#891 Unconditional Basic Income

Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: is a basic income really unconditional if you have to be a citizen to get it? In Room #891 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme “Pioneering Spirit with brAIn,” the group digs into the hidden citizenship condition nobody names, a trillion-euro price tag, whether community service hours should come attached, and the envy gap between people just above and just below the benefits threshold. Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…

Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.

A wonderful good morning. With a bit of delay, we’re diving directly into today’s next topic, unconditional basic income. How unconditional can a basic income actually be? That’s what we want to talk about today, under the overarching theme Pioneering Spirit with brAIn. And I’m really curious what you have to say about this topic, what you want to bring in. And then also to open up the various perspectives accordingly, especially to discuss too, do we even need this? We talked a bit yesterday about labor market development too. Which direction are we actually developing in there? And in that context, of course, the question also arises in all these discussions that happen in everyday life about various topics. Unconditional basic income is one of the topics that keeps popping up again and again, keeps getting picked up and discussed too, and here to look at it from different perspectives too, and see what different aspects come up. In that sense you’re all very, very warmly invited to join and get into the exchange, to have a dialogue too, a reflection space through the exchange. For everyone, a brief reminder again that the room is recorded the whole time and then published later too. That means, if you join, you automatically agree to that. And we have three small room rules. First, a profile photo where you’re clearly recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in the bio. Right, with that I’ll gladly mute myself now and see who’d like to join this morning.

Good morning, dear Marc, what do you say about the topic?

Good morning to the group, nice to start the weekend with you. Dear Yasemin and dear group, I keep noticing, dear Yasemin, and I’ll start right away, that depending on which questions I ask myself, I have a completely different opinion on the topic and approach it differently. And let me start again with storytelling. That’ll be my word of the year, storytelling, especially in politics and with topics like this, is, if I tell you now, if we start with the topic like this, that I basically ask you all in the room, if you could all raise a hand, do you want everyone in Germany to have food to eat? Do you want everyone to be able to pay their rent or their house? And do you want everyone to be able to participate socially in life somehow? I assume, without knowing you, that there are people here, 99.9 percent, raising their hand for “Yes, we think that’s great.” Whoever doesn’t do it probably didn’t hear the question or is doing something else on the side. Now the question is unconditional basic income. The answers will already be different, and if we then also distinguish between basic income and unconditional basic income. With basic income, maybe some would still say, well okay, I need to think about that, and with unconditional basic income, the answers would look different too. And a quote I heard this year, that gave me a lot to think about, was in a talk show. Someone said there, and here I’m getting closer to Jürgen, that we deal with the topic factually and without emotions. We can all have our own opinion on every topic. But it’s important then to look at the facts completely without emotion. Because there are no personal facts, only a personal opinion.

Yes, wonderful. Thank you, thank you so much. Would you like to say more about this distinction between basic income and unconditional basic income?

No, I’ll say something about that in a moment. I find this topic, when we talk about it, and that’s why I approached it this way, that we also have these questions, questions come up, how do you finance that through work, who in Germany actually earns their money through work, I’ll get to that in a moment too, how is wealth distributed and so on. And the second thing is simply that I wish we’d all stay attentive. That has nothing to do, that’s not a conspiracy room either. I know that too, that we’re in one. I know you too well for that. But there’s also the opinion that unconditional basic income could of course also be an answer from a state where it withdraws from responsibility, by having an unconditional basic income, you could also restructure the welfare state. That has advantages and disadvantages. But it could also be the answer for empty coffers, by saying, if I basically have an unconditional basic income, that means, and these are the considerations behind it, I cut parts of the social system, then I withdraw from responsibility, then everyone has to see how they manage, that means then there’s no more benefit and no more benefit. So, that you also watch out with this topic, one, that we talk about it, one, how we finance it, one, what’s actually behind it, could there be something else behind it, and the second thing that moved me, dear Jürgen, and then I’ll be done too, to deal with the topic at all, wasn’t to approach this topic with my own opinion, but with my own facts. And that was a report I saw ten years ago already, that shocked me a lot. It was about digitalization. And facts are simply, this isn’t an opinion now, facts are simply that a lot, a lot of jobs will disappear that we no longer need. And there’ll still be a lot, a lot of jobs that we need. But they won’t be paid as highly, because if certain things need to be done, that simply have to be done, then you can’t pay them as highly, or you don’t want to pay them as highly. And then the question is simply, that you want to ask yourself as a society, does the market have the right, just because he doesn’t have a high school diploma now, or because he doesn’t have a job, is he still allowed to have a coffee in Cologne, and then it already starts. Is he allowed to drink coffee, or does he need champagne? And with that we’re at unconditional basic income. Or how is the market allowed to live and dwell and participate in life, participate in society, if it should be the case that there’s no more job for the market. So not that the market doesn’t want to work, but let’s assume there’s no job left that the market can perform based on their education and their qualification.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much. Then let’s gladly welcome and bring in Jürgen directly this morning too. Jürgen, what do you say about the topic?

