Pakistan, April 16 -- The Third Industrial Revolution, birthed by global capitalism, brought with it new technologies and the promise of real change. Yet it has failed to deliver on several fronts, such as curbing climate change, the depletion of natural resources and poverty.

Much lip service has been paid to tackling these issues and many social programmes have been instituted towards this end. Yet despite all this, poverty is on the rise, globally, including in affluent western countries. Thus, the gap between rich and poor is widening at rapid pace. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the developing world.

To address such disparities, the West developed the idea of universal basic income (UBI). Under a UBI (government-run) progr...