by Guest Contributor | Dec 5, 2018 | Opinion
By Amy King, in collaboration with Basic Income Waterloo Region
Basic income is currently a hot topic in Canada. From debates across the political spectrum of a basic income and reminders of the success of Manitoba’s Mincome experiment in the 1970s, to the cancellation by the Progressive Conservative (PC) government of Ontario of the previous Liberal government’s basic income pilot, “basic income” is the subject of lively discussion among Canadians.
While this widespread attention is welcome, it has also raised the concern that the discussion of a “basic income” often conflates two distinct concepts: a basic income (BI) and a negative income tax (NIT). The result of this conflation is that the concept of BI has been marginalized in current social and political discourse, as the term “basic income” is co-opted to refer to an NIT and not a basic income as advocated for by the basic income movement. This co-optation creates confusion around which concept one is referring to when they use the term, “basic income” and, perhaps more damagingly, leaves the basic income movement without a term to capture the concept they so passionately believe in and advocate for.
NIT is referred to by Parijs & Vanderborght (2017) as a “cousin” of BI. Briefly, a basic income is distributed upfront to all individuals in the same amount, without an obligation to work or otherwise contribute something in return and without income or means testing (Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017). A negative income tax, in contrast, is distributed within an income tax scheme and is determined based on the level of income of the individual or household (Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017). A negative income tax, therefore, differs from a basic income in important ways: It is not necessarily universally distributed; it is not necessarily distributed to individuals; it is not distributed in the same amount to all individuals; and finally, the amount may be determined through income testing.
Distinguishing between the BI and NIT is, therefore, crucial, as each has a clear, and often disparate, vision of the implementation and ends of a “basic income.” Advocates of a basic income push for the implementation of a basic income program that is universally and exclusively individually distributed. Universal distribution ensures that recipients will not be stigmatized or privileged based on income or employment and does not require individual administrative oversight by public employees. Individual distribution allows recipients to manage their own financial affairs. While an NIT has poverty alleviation as its goal and it may well succeed in achieving this, BI has a robust vision of socio-economic justice that aims toward liberty and equality for all.
Ontario’s so-called basic income pilot followed a negative income tax model. Participants were between the ages of 18 and 64, with an income below $34,000/a for an individual, and $48,000/a for a couple (Ontario Basic Income Pilot, 2017). The pilot followed a tax credit model, so that single participants were guaranteed $16,989, less 50 percent of any earned income and couples were guaranteed $24,027 per year for a couple, less 50 percent of any earned income (Ontario Basic Income Pilot, 2017). The scheme implemented during the pilot therefore differed from a basic income in that it was not universal, distribution was not exclusively individual, and it was income tested.
Another example of this co-optation occurs in Mark Gollom’s article for the CBC, “Basic income finds support on right as ‘most transparent’ form of redistribution” (2017, April 25). As indicated by the title, Gollom (2017, April 25) reports support from the right for the Ontario Liberal government’s NIT trial and discusses the championing of the concept of an NIT by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek.
In this article, Gollom (2017, April 25) offers a useful outline of arguments from the right for an NIT, which may be considered by some a “welfare” program more amenable to supporters of left-leaning economic policy. However, it also offers a helpful example of the conceptual blurring that occurs around the term “basic income”. The terms “basic income” and “negative-income tax” are employed often, but the article’s focus is a negative-income tax—there is no mention of support for a basic income. If someone unfamiliar with the distinction between the concepts of a BI and an NIT were to read the article, they would conclude that an NIT scheme is a basic income scheme. This is conceptually misleading—an NIT is not a BI—and it results in the marginalization of the concept of a basic income in the current debate.
It is evident then that there are important philosophical and political differences between BI and an NIT that are obscured when the term “basic income” is employed indiscriminately. Indiscriminate use of the term “basic income” is also problematic because it has resulted in co-optation of the term to refer to an NIT. This marginalization and co-optation of the term “basic income” is problematic for many reasons.
First, in Canada, as we’ve seen, NIT currently serves as the default against which basic income programs are measured. The argument is made that the differences between an NIT and a BI are negligible, or that they do not make a substantive difference. The argument is also made that an NIT is more politically feasible than a BI. These factors, along with NIT’s support from vocal advocates, has positioned NIT at the forefront of the discourse around a basic income. However, the discourse does not often refer to an NIT as an NIT. Instead, an NIT is referred to as a “basic income”, and even sometimes, a “universal basic income” (for example here). Because the concept of a BI has been absorbed in the discourse into the concept of an NIT, BI advocates struggle to describe and argue their case.