First of all let me say a heartfelt and wonderful good morning, dear Yasemin, to you, dear Marc, and everyone else in the room. And I hope you know that I very gladly and disciplinedly stick to the moderator’s guidelines. Namely, I’m not referring now to the banner headline “Unconditional Basic Income,” but the subtitle. You raised it as a question, how unconditional can a basic income actually be? And that’s, chapeau, once again an essential key question for me, that leads us in turn to the topic of engaging with and agreeing on the content of a term, unconditional. With this term unconditional, what do we understand by unconditional, that then determines for me, based on the interpretation or the agreement about it, what unconditional means for me, then the next question that immediately follows, the what for, what for is a basic income even for, and here I go to the banner headline unconditional basic income, because the question forces itself on me, why does it exist, if it’s all so good? In the opinion of many, why doesn’t this unconditional basic income already exist long ago? But let me back this up with the unconditional part, by saying, it’s nonchalantly, in many approaches, many interpretations of how you can understand this, this basic income, knowingly skipped over this unconditional part. And in all these, I haven’t found a single model that deals with this topic, that actually points out that this term is wrong according to our current understanding, namely what implicitly always swings along in the discussion is that the condition exists that the recipient is a citizen of this country. And citizen of this country, this country Germany, I’m speaking now only from our point of view in the Federal Republic, in contrast to, for example, ongoing projects in Switzerland and Finland. With us, you become a citizen of this country by birth, or through normative cause, or naturalization, namely obtaining citizenship. And to make clear from my point of view the scope of what this condition, which isn’t made transparent as a condition, means. Most models reference our current status of population, namely citizens, about 80 million, and the calculation models for the financing needs are derived from that too. But this model also has to be sustainable in the future. And if you look at the current discussion about changing citizenship in this country, which is being driven especially by the coalition, also by the SPD and also by the Left party, this citizenship, this nationality, will in the future definitely be significantly loosened, at least in terms of time, from the entry requirements. That goes all the way to, after three years someone can then obtain citizenship. And now to view that as a pure question. I do ask myself whether there aren’t a lot of people who, in light of an eligibility as a citizen of this country, would then come to this country to get an unconditional, allegedly unconditional, basic income. And accordingly all these financing models that might seem quite feasible today shift, with the increasing size of the eligible population, into a dimension where you might need to put a big question mark. That’s my direct answer to your question, how unconditional a basic income can be. As a first step, you need to separate from the aspect or the term unconditional, and on the contrary you need to define very clear conditions, when and in which case someone gets a basic income. I’ll leave aside all other discussable aspects now and limit myself to this statement. Thank you for listening.

Yes wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. Or as you just said, that you say goodbye to this term, use a different one instead, or whatever, and then look at how it’s actually possible. You could now also pick up something like universal basic income or something. But then the question arises here too, is there a limit, up to where does it go? There has to be one ultimately, and how is it then handled if more people, for example, obtain citizenship and so on and so forth. So accordingly a really, really exciting topic. Marc, would you like to continue on this too?

