Universal Beneficial Income

Statement

When the system creates shared prosperity, every citizen should receive a direct share.

Universal Beneficial Income combines a monthly citizen dividend with a limited guarantee of food, housing, utilities, and essential life necessities. The dividend is distributed with no behavioural conditions. The guarantee is limited to a reasonable basic standard.

The objective is to eliminate destitution without eliminating ambition.

Scope of this chapter

This chapter is research-stage. It describes a proposed mechanism. It does not describe an existing programme, and nothing in it creates an entitlement, a legal right, or a promise of payment. The public explanation is at /universal-beneficial-income.

The two benefits

1. Monthly Prosperity Dividend

A monetary distribution to every eligible citizen that is individual, automatic, unconditional, not means-tested, not repayable, and not reduced by earned income. The amount varies with actual distributable system profit. The framework does not promise an amount the system has not earned.

2. Essential-Life Guarantee

Access to a reasonable basic standard of food, housing, essential utilities, sanitation, and minimum life necessities. The guarantee is intended to prevent destitution. It is not intended to provide luxury goods or an unlimited lifestyle.

Funding constraint

Distribution is funded only by audited productive revenue: returns from voluntary institution-supported projects, 90/10 institutional returns, technology licensing, infrastructure and energy revenues, system-owned enterprise profits, and endowment returns.

Distribution must never be funded by confiscation, forced seizure, or debt issued against citizens. If the system has not earned it, the system must not distribute it.

Distribution mathematics

Distributable profit in period $t$:

$$DP_t = \max(0,\; R_t - O_t - B_t - C_t - S_t)$$

where $R_t$ is qualifying revenue, $O_t$ verified operating cost, $B_t$ the essential-benefit budget, $C_t$ required capital reinvestment, and $S_t$ required reserve funding.

The per-citizen distribution:

$$D_t = \alpha \cdot \frac{DP_t}{N_t}$$

where $\alpha$ is the publicly approved citizen-distribution share and $N_t$ the number of eligible citizens. The remainder, $(1 - \alpha) \cdot DP_t$, is retained as productive capital under Capital Recycling.

Solvency rule

$$PSR = \frac{\text{Liquid Reserves}}{\text{Projected 12-Month Core Obligations}}$$

Core obligations are essential food, essential housing, minimum utilities, account operations, and legally committed citizen payments.

Payment priority runs: food, housing, utilities, account operations, reserves, critical reinvestment, citizen cash distribution, optional programmes — in that order.

Prohibited conditions

The dividend may not be conditioned on work, political loyalty, religion, voting, social score, compulsory biometrics without a lawful alternative, participation in Intelligentism institutions, forced investment, or approved spending categories. Accounts may not be seized without due process. See Book VII.

A system that attaches any of these conditions has failed this chapter regardless of how much it distributes.

Governance separation

No single organization may control any two of: distribution, auditing, and appeals. Administration, independent audit, appeals, and reserve management are separate functions with separate accountability.

Open problems

• No system has demonstrated revenue at the scale a meaningful national dividend requires.
• Equal per-citizen distribution ignores regional cost-of-living differences.
• Housing supply, not housing finance, is the binding constraint on the housing guarantee.
• Inflation pass-through in supply-constrained essential markets is unmodelled.
• Eligibility verification without surveillance is unsolved.

Tracked in IIP-0009.

ISILP. Universal Beneficial Income. The Intelligentism Specification, version 0.1.0-alpha (revised 2026-08-01). https://intelligentism.isilp.org/spec/economics/universal-beneficial-income