Second, when we envision a just society, where people are not prevented by socio-economic barriers from realizing their potential, where people do not face insurmountable obstacles to breaking the cycle of poverty and where people are not discriminated against, oppressed or stigmatized because of socio-economic factors, it is clear that only a BI holds this transformative socio-political promise. Why not measure proposals against a vision of a society worth striving for, rather than ignoring the differences between an NIT and a BI and limiting our vision to considerations of political feasibility? BI’s transformative potential is obfuscated when NIT-based proposals are referred to as BI proposals and the discourse centres around these NIT-based proposals. The potential of BI is dismissed and marginalized from the discourse.
Third, because the language to describe a BI has been assimilated to an NIT, BI advocates must resort to using clunky and obscure terms such as “demogrant” to describe the concept, or else engage in lengthy explanations to describe what could otherwise be summed up in the term “basic income.”
Fourth, internationally, the term “basic income” is still used to refer to a universal, unconditional and exclusively individually delivered basic income. Because of the co-optation of the term “basic income” in Canada to refer to an NIT, there is a discrepancy between the understanding of the concept in Canada and in the rest of the world. This not only creates confusion, it can create a sense of deception in supporters of a basic income when they learn about a “basic income” pilot in Ontario, where the basic income is not universal, unconditional or exclusively individual. These supporters may question their involvement in the movement when the basic income they advocate for is so different from what is implemented in a “basic income” pilot.
This is not to underestimate the importance of the NIT concept to the basic income movement, nor to set it up in opposition to BI. Because of their appeal across the political spectrum and amenability to current income tax schemes, advocacy for, and implementation of NIT schemes, may be a crucial step toward realizing the aims of the basic income movement. NIT schemes are considered by Parijs & Vanderborght (2017) to be the most appealing of basic income’s cousins because they do not exclude people who do not perform paid work from being recipients, offering a step forward in terms of liberty and equality, while also reducing the stigma against people who do not have paid employment.
Distinguishing between BI and NIT is critical at this time as support for and dialogue around the idea of a “basic income” has reached critical mass. The hope is that clarifying the distinction between the two concepts will unite supporters of both negative income tax and basic income to form an inclusive movement based on their mutual recognition of overlapping aims. The strength in unity is especially critical now as a bulwark against current and future government policies that target and punish the least well-off in society.
References
Gollom, M. (2017, April 25). Basic income finds support on right as ‘most transparent’ form of redistribution. CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/basic-income-ontario-right-political-economic-1.4083630.
Lowrey, A. (2018, July 13). Smart money: Why the world should embrace universal basic income. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-smart-money-why-the-world-should-embrace-universal-basic-income/
Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (2017). Ontario Basic Income Pilot. Retrieved from www.ontario.ca/basicincome.
Parijs, P and Vanderborght, Y. (2017). Basic income: a radical proposal for a free society and a sane economy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP.
by Guest Contributor | Dec 3, 2018 | Opinion
Review of “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari
The third book by Yuval N. Harari, historian and author of the bestselling books “Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind” and “Homo Deus, a Brief History of Tomorrow”, was published in August this year.
What does the future hold, an unemployment ridden wasteland or a leisure based post-work society?
Whereas Harari’s former works were focused on the past of humankind or toward its future, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” investigates the most pressing issues of our times. Professor Harari finds 21 topics which embody the plethora of uncertainties surrounding our present and immediate future, and then, with the past history of our specie well in mind, suggests his thought-provoking vision about them. His unique timeliness is due to his unparalleled ability to reframe the past in order to investigate the present.
In the second lesson, “Work,” Harari talks about automation, Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and the impact they will have on the labor market and society as a whole. In order to avoid collapse, deep change is required, a true renovation of our social models.
And Universal Basic Income (UBI) may be one of the answers.
The pace of automation
It is unclear how the labor market will look in the long run. What is certain is that it is undergoing change. The advances in Information Technology (IT), machine learning and robotics will bring on a wave of automation, the author said.
But it is not the first time in human history that society measures itself with automation, as we already faced similar events, most notably with the industrial revolution. And the fear of mass unemployment was proven unjustified. Thus, in Harari opinion, we have to ask whether this time will be different.