Yes, on the point I already mentioned, for me this is also a question of power versus democracy, and this is really meant to polarize now, namely, it’s the case, we can look this up, this isn’t made up by me, one percent of people in Germany hold 35 percent of net wealth. We’re talking about income right now. But we also need to be aware that this one percent of people who are really extremely rich, we’re not talking about a million, we’re talking about super rich, don’t earn their money with work, but with wealth and through inheritances. So the really, really rich don’t earn their money with work. And what will certainly come up in the discussion, and these are the two approaches that exist, which Jürgen already mentioned from politics, we can either talk about need, that’s point A. The second is talking about income, there are people who have several millions, who partly have no income, they only have wealth, and there are several approaches, one from the Left, who then say, well okay, then we need to go to the 1%, and then say, if the market has 300 or 400 apartments, I don’t, then he has to contribute so we can finance this, and the others say, we need to somehow the tax rules, but there are models, and depending on, this is a very, very complex topic, as you already notice, and as you’ve certainly found out too, depending on what we google. Jürgen mentioned the costs, it’s estimated that with the population figures we now have, we’d need an additional trillion euros for our budget in Germany, an additional trillion euros, to be able to finance this. Some say that’s feasible, others say that’s not feasible, but the discussion of redistribution, of need, and if so, what prerequisites need to be met. That’ll be a topic where people in Germany will really get emotionally very, very heated with each other, at each other’s throats, and I can’t imagine that it’ll be answered that quickly in the coming years. But the topic will come to us, because digitalization means fewer jobs. Fewer jobs means at least less income, and the question remains, does the same thing still come out, will the welfare state, do we still have the money and can we finance it so that our welfare state always stays as it is, because a welfare state also has to be financed. Whether we call it unconditional basic income now or welfare state, the money has to come from somewhere.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much, and the money is usually ultimately collected through taxes. The question would also be, well on one hand more jobs disappear, others are created and so on. But there could also be another form of taxation, for example with regard to companies, that, if they use fewer employees, so people as employees, and instead have more machines working, you could also consider a corresponding different form of taxation on that. Of course the question here too is whether that’s feasible or implementable in reality, so how practical that would be, because we’ve established in many other rooms too, because we also need to consider ourselves in competition again, it doesn’t help if all companies then move away because they have to pay taxes here and not somewhere else, for example. That means we might not be able to act in isolation here, because otherwise it triggers chain reactions again that would be disadvantageous viewed in competition, and wouldn’t achieve the goal then either. But against the background that a lot is currently being discussed, whether decisions are made centrally and so on. We’ll also pick up the topic of the World Health Organization and centralization in this context again on one of the next days, and so on. Wouldn’t those also be considerations you could make per se first? What do you say about that? Go ahead, Jürgen.

Thank you, dear Yasemin. Especially Marc’s last sentences actually filled, for me, the second area of clarification that’s needed in advance, let me call it that. Besides the terminology and the agreement on the terminology, what we understand by it, the other sub-area is that I ask the question, what for. I already mentioned that. Why doesn’t this basic income, this whatever unconditional, exist anymore. And for me there are always two possibilities, whatever you call them, to approach a problem. You probably know these better than me, that I say, I recognize a need and create a model, a mental model, a vision, whatever you want to call it, and approach this model, unconditional basic income, by comparing the current situation, where’s the need for change. That’s one possibility. The second possibility is to say, I start from the current situation and identify deficiencies. Deficiencies with regard to unequal distribution of wealth, your topic, dear Marc, maybe also unequal treatment through the tax system or whatever. I tend to lean toward the latter, to approach the topic and say, to answer the question, why doesn’t it exist, that I say, first answer, what for? What for? What’s the main benefit of an unconditional basic income? And if I take the common models that are currently being discussed very strongly again, in terms of their approach, and try to bring them down to a lower level, then for me two “what for” answers crystallize out. And one is, please don’t take this literally, this is a popular slogan, social justice, and basically what’s actually meant is active redistribution of wealth and income situation, that’s one topic, and the other big pillar is the endeavor to renew our tax system and our social system. I plead that, first of all, with all further considerations and discussions about it, all the way to how is that financeable and is that fair and social at all, to first consider these two model variants and say, whom should it serve, or for what background should it serve at all. Do we want a model that ensures and drives forward an active, thorough redistribution of wealth and income, or do we want to relieve ourselves, with this so-called basic income, from this bureaucratic burden and overburdening of our society through a tax policy that’s no longer comprehensible, and also allocation and social policy. Without this clear positioning, in which direction this should go. You can of course consider both, but you should decide in the discussion what the actual direction of the whole thing is. Thank you for listening.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much, and Marc, maybe you’d like to continue directly too.

