In classical economics, we learn that poor people are poor because they don’t know how to create capital, and their lack of productivity is what caused them to be poor. And that has been the central pillar of trickle-down economics. Poor people should not be given capital because they will only know how to spend it, whereas rich people know how to create capital and as such, only through making rich people rich, can wealth be trickled down to the poor through employment and social welfare.

This economic thinking has governed our political and economic policies for more than a century since its introduction in the late 19th century. Instead of helping poor people out of poverty, the gap between rich and poor today has widened greatly, as evident in the global gini coefficient index. There is a flaw on how we understand poverty. The belief that equal opportunity in education and the job market is enough to address poverty is short-sighted. How can poor people compete in education when they don’t have enough food to concentrate, when they have to walk hours to school, when they have to worry about shoes and books? Similarly in the job market, how can poor people compete when they need to worry about survival rather than creativity and productivity in the workplace?

The idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a noble attempt to address this. By ensuring that all fundamental needs of all humans are taken care of whether rich or poor, poor people can now concentrate their resources and effort to building and creating for the economy. Do you agree with this economic theory? What alternative systems need to be in place to ensure a more equitable world?

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