Are our concerns about a jobless future legitimate? Or are we exaggerating the magnitude of the phenomena? Do we incur in the risk to act like modern luddites?
The situation of the nineteenth century was different, Harari mantains. When industrialization hit, it is true that many jobs were appropriated by machines, but at the same times many new jobs were created and the quality of life was profoundly improved.
As humans have two kinds of abilities, physical and cognitive, during the industrial revolution machines competed for only one share of the things humans could do, the physical one. When jobs in the industrial or agricultural sectors were automated, they opened the door to jobs requiring a cognitive skill set, the category of jobs we commonly associate with the third sector.
What is happening is due to the fact that the AI revolution is not just embodied by the evolution of computers, becoming faster and more “intelligent,” but it’s closely related to other fields; the momentum of the revolution is shouldered by advances in biology and social sciences, Harari said.
As more is understood of the underlying biological mechanisms controlling the emotive dynamics of humans, the more computers become able to analyze human behavior, foresee human decisions, and take their place in a number of jobs. In addition to delivering results, these AI tools tend to keep other significant processes in mind as well. In many cases, managing IT services effectively and improving them requires more than manpower alone. There are times when IT professionals might take time to learn what is CMDB in ServiceNow or other relevant topics. Nevertheless, an AI-specific tool can decipher complex terms and provide results quickly. .
Advances in neuroscience and behavioral economics revealed that our choices do not depend on free will as much as on the calculations of the neurons in our brains, assessing probabilities at enormous speed, the author writes. Human intuition can be considered “hacked” as it was revealed to consist of pattern recognition, the ability to identify recurring patterns and use them to create models and make predictions. And AI can become very good at pattern recognition. If intuition is no more than assessment of probabilities and creation of predictive models, it should not come as a surprise that machines can take our place, given that our very functioning is imperfect and prone to errors: it relies on circuits created through the evolution of our specie, in contexts far in time and place from those in which we try to apply them –the savannah is nothing like today’s cities.
Automation will not impact the entirety of fields, as some jobs are more susceptible to it than others, Harari writes. Jobs based on repetition will be more prone to automation, so if you want to stand out with your applications, consider working with an executive resume writer. Multifaceted activities and unexpected scenarios are still a no-go zone for machines. Where the jobs of many doctors, requiring diagnostics and prescriptions could be expected to be a no-brainer for AI, the job of nurses would prove more problematic, requiring a mix of personal relationships and physical activity. Caretaking will probably be one of the most difficult task to automate, and could very well be the activity in which most humans will be occupied in the future, Harari suggests.
The future of jobs
Harari sustains that talking about a jobless future is premature, as automation will allow for more time and resources to be invested in study and research, with the potential to develop new treatments, drugs and deepen our understanding of the biological world. There are jobs where machine automation is not desirable, such as many law-related jobs. Furthermore, there will be a place for human-machine cooperation.
Drones require many operators to work them, driverless vehicles require some form of supervision, and cybersecurity and maintenance will be needed. Some of the top cybersecurity threats aren’t simple to defeat – you can’t just set up a firewall, you need to actively fight against any hacks or viruses. With this being said, as we advance in technology the requirement for human intervention will become less stringent.
But the jobs we are talking about are knowledge intensive, which means that even if they were numerically sufficient to limit unemployment (and they are not), we would nonetheless be left with the problem of unemployment due to under-specialization. In Harari’s opinion, one of the main differences of this technological revolution from the precedent is the degree to which professions are interchangeable. When jobs are less specialized, it’s easier to switch from one profession to another, its often the same for machines. What we may find then is that jobs that machines will not be able to do interchangeably are most likely going to require a high degree of specialization from people. This alignment could pose the risk of facing “the worst of both worlds”: mass unemployment and lack of qualified workers.
And professor Harari notices how, even for those who are able to pursue a new career like in the example shown above, the rapid pace of technological advance or societal changes could make it obsolete in the matter of years. Not just professional development, but jumping from a field of study to another will become the norm in a volatile job market, as the ephemeralization of work will make the idea of formation for a career as an one-off effort laughable.
This should also be seen as an emotive cost for workers, the uncertainty causing a great strain in terms of mental health: if the unstable job market of the first decades of the twenty-first century produced an explosion of work-induced stress, mental resilience to change will be among the factors skimming the employment market.