Yes, you’re making me, exactly, thank you, thank you so much. You’re making me think a lot, Jürgen. I’d also like to polarize again and say, the question we want to ask doesn’t arise, but the fact is simply, and nobody knows what’s coming, jobs will disappear, jobs will disappear, and Yasemin then says as a counter-argument, now in the discussion, number two, it’s great, a lot, a lot of new jobs are coming too. But we assume that these jobs can be filled by someone, if we need a maximum of education, training and abilities and skills, I’d call them, for these new jobs we’re getting, and there might be people who don’t meet these skills, there’ll always be those. Then the question is, what do we do with the people who can’t take on these new jobs, because the training, the skills and the abilities aren’t sufficient, with the new jobs that exist, so to participate in them. Not because we don’t want to, but simply because we’re no longer capable, because we are capable. And then the question is no longer whether we want to discuss certain things or not, but then we need to find a solution, and then there are various approaches. Then I’m completely on your line again, let’s do it through taxes and so on. But it’ll simply come. Jobs, my fact and not my opinion is, there are fewer jobs, very, very many jobs disappear, and very, very many new jobs are added too, and none of you in the room can answer the question of whether the jobs that disappear, whether the people who lost them, whether these people can simply go to a new job and take on this new job. Now I could go in very provocatively and say, no, we’ll make it easier for ourselves here and just get people from abroad. But that doesn’t solve the problem with paying taxes then either. Jürgen, would you like to say something directly about that, before I bring in Sabine?

Sorry, dear Sabine, that I’m pushing ahead briefly, but I’d actually like to thank Marc, because he confirms exactly that, and takes a side, I’ll interpret that now, that he gives a reason to say, the reason, if I understood you correctly, dear Marc, is that we see a potential danger and risk position through excessive loss of workers. So, and there I can build on that, indeed, and there I can say, now let’s consider. How do we solve exactly this problem, namely that people will still be gainfully employed, in work and bread, with a so-called basic income. Heartfelt thanks for that, and now up to you, dear Sabine.

Thanks.

Yes wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. Sabine, a wonderful good morning. What do you say about the topic?

Yes, interesting. Great. But I’d like to go a bit to the other side again. You’ve gone to the higher skills and so on. I think that if we can also maybe never manage from our own resources, so I mean our own resources, our own people, if there’s a need. But I want to go to the not so high skills. I want to talk about what problems we currently have in the social sectors, in nursing, hospitals, care homes, kindergartens, hospitals, where we certainly need a lot of people who don’t need the high skills, but maybe should also be nudged a bit into jobs. Or maybe thought the other way around. If I receive unconditional basic income here, can’t it be… Can’t it be required of me that I give something back? For example some kind of community service. And thereby maybe also stay at a certain level of performance. Not if the person finds another job tomorrow or pursues another career. Out, back into the career. But as long as that’s not the case, also in the area, if I walk down the street and sometimes see the piles of trash, that could work there too. Gardening in the city, so a thousand things would occur to me. And there I do think you could demand that, and then it wouldn’t be quite so unconditional, but simply say, community service hours will be connected with it, whatever you call it, community service or whatever. So I’m fully of the opinion there, and I think you’d also be doing people a favor, namely you’d keep them at a level of performance, and they wouldn’t drift off quite so much sometimes. That’s my personal opinion. Otherwise interesting topic.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much. I’m curious what the others say about that. For me the question arises, which direction do we develop in then, politically speaking, so to speak, as a political form, as a country. And it reminds me, first it reminded me of when we had these one-euro jobs for people who’d been unemployed for a certain time. Marc, Jürgen, what do you say about that? Marc, go ahead, and then Jürgen.

I was exactly of your opinion until a few days ago, dear Yasemine, and then I simply read too much. I also think, that’s actually how I was raised. If you want something, you have to provide a service. And I also worked in a call center for seven euros, and I think, if someone gives me money and says, I’ll help you Marc, but I expect a small reaction in return from you, and if you have nothing to do, then you can clean the street and remove the trash, and search the park for whatever. You get something from us too, and if that’s the only thing where you can give something back to society right now, then we can demand that from you. I’d underline that 100 percent. What I find interesting are the aspects when the entrepreneurial side comes into it too, because then there really are people and institutions that consciously exploit that, because I can also say as an entrepreneur, if I know there are people who have to do activities for me that aren’t so gladly done, namely on the weekend, I see this in Cologne too, cleaning up trash in the parks and so on, then I take these people, these refugees, they’re forced to do it because the others don’t want to do it, and then I’ve solved the problem, that the jobs that are no longer fun will be done in the future by the people who are then also blackmailed. So I can either express it as, you provide something in return for what you get, or you do it because you have no other choice. And there we have the question of justice and democracy again, and that’s another point I wanted to bring up, that unconditional basic income as a positive aspect can also lead to people deciding again to pursue a profession where they maybe don’t get as much money, because they already have a certain basic income. And I stand by this, I did an internship in a kindergarten, because my godmother was a kindergarten teacher. I really enjoy working with children. I consciously decided against this profession, because I couldn’t have shaped my life the way I currently do with this profession. Not for the sake of happiness, not for the sake of fulfillment, but simply from the ideas of how I wanted to shape my life. And an essential aspect wasn’t whether being an entrepreneur is more fun or being an educator, but an essential aspect was the money.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much, Jürgen. What do you say about that?

