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
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