Societal change
Looking back at the history of the industrial revolution, Harari considers how the new social conditions – great industrial metropolis and the dynamic nature of the arising economic markets – could not be accommodated by the existing political, economic and social models. Institutions such as religion, monarchy and feudalism were no longer apt to direct society. A whole century of social unrest followed before an equilibrium was found, with liberal democracies, fascist regimes and communist regimes on the playing field. What automation will bring rests in the realm of speculation, but Harari highlights how there is potential for great societal disruption, and we cannot afford complacency at the risky of bloody revolutions following systemic unemployment, given the great destructive power of modern warfare.
Universal Basic Income
The author then goes on investigating the role governments will have to assume as technology advances, saying that they will necessarily have to intervene, both via the creation of a dedicated structure for permanent formation, and by providing a safety net for people as they face transitions between jobs. The mantra should be the one which Scandinavia is already applying: “protect workers rather than jobs.”
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is one of the potential models that could respond to the technological and economical revolution we are expecting, Harari says. Its focus on the provision of means to satisfy basic needs is aligned with the necessary imperative of protecting people and not jobs, and could help to preserve the social status and self-worth of humans in a work-lacking future.
Financed through progressive taxation, an UBI would act as a redistributive instrument in a world which sees growing polarization between the riches and the poor. An alternative idea, in the author’s opinion, is to rethink the meaning of work by taking into account the education of children and caretaking. Considering caring for others as work which should deserve a monetary compensation would help foster informal safety nets and strengthen communities. Doing so would help preserve the social fabric which could be disrupted by the upcoming AI revolution. Since it would fall upon governments to pay for such activities, this would not ultimately differ from UBI.
Given that UBI could prove itself a valuable instrument to build a model for the society of the future, Harari calls for a better investigation of its possible application; that is, minimum and universal need to be defined.
In a globalized world, where market and industries are interconnected and delocalization is the norm, the meaning of universal need to be ascertained. UBI experiments have always been of reduced geographical extension, and it is usually thought, in its largest declinations, as a country specific measure. But if it was applied at the national level, its locality would create a problem, as its redistributive effects would not affect those who need it the most. As the wealth appropriated through the world is concentrated in a few nations, a progressive taxation used to fund UBI would then redistribute wealth not globally, but to a lucky minority.
Ideally, a global government could work out a functioning form of global UBI, but at the cost of its feasibility: redistributing wealth globally could very well prove impossible, in the opinion of professor Harari.
If a minimum income has to be enough to accommodate one’s basic needs, we have to decide which needs are basic, and this could prove to be a difficult exercise: homo sapiens needs food and water to survive, everything else may be considered superfluous, the author says.
Today we may consider also shelter, healthcare and instruction as basic needs, but there is no certainty about what is going to be included among them in the future. Human needs depend very much on expectations, they are far from being objective, and so the definition of minimum will remain a fluid concept as society changes through time, Harari forecasts. This means that the mere access to an income will not per se suffice in making people happy, but UBI will have to be integrated with activities which makes people satisfied, from civic engagement to sport.
Harari suggests that his country of origin, Israel, could be thought of as a testing field for a satisfying life in a post-work world. There, half of the ultra-Orthodox Jews do not work, but spend their lives praying and studying the sacred tests, while receiving government subsidies and a share of free services. They derive their happiness from the strong ties they develop with the community they live in and from the fulfillment gained via their investment in religion, Harari mantains.
Even as they are looked at with contempt from the laic citizens of Israel, which see them as freeloaders, their example may very well provide a model for the society of the future: life will be spent in the search for purpose, which could be found through the development of a strong sense of community and by investing time studying and in the construction of social relationships. Those activities, combined with the economic safety net provide by UBI, can maybe provide a picture of the society of tomorrow.
Written by:
More information at:
Yuval N. Harari, “21 Lessons For the 21st Century”, Jonathan Cape, 30 August 2018
Yuval N. Harari, “Yuval Noah Harari on whatthe year 2050 has in store for humankind”, Wired, 12 August 2018
by Guest Contributor | Nov 12, 2018 | Opinion
It’s the start of a new month. You wake up in the morning feeling a rush of energy. The air is thick with a positive warmth. You’re immediately motivated and inspired with a thought that is, as if, circulating around everybody’s mind:
“How can I best contribute myself to society today?”
