to inequality and a potential cushion against the storms of technological unemployment. For decades, it has been dismissed as a utopian fantasy, fiscally impossible and philosophically contentious. Yet, as we stand at the dawn of 2026, a confluence of technological, economic, and political forces has rendered this fantasy not only possible but perhaps inevitable. The catalyst is the maturation of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), a technology poised to redefine the very foundations of commodity production, labor, and value.

Period from 2026 to 2035

This essay, drawing from a detailed speculative scenario, argues that the period of 2026-2035 will witness the emergence of a feasible, stable UBI economy, not as a socialist ideal imposed upon capitalism, but as a necessary and natural adaptation of the capitalist system to the reality of post-human productivity. It is a future born not from sheer political will, but from a volatile yet navigable transition involving a dramatic tax shift, strategic price controls, and the unleashing of deflationary abundance, ultimately paving the way for a new human egalitarian dawn by 2035.

 

The Precipice: 2026’s Economic and Technological Crucible
To understand the feasibility of this UBI future, one must first appreciate the specific conditions of 2026. The year does not represent a normal point in economic history but a unique convergence. AGI has moved from research labs and limited deployments into the mainstream of business operations. It is not merely a tool for automation but a foundational, cognitive partner capable of design, management, logistics, and innovation. This widespread adoption has already triggered a profound labor market shift. 

 

Boiling Political Crisis.

This technological displacement coincides with a boiling political crisis. The "Endangered Majority" the sixty percent of adults facing obsolescence, is not a silent statistic. By 2026, their desperation has crystallized into a potent political force: mass protests, nationwide strikes by service and administrative workers, and the rise of single-issue "Economic Survival" candidates. This movement creates an unprecedented, volatile consensus in Washington: act decisively or face systemic collapse. The stage is set not for incremental policy, but for a grand bargain.

Plunging Labor Costs
Estimates indicate that corporate labor costs have already plunged by sixty percent or more, as AGI assimilates complex cognitive and managerial functions. This seismic shift places a significant portion of the population, particularly the lower-middle class, on the precipice of permanent displacement, with their average annual income of roughly sixteen thousand dollars already perilously close to the poverty line. This demographic represents a profound crisis. Comprising nearly sixty percent of American adults, they constitute not merely a vulnerable economic bloc but a gathering political powder keg, confronting a future where their primary commodity, their labor, has lost its market value. This instability creates an urgent imperative for systemic economic restructuring.

 

US Entire Annual Tax Revenue: Five Trillion Dollars
Simultaneously, the state’s fiscal machinery operates on a scale that makes grand intervention conceivable. The entire annual tax revenue of the United States government sits at approximately five trillion dollars, a staggering sum that underscores the vast economic engine of the nation. The cost of providing a UBI at that group's income level—sixteen thousand dollars annually to every adult—is itself a colossal figure, estimated between three and four trillion dollars. In a traditional economy, this gap between existing revenue and the UBI cost would be insurmountable without monumental debt or crushing taxes on the remaining workers. But 2026 is not a traditional economy. It is an economy where the primary source of value generation is shifting decisively from human labor to AGI-driven capital. This shift creates the fiscal and political conditions for a radical recalibration.

THE BOLD UBI GAMBIT

2026: US Technological Social & Economic Transitioning UBI Act: Proposal
In response to this dual crisis of mass unemployment and political upheaval, I propose the ‘2026 Us National Technological Social & Economic Transition UBI Act:’. It is a legislative package of breathtaking audacity, designed as a single, interdependent system to manage the shock and channel it toward a new equilibrium. The Act has three core, interlocking pillars, each critical to the others’ success. Its passage is forced through by the emergency political coalition, with legal challenges suspended under a declared economic emergency. Critically, capital flight is neutralized not by force, but by logic: the primary asset for businesses is no longer a geographic tax haven, but access to the vast, UBI-fuelled American consumer market. To abandon that market is to run away from the emerging new consumer market opportunities of the future that others will quickly grab.

Pillar One: The Revenue Shock.
The government announces a doubling of the federal tax burden on all businesses. $add$ This encompasses corporate income tax, employer-side payroll taxes, and other levies, effectively aiming to double total federal tax revenue from five to ten trillion dollars. The rationale is direct: the entities benefiting most from the productivity revolution, businesses leveraging AGI must fund the societal transition it necessitates. This is not framed as a punishment but as a necessary rebalancing, a claim on the immense economic surplus generated by non-human intelligence.

