Basic Income as 40 Acres and a Mule

Basic Income as 40 Acres and a Mule

This whole program is voluntary…The men don’t have to…if they don’t want to. But we need you to starve them to death if they don’t.

“Milo Minderbinder,” Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Basic Income does something virtually no other policy in the modern economy can do: it protects your status as a free person.

What does it mean to be a free person? Consider an answer given by someone who experienced chattel slavery. Garrison Frazier was the spokesperson for a delegation of former slaves called “freedmen” (although many were women) who met with General Sherman on January 12, 1865, before the end of the U.S. Civil War.

Asked what he understood by slavery, Frazier replied, “Slavery is, receiving by irresistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent.”

He defined freedom as, “taking us from under the yoke of bondage, and placing us where we could reap the fruit of our own labor [and] take care of ourselves.”

Asked how best to secure their freedom, Frazier said, “The way we can best take care of ourselves is to have land, and turn it and till it by our own labor.”

The story of what happened after the meeting has come to symbolize broken promises to African Americans, but it has much greater significance for everyone. Sherman distributed land seized from former slave owners to freedmen in a large area of the southeastern coast, sometimes along with surplus army mules. Rumors spread that all freedmen would receive 40 acres and a mule. Less than a year later, the Federal Government reversed Sherman’s order, restored the prewar property rights of former slaveholders, and forcibly evicted the freedmen, many of whom had to work for their former masters, taking the least desirable jobs and the lowest pay. Some descendants of slaves continue to serve the holders of those property rights to this day.

The significance of Frazier’s request for land to secure his freedom is not that freedom requires the opportunity to become a subsistence farmer; it requires the freedom from indirectly forced labor. Frazier recognized that the legal self-ownership slaves were granted at the close of the war was not enough to make the fully free. It does not free an individual from the “irresistible power” to do the bidding of others. Individuals who are prevented from working for themselves alone (and not sufficiently compensated for being denied that option) are forced to work for someone who controls access to resources. Forced labor is unfreedom whether that force is direct or indirect.

The freedom from indirectly forced labor has been taken away from the vast majority of people in the world today—when governments forcibly took control of the resources of the Earth to give them to their most privileged citizens. These newly established “property rights” not only gave privileged citizens control over resources: it gave them control over people. People who had shared access to those resources for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years were now forced to provide services for the wealthy to maintain their most basic subsistence. Eliminating indirectly forced labor is not all there is to ensuring everyone is fully free, but it’s an essential step.

We have owed each other a Basic Income since we enclosed the commons, since we abducted the slaves, since we killed the Buffalo.

NOTE: this essay includes a long excerpt from Chapter 2 of my book, Freedom as the Power to Say No: Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income

40 acres and a mule

40 acres and a mule

Exporting the Alaska Model: An early version now available for free download

Exporting the Alaska Model: An early version now available for free download

An early version of the book, Exporting the Alaska Model, is available for download for the first time. This is possible because most academic publishers allow authors and editors to post early versions of their works on their person websites. A preview, written in 2012, is below. If you’d like to cite or quote it, please refer to the published version:

Karl Widerquist and Michael Howard, Exporting the Alaska Model: How the Permanent Fund Dividend Can Be Adapted as a Reform Model for the World, Karl Widerquist and Michael Howard, editors. Palgrave MacMillan (2012)

In recognition of every Alaskan’s share of the ownership of the state’s oil reserves, every year, every Alaskan gets a dividend from the returns of the Alaska Permanent Fund (a sovereign wealth fund comprised of a pool of assets collectively owned by the residents of the state). It was created from royalties the state receives from the oil industry. Each year it pays a dividend to every Alaska resident. In 2008, the dividend reached a high of more than $3200 (including a supplement added from that year’s state budget surplus). That dividend amounted to more than $16,000 for a family of five.