You immediately do what you need to do: go to the bathroom, put your clothes on, get something to eat, and check your bank account. You see your monthly basic income allowance came in. You get through all these necessities as quickly as possible because you want to start connecting to the means where you draw this positive energy.
That means is a social network.
It is unlike the social networks we use today. Ad-free. Conflict-free.
Let’s take this example into consideration. Suppose you stumble into this blog called Motivation District (click for more here) through mutual recommendations. You can see healthy discussions happening there. Maybe the topics discussed over there might relate to your present circumstances, or there are some topics where you would want to freely express your opinion forward. This is a form of social networking where you happen to converse with strangers, discuss opinions, gain insights from them, and many more. Again, there are no conflicts or ads. Differences of opinion can occur, but that’s how a healthy conversation blossoms.
It is a social network thriving with friendliness and enthusiasm. Everyone feels equally important and responsible for creating it. Everybody actively expresses their opinion in discussions with no fear of judgment, criticism or argument. Everybody listens to everybody and does not simply interject with their opinions. It’s not the same with social media platforms. Be it business or personal accounts, networking on social media has become a daily pattern. They are of course, accountable for what they post. Businesses are therefore very wary of cyber-attacks through social media, as a breach in users’ accounts can cost them quite a lot of money. When you check the stages of a cyberattack, you can see that social media is one of the initial targets in resource collection.
Networking has different patterns in the real world, sometimes it is about contributing or acquiring the reward. In exchange for the basic income allowance that entered your bank account a little earlier, you need to answer a few questions in this network. As soon as you see the first question, you understand why you had that thought earlier. The question is:
“How can I best contribute myself to society today?”
You click “Agree” on the network’s conditions, which state a few guidelines that all participants need to follow in this network. They ultimately boil down to one main condition: Leave your ego outside.
You agree to everyone being equally important; everyone actively answering the questions (which are made with everyone’s ability to answer them in mind); no arguing with, criticizing or judging others; focusing on the topic at hand, i.e. not veering it into unrelated directions; and listening to others speak as if it is you who is speaking.
These conditions are founded on a synergic principle where humans and nature are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. They aim at guiding us so that we don’t fall victim to our involuntary, egoistic impulses when we participate in creating a well-connected social atmosphere.
You connect to a video conference with a few other people, and you each state your answers to the questions. In addition to the first question-“How can I best contribute myself to society today?”-there are a couple more:
“What is one positive example that inspired me yesterday of someone contributing to society?”
“How can we help each other not fall victim to our automatic egoistic impulses that make us want to criticize, judge and harm others, and support each other in the construction of a positively connected atmosphere above our self-centeredness?”
Halfway into the discussion, you feel a new wave of energy stream through you. It is an energy latent in nature, which becomes revealed when people come together, regardless of their differences, and act, think and desire in a way that is adapted to nature’s integrality. We do not feel this in our current world of relationships.
After finishing the discussion, some people go to work, others stay in the network to participate in other activities, whether they be discussions, lessons or courses either to deepen their knowledge of nature, human development, psychology, or to improve life skills, relationships, parenting, health, personal finance, time management, or participating in support groups for a wide range of interests and life situations. You choose to participate in this network online, but the same activities also take place at local community centers for anyone who wants to participate in a more physical way.
All the activities in the network aim at both supplying what people need, so that they do not have any problems supplying themselves with life’s necessities, and beyond that, improving people’s connections and social skills. You meet new people all the time, and the atmosphere is always enlivening, supportive and constructive.
Nowadays people have more and more social anxiety when it comes to meeting new people so social media seems like the right place to help these people to make new friends without the nervousness of messing up in person. However, social occasions will always occur and therefore, many people with social anxiety will take cannabis products like delta-8. They know what to expect with delta-8 THC such as things like an increase in sociability and relaxation, however, for now keeping things mainly online helps to develop these connections before the meeting up in person has to occur.
The tendency to support, benefit and connect with other people above our egoistic drives, is continually encouraged in this network. Likewise, values we currently hold become viewed from a new, unified vantage point. For example, competition in this network is based not on money, but on how much we can help and serve others.