First let me thank Sabine for her remarks, because I interpret them as a contribution to your second headline question, so to speak, what do we understand by unconditional, and Sabine’s statement goes in the direction I’ve positioned as a question too, positioned quite often already, does a service require a service in return, or does someone providing a service have a claim to a service in return. But I still stick with it, sorry, dear Yasemin, I stick with it. Any further design of a model, in whatever form, requires as a first step for me, sorry if I say that so emphatically, an agreement on what we understand by unconditional. And if we set aside this issue I brought up with citizenship, then for me the essential factor of agreement is exactly this topic of performance, because it awakens, I assume, different, quite different motivations in us, in ourselves, in everyone. One person withdraws and says, let me call it that, withdraws and says, if I provide something, then that’s my achievement, and I don’t claim that someone else acknowledges it. But I also accept people who say, if I provide something for someone, then I expect something in return, see Sabine’s remarks. And for me that’s definitely a really essential crossroads, to then come to a model approach, how do I now build this model based on the agreement on what we understand by unconditional? Sorry if I’m really dwelling on this term so much for some of you. Thank you.

Thank you, thank you so much. And I think what’s really important in this context is exactly this question, how unconditional can a basic income actually be, regardless of citizenship etc. I think we can open up many different perspectives here too, why basically, if you approach it logically, so how it’s designed afterward, let’s leave that undecided. But if we think about it logically, it somehow has to be tied to certain conditions. So it simply can’t be unconditional. So from my personal perspective this term isn’t correctly chosen at this point, but implies something or suggests something that simply can’t be given as a fact that way. And then at the next level, if we look at this “what for” and how the design of it should be, then there are of course various possibilities, and you can work your way through those accordingly. And a keyword you picked up, Jürgen, with regard to what Sabine brought in as a thought, and then I’d gladly bring in Sabine again, because she also raised her hand again, is, you picked up the term motivation. And I’d like to use it here in a different context though, namely if we connected something like this, for example, I expect a corresponding service in return, then we immediately need to ask ourselves, what about motivation then? So there’ll be people who might like doing that, and other people who don’t actually like doing it. If I now, in inverted commas, force someone into it, Sabine said we could call it community service or something, to take on something they don’t actually want, whether that’s removing trash from the street or in nursing areas or similar, then we quickly reach the point that we might need people again who, so to speak, need to check on motivation again, provide support services or whatever, because the motivation won’t be there per se, the motive won’t be there in everyone. I want to provide something in return for what I do there too. And accordingly the result will also turn out very, very differently, and accordingly the question is, how effective is that at all? Sabine, you wanted to continue on this.

Yes, I completely agree with you there, but I think we’d currently have a very large range to offer, and people can still choose for themselves in the end. And I also think, where we need to look in the future, is that we don’t make the rule out of the exception. So what Marc said earlier, I’m completely with you on that, Marc, if earnings in kindergartens are so bad, and it’s about the education of our future children, then something’s not right there either. But what will develop from that? Private kindergartens will develop from that. That means, the people who have money will then also shear away from the system. And from that side, wouldn’t it be better to say, okay, in the areas where something’s wrong, we’d put in a bit more money, because that’s our future. That’s what I wanted to say again, and with the unconditional aspect I’m completely of your opinion, but I have to ask stupidly now, isn’t that already decided? I’d say goodbye now and would still watch a bit. Thank you, and I wish you a nice weekend.

A very brief follow-up question on that, dear Sabine. Isn’t it already decided, you mean that the basic income is coming, or what exactly do you mean?

Well, did I miss something? I mean, that’s already decided, isn’t it? I haven’t heard anything about that. But maybe I missed something too. Maybe we should also ask the others, the others.

Let’s ask Jürgen, he’ll definitely know.

Jürgen, did you hear anything about that?

Thanks. I don’t want to present myself here as the highest authority on this topic, but to my knowledge there’s a struggle raging, especially, I already mentioned that, based on various models, between the SPD on one side, and the Left in alliance with the Greens too, though the models differ there, versus an absolutely rejecting position, I’m only referring to the political parties in Germany now, with regard to FDP and CDU. So a decision, dear Sabine, as I interpret it, would mean that it’s been passed by parliament as a legislative bill. And I’d really like to rule that out at this point.

