Striking out on your own is a risky proposition. Having an idea is one thing, we all have an idea we’re sure that would make us rich, but turning that idea into a reality is something that takes time, dedication and, above all resources. The problem that many face is that last item as without the lifeblood of any company, money, you’ll struggle to get the resources you require in order to bring your idea to fruition. Ask other entrepreneurs however and they’ll tell you quite a different story, about bootstrapping and minimum viable products and other jargon, but the fact of the matter is that access to money is the key determining factor in whether an entrepreneur succeeds or fails.
Whilst this might seem like an obvious point to make it belies a more troubling conundrum: that kind of opportunity, striking out on your own to create a sustainable business, is not available to everyone. For a great number of people leaving their current place of employment to pursue an idea is simply an untenable position as they don’t have the capital reserves or the connections to get said capital to work on that idea exclusively. Consequently this means that the idea that anyone can be an entrepreneur if they want to is unfortunately a flawed prospect, but there is a solution which has been proven to work in the past.
For five years, between 1974 and 1979, a small city in Canada called Manitoba conducted an experiment whereby those who weren’t earning a liveable wage were sent a cheque that brought them up to that level. Essentially that meant that everyone living in this town was guaranteed to make enough to keep a roof over their heads and feed their family regardless of any contributing factors. Similar programs had been run elsewhere in the past however Manitoba’s project, dubbed Mincome, was special in that it didn’t exclude anyone. Thus for the entire duration of the program poverty was eliminated however when it came to an end in 1979 the incoming government failed to release a report on the outcomes.
However we can infer from other data sources, like the census, about the effects that such a program had on the residents of Manitoba. As the article I linked to discusses in much greater detail the benefits were quite clear, including flow-on benefits like hospitalization rates falling. The key take away though was that, whilst many would say that a universal basic income would lead to people not wanting to work, the Mincome project did not show that at all. Indeed it’s my belief that if such a program was adopted at a national level you’d likely see a tremendous increase in the number of small business and startups that were created, spurring a new wave of innovation.
There are many capable people who’d love nothing more than to develop the ideas that they’re passionate about but the problem is current safety nets aren’t geared towards supporting them. Australian programs like NEIS provide only temporary aid and quite often not enough to cover all the costs that are incurred when trying to establish a business. Replacing that (and most other) welfare programs with a universal basic income would provide the safety net that many require to pursue these ideas allowing programs like NEIS to focus more on mentorship and guidance rather than financial assistance.
Of course whilst an universal basic income would provide the basis upon which many could build their futures it’s not the only thing that would be required to elevate everyone out of poverty. Still programs of this nature have proven to be effective in the past and have far less overheads than current welfare schemes do. Coupling this with other ideas like Labor’s Future Tech policy has the potential to spur a massive wave of innovation in Australia, making it far more attractive to pursue radical ideas here than overseas. At the very least it’s an idea worth trialling as I’m sure the benefits would far outweigh the small cost that it would incur.