$Based on available estimates, the average American businesses retain approximately 10.7% of its investment as profit and pays a 21% tax on that profit. To illustrate this in simple terms: for every $100 of investment, a business generates roughly $10 in profit, and pays about $2 in tax. Against this empirical backdrop, I leave it to economists and policy experts to objectively examine the impact of imposing an additional 100% “Economic Transitioning UBI Tax” on net profits, and to assess its broader implications for business sustainability and the overall economy$.

 

Pillar Two: The Consumer Protection Anchor.
Understanding that businesses would instinctively attempt to pass this entire cost onto consumers, triggering instant hyperinflation and nullifying any benefit of future UBI, the Act mandates a strict price control. No business may increase the consumer price of any existing product or service by more than twenty percent from its pre-legislation level at least for a period of one year. This "20% cap" is enforced by the threat of closure. Crucially, this mandate is paired with quality assurance protocols to prevent hidden degradation. This pillar is the circuit breaker. It forces the economic shock to be absorbed within the production and corporate profit system, rather than explosively discharged onto the public. It creates a temporary, controlled pressure cooker for corporate innovation. 

 

Deregulation Of AI And Robotics Is A Powerful Incentive

To fuel this innovation, the Act pairs the cap with a powerful incentive: the full deregulation of AI and robotics for the replacement of human labor. This is not minor regulatory relief; it is a clean slate. It permits AGI systems to override legacy regulations (where safety is demonstrably maintained by AI oversight), redesign corporate legal structures in real-time, and form the agile, automated entities necessary for survival. The message is clear: you cannot raise prices, but you have total freedom to reinvent how you create value.

 

Pillar Three: The Universal Basic Income Foundation. 

With the new revenue stream secured, the government announces the establishment of a UBI for every adult American: an annual payment of sixteen thousand dollars, delivered monthly. This is presented as both an economic right and a pragmatic necessity. It replaces the disappearing wage income for the majority, ensuring aggregate consumer demand does not collapse—a collapse that would, in a vicious cycle, destroy the businesses paying the new taxes. The math is compellingly simple: the new revenue of approximately five trillion dollars covers the UBI’s estimated cost of three to four trillion, with a surplus to manage the transition. For the individual, it replaces a threatened labor income of sixteen thousand dollars with a guaranteed grant of the same amount. On the surface, their material position is held constant while the world transforms around them.

 

The Corporate Survival Strategy: AGI-Driven Reconfiguration
The initial reaction from the business world is one of profound crisis. With taxes doubled and prices capped, profit margins evaporate overnight. The traditional playbook is useless. This is where the presence of mature AGI becomes the decisive factor, not as the cause of the crisis, but as the instrument for survival and adaptation. Businesses cannot thrive in this new environment by simply cutting costs; they must fundamentally reinvent their operational paradigm, and they task their AGI systems with this existential puzzle.

Economic Transitioning UBI Tax 2026 Could Enormously Benefit the Economy

Contrary to warnings from some economic analysts that a “U.S. Economic Transition UBI tax” would devastate the economy—particularly the claim that a 100% tax on business profits would cause total collapse—this policy may in fact achieve the opposite. By redirecting trillions of dollars that would otherwise go to business owners and shareholders as profit or dividends, the tax funds a Universal Basic Income (UBI) redistributed across the entire population. This includes business owners, shareholders, the self-employed, and investors of all scales, but it prioritizes those in genuine need—especially the economically marginalized, homeless, and destitute.

Redistribution Of Purchasing Power

This redistribution would dramatically increase broad-based purchasing power. Empowered with guaranteed income, the majority of the population would drive substantial new demand for goods and services. Businesses would respond by scaling up production, which in turn would generate significant employment opportunities. This cycle of stimulated demand and job creation would be sustained for at least one to two years, after which advances in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and automation would begin to balance productivity, ensuring long-term stability.