Yes, so we’re certainly not that far yet.

Yes, I’ll gladly agree with that.

Thank you, thank you so much, dear Jürgen. Yes, and with that I’d like to bring in Susi too. A wonderful good morning. What would you like to say about the topic, or add, or also connect to what’s been said so far?

Yes, good morning into the Saturday. I’d like to bring up two things. The first thing is that there’s also a divide that comes with it, namely between those who are well secured, who go home with a good income, but the others, who are just above the threshold, and this specifically affects parents with children who are just above the income threshold and therefore have to finance everything themselves, get no more support, can’t access the social pot anymore, so to speak. And they look enviously one level down and say, oh, if I only earned 10 euros less, I’d get my rent paid, or so-called top-up recipients, who aren’t allowed to earn more. If they’re then allowed to earn more, it’s immediately deducted. That’s complicated and it awakens feelings of envy. And that of course isn’t healthy for society. So the suggestion is, and you’d need to look at that more closely, to say, why doesn’t every citizen get a basic income, from which everything you need to live is secured, like rent for example. We’ve seen what happens, rents are rising. And if someone goes to work and only gets 1,800 gross a month, then they’re just above the income threshold and have to compensate the rent and the increased electricity costs, everything we have, gas costs, the inflation themselves, while the person living off the state doesn’t have to worry. Their rent gets covered, the electricity gets covered, or maybe not electricity, but other costs for the children get covered. That’s the first thing. So there’s this envy gap. And there you could say, okay, everyone gets a certain basic income. The rent gets subsidized. Whoever doesn’t own property, everyone basically starts from the same position, whoever is then well qualified can earn additional money on top, without anything being deducted from the basic income. That would basically be the equation that could possibly work out. That’s the first point. The second point is, you have to look at how the Bürgergeld system is built up. We had the fall of the Wall, so to speak. Then came reunification. Industry was flattened, especially in the East. Everyone had to go back to school. They were job-seeking for many years, these people. They were really doing badly. And then they started introducing Hartz IV. The classic unemployment benefit that existed in the West was abolished. And then came the great valley of tears. People, especially with children, had to live hand to mouth. And there was a big poverty movement, especially among single parents etc. From that emerged large buildings in the cities, large job centers, unemployment offices were newly built everywhere, because the conditions for that didn’t even exist yet. Now of course you have to see that these investments in these buildings, in the training of the employees in the job centers, need to be written off first of course. And that doesn’t happen overnight. I think a period of 20, 30 years was planned in for these buildings to be paid off financially first. We mustn’t only see the recipients of the money, but we also need to look at the people working in these systems. These are economic enterprises that of course also need to deliver, and that might not be so interested in bringing people into work, but are rather interested in administering these people. They’re not called customers for nothing either. There’s no interest at all in them leaving the job center, in them starting jobs now. The goal isn’t for people to get back into work quickly, but the goal is to bill these people, so that the jobs in the little offices are also justified. That’s why the approval periods are also over six months, so you can plan exactly who’ll have the next job soon, will soon be able to stand on their own two feet, so we can calculate how many employees we need in our job centers. So that’s a system of its own, and accordingly the whole discussion of switching Bürgergeld to a passive basic income, that’s what I’d call it too, as it was written in the chat, that’s a huge tanker, and it’s on the open sea, at full speed ahead. And now you have to stop this thing and turn it and make a completely new ship out of it and reload it, and that takes time, and that’s why it can’t happen overnight. I think it’ll come, but not today, not tomorrow. You have to wait until the system has written itself off, financially, economically, and then you can basically build and start a new system. I don’t know if you’re following along there. Accordingly I don’t believe that the passive basic income will be approved overnight. And if it were, I’d know about it. Yes, that’s my opinion on it.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much. A lot of question marks arise for me from that too. First, you talked about this feeling of envy. Isn’t that also to some extent self-fueled, or media-made, in inverted commas, would be such a question, that you could also approach that with a bit, because certain aspects keep getting picked out and discussed, that maybe don’t fully correspond to the facts either, but only the numbers that you want to present here are pulled out, so to speak, to fuel debates or similar. The other thing, which connects to the point again, how unconditional can that even be, is also this aspect, if everyone got amount x, let’s assume that’s German citizens simply, however that’ll be handled in the future, and which German citizenships will continue to be given in the future too. If everyone got that first, in the sense of, then you can pay rent again, then I’d say, yes that sounds like an equation to me, because we know this too, for example, with the switch from D-Mark to euro or something. What happened there? Then somehow everything got more expensive. So you have to, so if you just say everyone gets the same money, we’re at the same starting position again, just that now everyone gets an amount x more monthly, and that means, from my point of view, as a consequence, not necessarily that rents become more affordable, for example. And with this aspect of the job center, I’d like to note again, from my observation the switch, with the term customers, has more to do with the understanding of service, in inverted commas, but not that, in order to calculate how many employees or how many positions are needed, we don’t want to lead people back into the labor market. And there are also good reasons to assume that. Accordingly, it’s also statistically looked at that the unemployment figures don’t go up, and measures are accordingly carried out to get them out of the statistics. And even if it’s only brief, that they get back in somewhere, or maybe someone is promoted into self-employment, or or otherwise, because these numbers aren’t wanted going up either. I’m curious about that now. Marc, Jürgen, would you like to continue on that, and then we’ll move into the closing round for today already. Marc.