Success in this network is not seen as building a personal empire despite, and on account of, other people. Instead, success is seen as a social construct, that we succeed together as a society, by connecting above our egoistic, divisive drives. By doing so, we get positive feedback from nature, a new surge of energy and motivation, by aligning ourselves with nature’s constant unifying motion.
This is how I envision a correctly functioning universal basic income. That is, UBI cannot work on its own. Simply giving people allowances without any incentives to succeed would stagnate society. In order for UBI to work, it needs to be provided in exchange for prosocial, connection-enriching participation, learning and development. People need tools, education, and encouragement to build a positively-functioning society in exchange for basic income. The idea of the “prosocial network” above is one direction the connection-enriching educational programs could take.
A Much Deeper and Wider Source of Motivation
In today’s capitalistic economy, people contribute to society with money as a leading motivator. Other drives, like respect, honor, fame, control, and knowledge are interwoven with money. That is, there is a price tag attached to every kind of social contribution.
However, considering a future where automation and robots will be given much of the workload, and where people get basic income allowances regardless of any work, we’re left to ponder serious questions:
What would people want to contribute to that society?
Why would they want to contribute to that society?
This is where the concept of universal basic income enters to support and propel the value shift necessary not only for UBI to work in the long term, but also for the foundation of a prosperous, connected society of happy and confident individuals, each motivated to contribute to the creation of a new thriving culture.
Michael Laitman
A prosocial resurgence combined with UBI has the power to make a significant gear shift in society. In order for that to happen, human relations, usually viewed as a byproduct of people’s professions and education, now need to be placed at the center of our attention. The motivation to contribute to society would need to change, from a monetary motivation to a purely prosocial, pro-connective motivation: one where we would regularly vitalize each other with examples of how we rise above our egoistic tendencies, thinking about, connecting to and benefiting other members of society. This would serve as a source of constant motivation, encouragement and ultimately, pave the way to a society of united, happy and confident individuals.
Today, there are thousands of people worldwide from all walks of life who feel the importance of jumpstarting the connection-enriching process in society, pioneering it even before the widespread launch of basic income. They are already engaged in learning, implementing and experimenting with the principle of positive connection above differences as the most valuable means to improve human society.
Anyone who is attracted to this idea of bettering the world by bettering human relations, and who wishes to participate in the learning and creation of a new prosocial, pro-connective culture, is welcome to learn its fundamental principles and basic concepts.
Michael Laitman is a Professor of Ontology, a PhD in Philosophy and Kabbalah, an MSc in Medical Bio-Cybernetics, and was the prime disciple of Kabbalist, Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag (the RABASH). He has written over 40 books, which have been translated into dozens of languages.
by Guest Contributor | Oct 31, 2018 | Opinion
The Past – from Ancestral Economy to Capitalism
Tribal groups, in which all men and women on Earth have lived since humanity emerged, have functioned through cooperation and solidarity among their members in tasks such as obtaining and distributing food, building shelters, and family dwellings or taking care of community assets; tasks that today we would call ‘economic’. In fact, over hundreds of thousands of years of human presence on Earth the whole economy was cooperative and supportive. And at the time it was sustainable. About 6,000 years ago things began to change when the first sophisticated civilizations arose and put into practice a variety of new forms of economic organization; from the range of traditional systems based on agriculture or trade to, subsequently, feudalism, mercantilism and everything else after that. Today, however, all the economic diversity that existed over those 6,000 years is virtually nullified, and an (almost) unique model has once again consolidated. It is called capitalism, and it has been going on for about 200 years.
Ancestral economies were based on solidarity and cooperation among people, on a harmony between them and nature and on an orientation towards the mere satisfaction of their needs. Capitalism is characterized by competition among peers, by the predation of the Earth and by an orientation of its agents aiming at unlimited material accumulation. Both modes are hegemonic, each in its own time, but that is about as much as these modes have in common.
Can, like its ancestral homologous form, the present ‘state of the art’ in economic organization – capitalism – last for hundreds of thousands of years? It does not seem possible, given the condition in which it left the planet and humans, after only 200 years. Earth’s soils, rivers, oceans, and atmosphere are now filled with the poisons left over from our economic activity; the climate is changing, the elements unsettled and life as we know it may be doomed, if we do not make deep and rapid changes. As for us humans, materialistic as we have become, we too often forget who we really are and can do: our nature as creators; our ability to generate art, mathematics or philosophy; our potential for freedom, for choosing paths, for changing ourselves and the world as we decide, and the lack of any natural bound between us and what we can achieve or be. By forgetting so much, we reduce ourselves to economic roles, going now so far as to even discuss whether artificial intelligence and robots will make us pointless and expendable one day. The culprit is our current economic culture and system.