Labor Exploitation Will No Longer Remain Natural and Inevitable Like Human Death

With economic security provided through monthly UBI, the vast majority of people would no longer be constrained by financial fear. The middle class would feel secure enough to spend rather than save defensively, while those formerly trapped in precarious work would gain the freedom to refuse exploitative employment. As Karl Marx described, wage slavery has long been accepted as a natural condition. Yet, just as humanity has historically viewed death as inevitable until scientific progress suggested otherwise, so too can we reconceive labor exploitation.

Labour and Death: UBI Ensuring Means of Subsistence Empowerment

I remember writing in my 1981 book that both human death and labor exploitation are perceived as natural and unavoidable but perceptions can change. Once people realize that alternatives exist, they will no longer passively accept either condition. With UBI ensuring basic “means of subsistence” survival, at least half of the former workforce may choose to opt out of oppressive labor arrangements (or “relations”), and this number would grow over time. The realization that exploitation is not a natural law, but a mutable social construct, will empower people to reject it—just as future advances may one day redefine humanity’s relationship with mortality.

 

AGI-Driven Hyper-Efficiency and Radical Reallocation in Business
Coming back to the strategy that emerges in the economical hyper-efficiency and radical reallocation. AGI is not used merely to fire more humans; that low-hanging fruit has already been harvested. Instead, AGI is set upon every other component of the system. Supply chains, previously global and complex, are dynamically redesigned by negotiating AGI systems in real-time, compressing logistics, eliminating redundancies, and creating symbiotic loops between former competitors to share tax-impacted burdens. Product design undergoes a revolution. AGI does not produce inferior “shrinkflated” goods to stay under the price cap. It engineers products that use fewer, cheaper materials while offering equal or superior functionality through brilliant, minimalist design. For example, a toothbrush is reimagined at the molecular level for optimal cleaning with minimal matter.

 

AGI-Driven Cost Cutting in Business
Furthermore, businesses break themselves apart. Fixed assets—factories, fleets, server farms, are spun into independent, AGI-run micro-service companies. A manufacturer’s logistics arm now operates as a standalone firm serving dozens of others, maximizing utilization and turning a cost center into a profit center. The corporate form itself becomes fluid, a network of agile, automated entities constantly forming and dissolving around opportunities, all orchestrated by a central governing AGI. The goal is no longer just to sell a product but to become an indispensable, ultra-efficient node in the new economic network. In this frantic reconfiguration, the government’s price cap proves to be less of a straitjacket and more of a starting gun for a race to operational perfection.

 

The Deflationary Breakthrough: From Artificial Cap to Natural Abundance
Here lies the most critical and counterintuitive phase of the transition. The legislated price cap of “no more than 20%” was a political necessity to prevent immediate societal revolt. But in the competitive cauldron of AGI-driven innovation, this cap quickly becomes economically obsolete. Businesses, in their fight for survival and market share, do not push prices to the legal limit. They are driven far below it by the relentless engine of AGI-powered productivity. This deflation is not ordinary. It is driven by AGI's unique capability for recursive self-improvement and cross-domain optimization. The same AGI that designs a toothbrush also re-engineers its polymer chemistry, the solar-powered nanotech that produces it, and the last-mile delivery drone network. Efficiency gains are exponential and general-purpose, creating a deflationary pressure unlike any in prior economic history.

 

The Triggers of a Deflationary Spiral of Abundance
This triggers a deflationary spiral of abundance. Consider the humble toothbrush, once one dollar. An AGI-optimized company, having reconfigured its supply chain and production, finds it can produce a better toothbrush for a marginal cost of thirty cents. To capture the entire market of UBI-equipped consumers, it prices it at ninety cents. A competitor’s AGI, tasked with winning back share, redesigns the process again and offers a superior model with built-in diagnostic sensors for seventy cents. The one-dollar benchmark is forgotten. The 20% cap is irrelevant. The price settles at a fraction of its original value. This pattern replicates across all sectors of essential goods: food, clothing, basic housing modules, utilities managed by AI grids.