Yes, first thank you, thank you so much for your contribution, dear Susi. I say storytelling again. So I had a 5 in math and know that 100 percent is everyone, and that’s why I always find it difficult. I agree with you, I’ve heard that too, that’s in the bureaucracy, or let me start it differently. In the bureaucracy there are certainly people afraid for their jobs like everyone. But if even just one single person, in Hürth near me, if just one single person is happy that someone gets a job and supports that, then it’s not 100 percent, but it’s many. And that’s always so exciting when we use words like many and all. And I always find that we need to be careful there. We always find, as Yasemin always says, what we look for, we find, and you’re 100 percent right with your statement, because you give me 100 percent proof of that, and I could now invest a week of work and find other employees, and would also be 100 percent right. But I find it important in these rooms that we address such topics, because that’s exactly the perception that exists out there. That’s how discussions arise, that’s how opinions arise, and that’s why it’s important to always try to talk about it factually and objectively, and I thank you for your contribution, dear Susi, because that’s exactly what I hear too, and I just want to say, 100 percent is everyone, and if just one person in Germany deviates from that, we can’t even speak of 100 percent anymore.

Thank you, thank you so much. Jürgen, what do you say?

Yes, I specifically haven’t… One moment, Susi, it’s not your turn right now.

Jürgen, I wanted…

Yes, but I want to know what…

One moment, Susi, it’s not your turn right now. I’d like to first…

I don’t want to discuss, I just want to understand…

But you’re discussing with me right now. Please wait a moment. I’ll give you the floor again in a moment too, so you have the opportunity. Thank you.

Jürgen, what do you say about that?

Thank you, dear Yasemin. I’ll add the second contribution now, after Susi’s remarks, to this mountain, that in my view is still, I say again, sorry that I’m so persistent, as our tiresome Wimmer says with us, that we come to a basic understanding and an agreement on what we understand by basic income in this case. And I take two positions from this room, if there were a continuation of this room, that I say, we have an input that goes back to the market. It says, the background it sees is a countermeasure against the foreseeable growing unemployment. And the other aspect from you, dear Susi, was this envy factor. And I’ll now transform that into the term social imbalance. I don’t want to say now what’s connected with that of course, redistribution, or wealth and income leveling. But I take that quite strictly, also with the title “market-oriented,” facts. I’ll take that now into a further discussion and say, let’s build on these two positions. It should be something that brings more people into work and bread in the future, who can thereby also develop a meaning to their life. And on the other hand it should happen for everyone, as much as possible for everyone, sorry dear Marc, as much as possible for everyone without envy, so with an acceptance and without resentment. I’ll take that from this room for now. And I think that’s a good result for this topic after an hour. Dear Yasmin, thank you.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much. Susi, go ahead now.

Oh, I didn’t understand, dear Marc, what was meant by “everyone,” but I thought about what I said. Yes, I mean, it’s really a basic income for everyone, whether poor or rich. And everyone who wants to continue can do so. But everyone has a certain basic income that allows them to live at subsistence level. I’d find that fair. Then the grumbling would stop, because those just above the income threshold pay everything out of their own pocket. Whoever wants can work additionally. And by the way, the unemployment office isn’t responsible, or the job center isn’t responsible for making sure the unemployment numbers are low or don’t rise, but they’re only responsible for bringing people back into work. But I see other tendencies there. It’s rather the case that people are treated as customers. And it’s not entirely unconditional either. Those who go there have to deliver properly, have to work properly, also for the job center. Thank you. It was a great discussion, I’d gladly continue it too. I’ll say goodbye too, and wish you a nice weekend. Thanks, dear Yasemin, and thanks Marc and Jürgen.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much to you too. Marc, would you like to briefly address this “everyone” again?