However, despite its pitfalls, an important merit can be attributed to capitalism: with the demand for accumulation and profit, it has given us machinery, techniques, and knowledge that can now allow us to access the resources necessary for the material comfort of all. This is only a possibility though since these machines, techniques, and knowledge only provide the capacity, not the guarantee of its use.
Our collective future is unforeseeable. It will be the result of an infinity of both conscious choices and involuntary actions, taken by billions of individuals and groups, in a chaotic general movement that no one can control or anticipate. And yet, it can be felt that capitalism would make no sense in human history unless it was fated to eventually free us from the shackles of material scarcity. Hence, the great economic question of our time must be: how to accomplish the potential that capitalism offers us? The simple ‘progress’, as currently evolving, does not seem to be the way. Reality shows us, everywhere, that the mere growth of the present economy, without any change or innovation in its logic and processes, will never free us. Neither will the strengthening of the so-called welfare state, in its traditional, bureaucratic, expensive and life-controlling form. It can do no more than mitigate poverty, but at a high cost in dignity to its beneficiaries, and a cost in humanity to all the others. The more unnecessary this becomes the more intolerable it gets.
Each one of us, rich or poor, directly or indirectly is suffering from the lack of a process which guarantees the essentials for all. Clearly, this is no longer a problem of production capacity, but one of economic organization. The satisfaction of the basic needs of all people is not inherent to capitalism, nor has it ever been added to it. However, without such process, we will not rid ourselves from the specter of material poverty, and therefore from this never-enough culture in which we find ourselves in. Mainly reduced to producers and consumers, we are exhausting the energy that could alternatively be spent in higher occupations which our potential allows and claims for us.
And yet, we can immediately introduce such process of guaranteeing the essentials for all: let us recover from our ancestral economic way its core element of solidarity among people.
A Future – the UBI-AA
Solidarity among people is the essential idea behind the alternative resource distribution model here described: the Unconditional Basic Income of All for All, or ‘UBI-AA’.
UBI-AA is a revenue redistribution process, generically designed to operate monthly, providing automatic and unconditional transfers among citizens, from those who have higher incomes to those with lower or no income at all. Built, supported and leveraged by them alone, the process will invite participants to take responsibility and engage in their communities, which will reinforce these.
It works in two stages:
1) As it is acquired, each member of the community discounts to a common fund – a ‘UBI Fund’ – a proportion of their income, at a single and universal rate;
2) At the end of each month, the Fund’s accumulated total is equally and unconditionally distributed among all members of the same community.
This simple process, which demands the same effort from all participants while offering them the same benefit, treats everyone equally. It turns those who, at each moment in time, have above-average incomes into net payers to the UBI Fund, and those who have below-average incomes into net receivers. Thus, the process operates a joint distribution among participants of part of their individual incomes. In addition to reducing inequalities, this solidarity among peers creates an unconditional guarantee of income for all, that is, an Unconditional Basic Income.
It follows from the UBI-AA process that the loss of available income by some will be the gain of others. Importantly, for the scheme to be accepted by the former and really useful to the latter, the losses involved should be moderate and the gains significant. This should not, however, lead to a devaluation in the possibilities of the mutability of all individual positions. As time goes by and while exercising the options which the process itself opens to participants, individual situations of income ‘winners’ or ‘losers’ should always be seen as circumstantial.
To achieve its intended effects, the implementation of the UBI-AA should be accompanied by the release of its participants from the burden of personal income tax. Such tax relief will compensate them for the contributory effort required by the UBI-AA process. However, for those above a certain level of income, such compensation may turn out to be merely partial.
Once the personal income tax is abolished, the moderation of losses for citizens with above-average incomes and, simultaneously, the material significance of gains to those with under-average incomes, will be possible if the rate of contributions to the UBI Fund is set at an optimal level, balancing the two outcomes.
A more complete description of the UBI-AA process, as well as a simulation of the financial effects it would have produced, both in individual citizen spheres and in the State budget, hypothesizing it in force in Portugal in 2012, can be reached here.