Many other resource-exporting regions around the world have sovereign wealth funds, but only the APF pays a regular dividend to citizens. The APF and the accompanying Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) are actually a combination of resource-management policy and a progressive social policy. As a sovereign wealth fund, it helps to ensure that the state will continue to benefit from its oil long after its reserves are depleted. As a dividend, it helps every single Alaskan make ends meet each year without a bureaucracy to judge them.

The PFD is one of the most popular government programs in the United States. It has helped Alaska attain the highest economic equality of any state in the United States. It has coexisted with, and possibly contributed to, the state’s growing and prosperous economy. Most importantly it has given unconditional cash assistance to needy Alaskans at a time when most states have scaled back aid and increased conditionality.

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Cliff Groh

This book argues that the model provided by the combination of the APF and the PFD is worthy of imitation by other states, nations, or regions. Of course, not every country has as much oil as Alaska, but every country has resources. The total value of natural resources (including not only mining, fishing, and forestry but also land value, the broadcast spectrum, the atmosphere, etc.) is surprisingly high even in areas not thought of as being resource rich. The case for taxing natural resources is at least as good, and probably far better than taxing other sources of wealth.

One reason Alaska introduced the APF was that lawmakers realized that oil drilling would give the state a large and temporary revenue windfall. They wanted to extend the period in which that windfall would benefit Alaskans by putting some if it away into a permanent fund. To some extent the PFD was a way to sell ordinary Alaskans on the idea of the APF.

But to some extent the motivation for the APF was to support the PFD. Some of the lawmakers who created the APF, most especially Governor Jay Hammond, were influenced by the movement for what is now known as a “basic income”—a small unconditional income for every citizen to help them meet their basic needs. At the time, the policy was best known as the “guaranteed income” or the “negative income tax.” It was widely discussed by policymakers in the United States in the 1960s and 70s. Hammond had created a similar policy on a local level when he was a mayor of Bristol Bay, and he very much saw the APF as an opportunity to create a guaranteed income. The argument was simple: the oil, by right, belonged to all Alaskans. The PFD was an efficient way to ensure that every Alaskan would benefit from it.

A similar argument can be made for almost any natural resource.

This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to assessing whether the APF is a model to be copied with chapters in the disciplines of economics, philosophy, sociology, history, and social policy studies. It also has chapters written by political activists and practitioners.

Several chapters discuss the history of the APF and similar policies around the world (both resource taxation policies and income support policies). Others chapters discuss the ethics of unconditional cash grants and resource taxes, and how the Alaska mode fits in with recent theoretical models. As mentioned, the PDF is essentially a small basic income—a political proposal that has been widely discussed in political theory literature. Stakeholder grants would replace the yearly basic income with a large, one-time payment when individuals come of age. Resource egalitarianism is the belief that all people should benefit equally from the natural resources of the Earth. Policies like the APF, which link resource taxes to direct redistribution, advance resource egalitarian goals. We discuss what should count as a “resource” for purposes of the standard of “equality of resources,” and how this might be focused on resources that can become the basis of a sovereign wealth fund. A clean atmosphere, for example, is a shared resource that is being depleted by billions of individual polluters.

Several chapters debate whether it is a good idea to link a progressive social policy, such as a cash grant, to an environmental policy, such as a resource tax. One reason to make this link is that resource taxes redistributed as dividends reflect shared ownership claims to the environment. Other reason to do so is that the redistribution of resource tax revenue can compensate people for the cost of moving to less resource-intensive activities. One danger is if the redistribution of resource taxes is seen as a good thing, people might be more willing to accept increased exploitation of natural resources.

The book also discusses possible ways that the model might be altered and improved, including a proposal for Citizens Capital Accounts, which personalize the fund, giving each individual owner, among other things, the power to decide whether to take out regular dividends or let her earnings accrue as a protected investment. Instead of passively receiving a check each year, each citizen have some control over a small portion of the principle and the choice of when and whether to withdraw her available returns.

