If we can run for charity then why can't we have UBI?
Yesterday, 57,000 people turned out to do the Great North Run, the world's largest run half marathon - many used the occasion to raise money for charity. Many others came out to cheer them on. Who knows how many millions were raised as a result? If it was only ￡100 per runner then that's ￡5.7 million. It will be a lot more.
One way to view that is as unpaid volunteer work. Does the person who ran the distance in 2 or more hours and raised ￡1,000 think of themselves as having 'earned' ￡500 an hour? Of course not. But it is a view that makes sense in the context of what 'work' means.
So if it is possible to easily motivate that number of people to endure a good amount of pain for something worthwhile, the reward for which is the satisfaction of knowing that a 'good' was 'earned', why can't politicians and opponents understand that universal basic income (UBI) is a good idea?
After all, freeing people up to do what they want and which both motivates and satisfies, is surely a better way to think of work than the current system?