UBI-AA differs from most current traditional redistributive processes because it is unconditional. It also differs from most unconditional alternative processes since it is a construct of common citizens, instead of a government, a central bank or any other ‘power’ policy. We see it as a humane alternative to organizing the economy on its distributive side. Operating through the income distribution process described above, it will favor the rehabilitation of values such as solidarity and voluntary cooperation among people, and the creation of an unconditional guarantee of income for all will be a corollary.
We cherish the hope that this may contribute to the flourishing of a new and less materialistic culture. Who knows, if making everybody’s access to essential material resources as simple as breathing, will not end up instilling in people the same attitude towards those resources – money and the things it buys – as the one we have towards the air we breathe: no matter how valuable it may be to us, we do not quarrel with each other for it; we only use it in the quantities we need; accumulating it does not even occur to us. Such a cultural shift would certainly be a great human civilizational progress and a much-needed step towards a reconciliation between us and our environment.
Miguel Horta
André Coelho
by Guest Contributor | Sep 12, 2018 | Opinion
The following is an open letter to the Ontario government from basic income advocate Rob Rainer. The Ontario government recently cancelled their basic income pilot program. Rainer is calling on the government to reconsider the cancellation.
Dear Premier Ford, Minister MacLeod, and my MPP, Mr. Hillier:
I am a resident of Ontario and a concerned citizen who is among the many who, in recent years, have been advocating for basic income as a vital form of economic and social security, and human dignity – not only for those in or on the cusp of poverty, but for the broad “middle class” within which millions of people are profoundly economically insecure. I respectfully ask that you reconsider the Ontario government’s decision to terminate the Ontario basic income pilot project. Further, I ask that you commit to seeing this project through to its intended completion and evaluation.
The Ontario pilot is a world-leading test of how basic income can transform lives for the better. The eyes of the world have been on Ontario because of it – and remain on Ontario now in the wake of the government’s decision. Sadly, yesterday’s announcement by Minister MacLeod that the government will terminate the project appears to have been made with little regard for not only the evidence in favour of basic income but also the evidence already emerging from the pilot itself – including how in just a short period of time basic income has begun to transform many lives for the better (see also this story). The announcement is especially galling given that, in April, it appeared that your Party was prepared to see the project through if you were to form the next government. As an unidentified Party spokesperson said then, “we look forward to seeing the results.”
And so, several questions for you:
Mr. Ford or Ms. MacLeod: On what evidence or information was the decision made to end the pilot? Who was consulted beforehand? Notably, did the government speak directly with any of the 4000 pilot participants spread across Hamilton, Brant County, Lindsay, and Thunder Bay, and/or any of the members of the pilot research team? If it did not take those steps, I recommend they be done ASAP if there is yet possibility to revisit the government’s decision. I believe that were your government to hear directly from pilot participants, in particular, that its views on the pilot might be much more informed.
Mr. Ford or Ms. MacLeod: Assuming this decision stands, what will be done to make the transition as painless as possible for the pilot participants – some of whom have already made critical decisions for their lives on the basis of having access over three years to the basic income? Specifically, will the government continue to issue monthly basic income payments for most if not all of the remaining intended duration of the pilot?
Mr. Ford or Ms. MacLeod: What are your ideas as to what might be more effective than basic income to providing a solid floor of economic security for Ontarians (with major health and other benefits in return)?
Mr. Hillier: I met with you in February 2017 at your constituency office in Perth. At that time you expressed general support for the idea of basic income and, I recall, at least conditional support for the basic income pilot. You may feel obliged to support the government’s decision here, but I nonetheless ask: Are you comfortable with the decision, or would you be willing to champion that the government reconsider?
It is not a stretch to say that lives may well depend on a turnaround here. I understand from colleagues close to the ground of the pilot that if the government follows through with its intentions, that one or more suicides may well follow – reflective of the economic desperation many people in Ontario suffer. In this light, I encourage you to read at least some of the ~500 short testimonials contained in the attached document, in which people from across Ontario and many other parts of Canada explain the difference basic income could mean for them and/or their loved ones (and note how some of the writers mention suicide in the context of their desperation). For further and very good introductory information about basic income, I also recommend to you Basic Income Canada Network’s Basic Income primer series.
Sincerely,
Rob Rainer
Basic Income Advocate
Tay Valley Township, Lanark County