Yes, I’d like to briefly apologize. How did you mean the “no” factor, or?

Oh, sorry.

No, no, no, I’d like to apologize. I only referred to “everyone” when it comes to generally valid statements, “I apologize that I perceived you differently and didn’t listen properly.” I only meant “everyone” in the sense of, when you say that basically, that the bureaucrats, the people at the unemployment office, don’t see people as customers, but also, I always just have the problem with the word “everyone.” I meant “everyone” with regard to the term that not all of us at the unemployment office, all officials, all foreigners, all asylum seekers, all Italians, all Poles. I went hard on the word “everyone,” because it’s often used for all kinds of discussions. But if I misunderstood you, dear Susi, I apologize here in the room.

There too you see perception again. We’re referring to completely different topics. My perception wasn’t wrong. Thanks that I was allowed to speak up.

Yes, wonderful. Thank you, thank you so much. And there you see on one hand, I find, how complex this topic is, and on the other hand, how important it is to keep clarifying in the exchange what we understand by these individual terms, what perspectives exist on that, what aspects can really be picked up in this context, to look at it from different perspectives too. And it’s not always just about finding answers, but especially about formulating a lot of questions first, because the questions, and here we’re at what you always say too, dear Marc, the more questions we formulate, the more possible answers we find through that too. And it also helps us sort our thoughts again, and derive insights from that for ourselves too. And even if they’re maybe just intermediate insights first, before you maybe have an insight in the result, in the overall result. Right, and with that I’d like to move into the closing round for today. Gladly in the order Marc, Jürgen, and Susi, if you’re still here, gladly your closing word for today too. I only mention it because you just announced that you’ll be leaving soon too. That means, if you’re still with us, gladly continue too. And namely highlights from the room. Would you like to underline anything again, or what do you specifically take away for yourself? Marc.

Marc also has an opinion. These aren’t facts now, with unconditional I only have a problem with “everyone,” if someone earns 100,000, 200,000, or a million, then it also needs to make sense if that person unconditionally gets something on top too. My feeling, my feeling isn’t fact-based, would react differently there. Thanks, and a good start to the weekend.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much, Jürgen.

Yes, heartfelt thanks to you too, of course, for the enrichment I gladly take with me too, on this topic as well. I think we couldn’t really get closer to answering the subtitle’s question, “how unconditional must a basic income be,” or even answer it, in this timeframe, but I think it gave a lot of food for thought, how important it is, and I won’t repeat what you already said, Yasemin. Clarity in terminology, agreement on the content and understanding of the terminology, to then ask the essential question, if I do something, the essential thing isn’t the what, but the what for. Thank you, and a nice weekend to you all.

Yes wonderful, thank you, and especially for the reminders again and again. That with the “what for,” I find great, thank you. Susi.

Yes, in times of digitalization and AI that’s advancing, we really need to think about what happens with the reduction of so many jobs, and then it’s really a basic income and not an additional income for the rich. Yes, even I would find it unfair if you excluded the rich or high earners from it. You say everyone gets the same rate. That would be fairness. Whoever earns extra is lucky. And whoever manages with the money can also be happy. And then that would be a fairness for everyone. And by the way, the image of Germany would be preserved. And we wouldn’t have unemployed people who basically ruin the image of Germany. And that way everyone could live off what they get. I find that good. And whoever wants can earn extra in nursing, as you said, Yasemin, in nursing or wherever, in the kindergartens, and make themselves useful and earn a few extra euros there too. That would be fair, wouldn’t it? I find that good. And it’ll come too, but not today and not tomorrow. That needs time.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much. I think a lot of different aspects came together, and for today’s room we can leave it at that for now. You can also let it resonate for yourselves, to get clarity for yourselves too, on where you might personally stand on the topic, in inverted commas. And tomorrow we continue with a digital campfire again with me, namely with part 2, “Pioneering Spirit with brAIn — Unfiltered Stories by the Digital Campfire.” You’re warmly invited to join again tomorrow morning at 8. I won’t reveal more yet, but it’ll definitely be worth it, and I’m looking forward afterward to getting into exchange with you too, and see what thoughts you have on what I bring in tomorrow. In that sense I wish you a wonderful day, and I’m looking forward to starting together again tomorrow morning at 8. Until then, ciao!