The book also has country- and region-specific proposals with estimates of what size dividend might be achievable in various places. As criteria for success we consider effects on poverty, effects on inequality, effectiveness in discouraging greenhouse gasses and other forms of pollution (for carbon-based taxes), efficiency, satisfaction of voters, and other factors.

Summary

This book is divided into three parts. Part I discusses employing the Alaska model in circumstances similar to those of Alaska: in wealthy, resource-exporting nations and regions. Part II discusses applications of the model further afield. And Part III discusses a hybrid proposal for an individualized version of Alaska’s fund and dividend.

Michael W. Howard (right) and Karl Widerquist (left) in the rain at the 2017 NABIG Congress in New York

Hamid Tabatabai (chapter 2) begins Part I with a discussion of the second place in the world to introduce a resource dividend: of all places, Iran. Like Alaska, Iran stumbled upon the dividend following a peculiar set of circumstances. For most of its period as a resource-exporting nation, Iran has used its resource wealth to support an inefficient system of commodity subsidies (mostly on gas and oil consumption). Iranian politicians knew that these subsidies had to go, but the policies benefited so many people in such a significant way that the politicians knew they could not eliminate them without a similarly broad-based policy (discussed as the fifth lesson in section 2 above). After lengthy discussions, the policy that emerged was a basic income in the form of a regular resource dividend. The policy is not funded by a permanent resource endowment, but it does employ the other two elements of the Alaska model.

Angela Cummine (chapter 3) looks at the very opposite issue. There are many SWFs in the world today. Some of them are many times larger than the APF. Yet, only the APF pays a dividend. Given the enormous popularity of the PFD, why have no other resource-exporting nations imitated it? Employing information gained from interviews and other sources, Cummine assesses the reasons SWF managers around the world are skeptical about dividends.

Alanna Hartzok (chapter 4) looks back at the Alaska model itself in advance of export. She argues that the APF and PFD embody the idea of socializing the rent of assets that rightfully belong to the people as a whole, but to do this, managers at the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC) should take on a strong responsibility toward social investing, and they are not yet living up to that responsibility. Any nation or region wishing to socialize rent on a large or small scale should, therefore, take a look at what the APFC has done right and what it has done wrong.

Rather than looking at employing the Alaska model in other places, Cliff Groh (chapter 5) looks at the future of the Alaska model in Alaska. Although the PFD has a sound permanent endowment in the APF, it is the only part of the Alaska government that has such safe financial footing. Most of Alaska’s state budget is based on current oil export revenues. The volume of Alaskan oil exports has been declining for more than 20 years. So far, increases in the price of oil have more than made up for the decline in the volume of oil exports, but they will not always do so. When oil revenue begins to dry up, there will be enormous pressure on the state government budget, which will also put pressure on the APF and PFD. Groh discusses when this might happen, what it will mean, and what can be done about it.

Gary Flomenhoft begins Part II with a chapter (chapter 6) estimating the potential for a common-asset-based dividend in the “resource-poor” state of Vermont. He shows that even Vermont has many resources that are being given away for free by government to corporations who sell those resources back to the people at higher prices. Flomenhoft estimates how much revenue the state could generate by treating those assets the way Alaska treats its oil. In his low estimate, he finds that Vermont could support a dividend at least as large as Alaska’s; and in his high estimate, he finds that Vermont could support a dividend many times larger—perhaps more than $10,000 a year for every Vermonter. If a resource-poor state such as Vermont can do it, any state or nation can too.

Paul Segal (chapter 7) discusses employing the Alaska model in the poorer nations of the world and discusses the impact on poverty of doing so. He finds that a resource dividend could cut world poverty by more than half, as measured by the World Bank’s poverty rate of US$1.25 per day at purchasing-power-parity.

Jason Hickel (chapter 8) examines the potential impact of the Alaska model on a less developed nation—the newly independent state of South Sudan. Although South Sudan has large oil reserves to draw on, the potential impact of the Alaska model on it is hard to estimate because the state is so new and few good data are available. However, he finds that oil exports have the potential to finance both a substantial dividend and significant infrastructure improvements.