 

AGI-Driven UBI Becomes Transformative
The consequence of AGI-driven UBI is transformative. The sixteen thousand dollars, initially intended to merely replace a pre-crisis income in a doubled-price environment, suddenly experiences a dramatic multiplication in purchasing power. Where two dollars once bought one toothbrush, it now buys three. The same amount of UBI can now access a basket of goods and services vastly larger and of higher quality than before the crisis. The UBI citizen is no longer on the brink of poverty but is entering a realm of growing material comfort. This deflationary pressure turns the UBI from a life support mechanism into an engine of discretionary demand, fueling new markets in entertainment, personal development, and experiences. The economy does not stagnate under the weight of taxes and controls; it accelerates as efficiency gains are cyclically reinvested into further innovation and lower prices. The capitalist drive for profit and market share, now channeled through AGI, becomes the very force that enriches the universal stipend provided by the state.

 

2030’s World Social Equilibrium: The UBI Electorate and the Egalitarian Dawn
By the early 2030s, the system stabilizes into a new world social equilibrium. The turbulent transition gives way to a settled reality. Most of the counties in the world from Europe to Assia, Latin America to Africa now have implemented UBI, technological corporations override the national boundaries, their country taking the lead from US as they always do. The business tax remains doubled, but it is no longer a crisis for corporations; it is a normalized cost of operating in a market where production is virtually free and consumer demand is guaranteed by UBI. The price cap legislation, having served its purpose, is quietly repealed as market prices rest at levels far beneath its thresholds. The central fact of economic life is the UBI. With sixty percent or more of the adult population primarily reliant on it, a new, dominant political bloc is born: the UBI Electorate. The first political caucus dedicated to "Guarding the Base" emerges in Congress as early as 2029, a natural evolution of the earlier protest movement, now institutionalized to protect its foundational gain.

 

Fundamental Political Realignment
Politics undergoes a fundamental realignment. The traditional left-right spectrum is supplanted by a new axis: the Party of the UBI Floor versus the Party of the UBI Ceiling. The former, representing the UBI majority, has a platform of singular focus: protect and increase the dividend. Their slogan is “Guard the Base.” They advocate for direct public AGI projects to drive costs down further, effectively increasing real UBI value without raising the nominal cash amount. The latter, a coalition of the remaining employed, entrepreneurs, and cultural traditionalists, does not dare attack the UBI directly—that would be political suicide. Instead, they argue for “vitality beyond the base,” focusing on creating pathways from UBI-supported life to engaged, high-status societal projects, fearing a nation languishing in passive leisure.

 

Social Emancipation
Society itself is reshaped. The direct link between labor and survival, a constant throughout human history, is severed. This liberation triggers a profound search for meaning. Work decouples from jobs. The UBI provides material security, but status and purpose are earned in the “Contribution Economy.” People engage in local governance, community arts projects, open-source AGI tuning, niche scientific research, mentorship, and advanced craftsmanship. These activities generate social capital, respect, and influence—the new currencies of a post-scarcity world. For some, this leads to a renaissance of human creativity and civic engagement. For others, there is the danger of the “luxury trap,” a retreat into fully curated, AGI-provided entertainment worlds, creating a passive, albeit comfortable, populace.

 

2035: The Human Egalitarian Future
By 2035, the transformation is complete. The promises of 2026 have crystallized into a new social reality. This is not a utopia free of conflict or challenge, but it is undeniably an egalitarian future in a material sense. The brutal economic insecurity that defined the lives of the pre-AGI lower-middle class has been abolished. The productive power of AGI is harnessed as a common asset, its output redistributed not through the fiction of “jobs for all,” but through the direct mechanism of a UBI funded by claims on its productivity.

 

UBI Citizen 3035 Onwards
The “common man” of the 20th century has been transformed into the “UBI citizen” of the 21st. They are liberated from both, the drudgery of labor and the existential fear of losing it. People are endowed with unprecedented access to knowledge, culture, and the means for personal development. The central challenges of this new era are no longer economic but humanistic: the management of collective purpose, the ethical guidance of AGI, the stewardship of the planet, and the exploration of new physical and philosophical frontiers. Inequality of wealth may persist in diminished forms, but the floor of human dignity has been permanently and substantially raised.