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Governor Jay Hammond, “Father of Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend”

Jay Hammond’s contribution (chapter 9) applies the Alaska model to Iraq. Hammond was the fourth governor of the state of Alaska and is justly described as the father of the PFD. He campaigned for the idea long after he left office. His posthumous contribution to this book is a piece he wrote near the end of his life suggesting that a permanent fund and dividend would help ensure that Iraq’s oil revenues were shared by members of all of its diverse communities. This chapter includes a brief introduction by Larry Smith.

Michael W. Howard’s chapter (chapter 10) discusses the cap-and-dividend approach to global warming as a politically viable way of applying the Alaska model at the federal level in the United States. The idea of cap-and-dividend is simple. The government limits the amount of carbon emissions allowed (the cap). It sells the rights to make those emissions to the highest bidder and redistributes the proceeds as a dividend for all citizens.

Widerquist closes Part II with two chapters (chapters 11 and 12). The first examines the possibility for, and potential size of, a permanent common-asset-based endowment for the United States. The second examines the prospects of exporting the Alaska model back home to Alaska to widen and deepen the use of the strategy we call the Alaska model in Alaska itself. Widerquist argues that a fuller use of the Alaska model will strengthen Alaska against the likely eventual decline in resource revenues.

Part III of the book is entirely devoted to the discussion of a proposal by Karl Widerquist to create an individualized version of the permanent fund and dividend approach. Widerquist’s proposal, called Citizens’ Capital Accounts (CCAs) (chapter 13), assigns a portion of the principal of the fund to each individual at birth. They can decide when and whether to draw dividends, but the principal must remain in the fund for future generations. Widerquist argues that CCAs provide more economic security for the money than basic income or other similar proposals, because they allow individuals to keep the returns in their safe investment account until they are needed. Subsequent chapters by Michael W. Howard, Jason Berntsen, Ayelet Banai, and Christopher L. Griffin, Jr. (chapters 14–17) evaluate, criticize, and consider variations of the CCA proposal. In the final chapter of part III (chapter 18), Widerquist responds to criticism.

The book is available at:

Karl Widerquist and Michael Howard, Exporting the Alaska Model: How the Permanent Fund Dividend Can Be Adapted as a Reform Model for the World, Karl Widerquist and Michael Howard, editors. Palgrave MacMillan (2012)

Michael W. Howard (right) and Karl Widerquist (left) in the rain at the 2017 NABIG conference in New York

Call for Papers: The Politics of Universal Basic Incomes

27th International Conference of Europeanists – Council for European Studies

Reykjavik, Iceland, June 22-24, 2020

This Call for Papers is interested in empirical studies that look at the social and political processes surrounding UBIs discussions, including pilot test and experiment designs and implementations, either at the local, national or supranational level, in Europe and elsewhere. Examples of questions that are particularly welcomed are: To what extent are these openings the result of successful UBI campaigns? How and to what extent have these ideas permeated political parties and leaders? When and how are civil society organizations (e.g. trade unions, women and feminist groups, migrants associations) willing to incorporate UBI to their demands? What are the resistances and oppositions that UBI advocates face? How has the public opinion reacted to UBI? How UBI’s framing impinges upon its popularity? What is the role of social movements and other forms of grassroot activism in these processes?

The purpose of this CFP is to gather papers to organize a panel(s) at the next conference of the Council for European Studies (CES), to be held in Reykjavik, Iceland, June 22-24, 2020. Please submit your abstracts (300 words maximum) before 10 October 2019 to cesar.guzman-concha@eui.eu . Note that all paper authors must also submit their abstracts proposals through the CES online system, before the official deadline: 15 October 2019

Paper panels consist of 4-5 papers organized around a common theme with comments provided by a chair and a discussant.