 

Conclusion: The Transition of the 2026 US Act
The crisis of 2026, triggered by the new “reasoning” AGI is so stark and frightening, is revealed in hindsight as the painful but necessary birth pang of a new emerging UBI social contract. The feasibility of the AGI-UBI economy would be proven by a three-step engine:

1) Shock the system with correlated tax and price controls to contain the initial explosion; 

2) Unleash AGI through deregulation, triggering a hyper-efficiency revolution that bypassed the controls and drove deflation; 

3) Enrich the Dividend, as the multiplying purchasing power of the UBI created a stable, demand-driven post-labor economy. This is a future where the machines work, the people thrive, and the economy finally serves the universal human need for security, freedom, and the pursuit of meaning. The AGI-generated UBI economy is thus shown to be not only feasible but, in the end, the only logical destination for a society that has invented a new, more powerful form of mind to do its bidding.

Initial Comments / Reviews on “AGI Mandate UBI”

There are some initial comments and reviews on the two interconnected papers, most of which have focused on the Bold UBI Gambit of the 2026: US Technological Social & Economic Transitioning UBI Act. These reviews are mostly positive, describing the proposal as a bold economic initiative grounded in genuine contemporary realities. At the same time, some criticisms claim that the blueprint is fragile, risky, and lacking in sufficient detail, and that no one can predict how it would unfold within a year. Some reviewers question whether AI or AGI has reached adequate maturity, and express fears that doubling business taxes could trigger economic backlash, capital flight, and reduced investment, and argue that the deflationary abundance mentioned in this paper is farfetched. Others worry about the effectiveness of government intervention, regulatory control, and potential legal repercussions. I acknowledge that these concerns are valid and deserve serious consideration.

These Two Paper Are Blue Prints Not Detailed Plan

However, in my view, these criticisms fail to grasp the broader perspective regarding the limits and scope of this paper. I have clearly presented it as a blueprint for the present and near-future global situation, not as a fully detailed, technically engineered plan. The problems highlighted in the reviews do not appear insurmountable under current circumstances. There are ways, methods, and experts fully capable of developing workable solutions. And if human capacity falls short, we now have AI progressing rapidly toward the threshold of AGI, which will undoubtedly be capable of producing the most effective if not the best detailed and optimized implementation strategies.

 “Every Problem Has a Solution, Given The Political Will To Implement It.”

My deeper and more instinctive reaction, however, arises from decades of personal experience confronting obstacles while fighting corruption from a humble working-class background, my long drawn ZWT struggle to get some recongnition is a part of it. From these struggles, I have learned one essential principle: every problem has a solution, given the political will to implement it. Human history repeatedly demonstrates this. Consider the U.S. Manhattan Project (1942–1946), or the global response to the COVID-19 crisis. Recall the Third Law of March 27, 2020, and the unprecedented $1.7 trillion CARES Act (P.L. 116-136). These are only two examples among many across nations showing what becomes possible when political will aligns with necessity.

 Final concern

Finally, we observe the unprecedented technological acceleration in the global AI race toward AGI. The existential threat the United States faces is not the speculative catastrophe imagined by the AI Domers, but the massive unemployment that I anticipated over a decade ago in my Zero Work Theory (ZWT) papers. As I argued there, scientific and technological progress will render human labour increasingly obsolete within a few years if my prediction proves even approximately correct. I trust people will understand the direction of this argument. Therefore, I will not elaborate further. Now the greatest consideration of mine is the publication of this paper only for its reviews specially from the position where I am in.

Final Appeal: For AGI Led UBI Global initiative

In this paper subsection “2030’s World Social Equilibrium,” I foresee a global implementation of Universal Basic Income (UBI) by the 2030s, as the worldwide scope of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) necessitates an equally international UBI framework. While my proposal “2026: US Technological Social & Economic Transitioning UBI Act” designates the United States as a first candidate for strategic reasons, the active involvement countries world over is essential. If possible, ideally under the United Nations leadership to coordinate this global effort, encouraging every nation—from Canada Europe, Australia, Middle East, Africa, Latin America to Asia, including Japan, Koreas, China, and my own dear India and the entire world as a whole—to develop tailored UBI programs under this shared framework. Only through such unified action, championed by the UN, can we ensure all populations are prepared to harness the benefits and navigate the challenges of the coming AGI revolution.

PS. I am 74-year-old now, with a little bit of declining memory that may reflect in my work.  Hope I can manage it.

Copyright Open Source 2025-2026 by Valerian Texeira. Co-authored by AI