Basic Income March Expands to 10 Cities worldwide

The latest news from the organizers of the Basic Income March is that it has spread to 10 more cities, which will all have marches on October 26, 2019. In the organizers’ words:

Largest Ever March for Universal Basic Income Set for October 26 in New York City

  • The Basic Income March is inviting New Yorkers and supporters of a Universal Basic Income to join them on Oct. 26 as they March from Harlem to the South Bronx to demand economic justice for the millions of people left behind in the current economy.
  • What started as a single march in NYC has grown into a global movement, with events planned in more than 10 additional cities, including: San Francisco, Berlin, Amsterdam, Kumbungu, Seoul, Toronto, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Honolulu, and Orlando.

 

NEW YORK CITY, New York. Oct. 2, 2019. Income Movement today announced that they have organized a historic march for universal basic income (UBI) in New York City, set for October 26, 2019. The Basic Income March is a people-powered movement sending the message that it is critical for the economy to evolve to meet the challenges of the 21st century.​ ​In New York, leaders from Labor and UBI organizations, US Congressional Candidates, the Andrew Yang 2020 Presidential Campaign, and Black Lives Matter, among others, will march and speak.

 

 

“The March of the Robots has to be countered by the March for Humanity. All of us have to participate in a national conversation about Universal Basic Income because all of us will be affected by the forthcoming drastic changes in the world of work.”​ – G​isèle Huff​, president of the Gerald Huff Fund For Humanity.

 

BASIC INCOME MARCH
1:00 PM | October 26th 2019
Starting Location: Convent Baptist Church, ​420 W 145th St, New York, NY End Point and Rally: Roberto Clemente Plaza, ​The Bronx, NY

Basic Income March Speakers at Convent Baptist Church:

  • Hawk Newsome, Chairman of Black Lives Matter, NY
  • Karl Widerquist: Political Philosopher and Economist, Georgetown University – Qatar
  • Member of presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s campaign

Basic Income March Speakers at Rally at Roberto Clemente Plaza:

  • James Felton Keith, candidate for US Congress in NY13
  • Andy Stern, ​President Emeritus SEIU and author of Raising the Floor
  • Chivona Renee Newsome, candidate for US Congress in NY15
  • Scott Santens, Thought Leader, Author, UBI Advocate

     

CONTACT

Organization: Income Movement Communications Strategist: Dylan Enright Phone: +1 917.536.6780
Email: ​dylan@incomemovement.com www.basicincomemarch.com

 

New book reviews the Namibian Basic Income pilot

New book reviews the Namibian Basic Income pilot

A new book looks back at the effects of Namibia’s Basic Income pilot project on the villagers who received the grant.

Publication information: Claudia & Dirk Haarmann, 2019, Basic Income Grant Otjivero, Namibia – 10 years. Windhoek, Namibia: Economic & Social Justice Trust

The following is the authors’ announcement:

Ten years after the Basic Income Grant pilot project in Otjivero, we are glad to announce that a new book has just been published by the Namibian Economic & Social Trust in Windhoek tonight:
You can download the book in pdf or as epub (eReaders) through the following links:
If you want to view more photos of the research you can view them through this link:
Together with Engelhard Unaeb and Herbert Jauch we have conducted this series of interviews with residents of Otjivero in the beginning of 2019. This publication aims to give a voice to the people at the centre of the BIG pilot project who experienced what changed and what remained after the BIG ended and how their lives look like ten years later. The publication highlights the political developments since the pilot project. Most importantly it provides a long term analysis of the effects of a Basic Income on household and community level from the perspective of the people concerned. This publications wants to ensure that the people’s voices and opinions are heard.
It is our hope and prayer that this book will help to refocus the debate on the urgency for an immediate implementation of a basic income for all!

Publication information: Claudia & Dirk Haarmann, 2019, Basic Income Grant Otjivero, Namibia – 10 years. Windhoek, Namibia: Economic & Social Justice Trust

1st payout - Johannes Seibeb (born 2001-10-13)

1st payout – Johannes Seibeb (born 2001-10-13)