by Karl Widerquist | Jun 15, 2019 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
I’m posting chapters of my latest book project (The Prehistory of Private Property coauthored by Grant. S. McCall)
This discussion paper is a draft of Chapter 2 of our forthcoming book, the Prehistory of Private Property. It traces the history of the appropriation story in property theory from John Locke to the present day. It shows that, although the story is not supposed to be literally true, it is meant illustrate important empirical claims in the natural rights justification of private property. The natural-rights-based argument for ethical limits on government powers to tax, regulate, and redistribute property has to stand on the empirical claim that collective appropriation of property, though possible, is historically implausible—a claim or a collection of claims we call “the appropriation hypothesis.”
This hypothesis could be specified in at least three different ways. First, before governments or any other collective institutions appear, all or most resources are appropriated by individuals acting as individuals to established private property rights. Second, only individuals acting as individuals perform appropriative acts (i.e. neither individuals acting as monarchs nor groups intending to establish collective, public, or government-held property rights perform appropriative acts). Third, even if collectives perform appropriative acts, subsequent transfers of titles (in the absence of rights violations) are likely only to produce privatized property rights.
This chapter sets up the following questions, which will be addressed in the chapters 3, 4, & 5: Can the natural-rights justification of private property do without the appropriation hypothesis? And if not, are these claims true?
by Karl Widerquist | Jun 9, 2019 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
My latest book project (coauthored by the anthropologist, Grant S. McCall) is called The Prehistory of Private Property. It book tells two parallel histories. It tells the story of how modern property theory became dependent on three misconceptions about the origin of the property rights system and the difference between societies with common and privatized resources, and how those misconceptions continue to have a negative effect on contemporary political thought and beliefs about our shared responsibility. The second story traces the origin and development of the private property system through history and prehistory to debunk those misconceptions.
The three claims at the center of this book are: 1. The normative principles of appropriation and voluntary transfer applied in the world we live in can only support a capitalist system with strong private property rights. 2. Capitalism is more consistent with negative freedom than any other conceivable economic system. 3. Inequality is natural and inevitable, or egalitarianism is unsustainable without a significant loss in freedom.
The book devotes a great deal of space to show how these misconceptions are embedded in many influential theories in political philosophy, because political philosophers are often unclear about the extent to which their theories rely on empirical claims. The clarity problem is nearly as important as the dubious nature of the claims. Obscurity and ambiguity help shield these claims from scrutiny.
Underlying this specific theoretical agenda is the more general goal of raising the level of discussion of empirical issues in political philosophy. Ambiguous allusions to empirical claims should be unacceptable in any academic literature. Philosophers have the responsibility to be clear about what empirical claims they rely on and about the level of support they can offer for those claims. Their critics should not let them get away with the sloppy use of ambiguous allusions to empirical claims.
Once the need for each claim is clearly established, the book subjects each claim to rigorous empirical investigation using the best evidence available from anthropology, and then discusses the implications of those findings for contemporary theory. Some of the book’s central findings follow.
- The normative principles of appropriation and transfer much more easily support common or collective claims to property. Private property rights systems tend not to develop without state aggression against small-scale societies with better claims of a connection to “original appropriation” than people establishing individualist private property rights.
- The hunter-gatherer band economy is more consistent with negative freedom than any other form of socio-political organization known to anthropology. If freedom is an overriding value, everyone must become a nomadic hunter-gatherer. This finding implies both that the justification of any other system must rely at least partially on some other value such as opportunity and that aid to the disadvantaged is not necessarily freedom-reducing: it often counteracts freedom-reducing aspects of private property.
- Inequality is not natural nor inevitable nor in conflict with freedom. Contemporary egalitarian theory can benefit from the experience of small-scale societies that successfully maintain very high levels of political, social, and economic equality.
The book is not directly about Basic Income, but it will connect to the idea in the final chapter. We will argue that the mass of humanity lead lives of manufactured desperation. People are not naturally in a struggle to “find work” to ensure they have food, shelter, and clothing. They are artificially put in this situation by a stratified property rights system that is not necessary for human social organization and that most societies (from the earliest hunter-gatherers to more recent peasant farming systems) did not find it necessary to manufacture such desperation. Basic Income is one way to compensate people for the imposition of a stratified property system and to relieve them of desperation that has come with it.
We have full drafts of 8 of the books ten chapters, and we are positing them online at this link as they reach presentable form. We hope to have a full draft we can send to our publisher (Edinburgh University Press) within a few weeks or months.
Enzo grills Karl at the PPA+ conference, Amsterdam, 2019
by Tyler Prochazka | Jun 4, 2019 | Opinion
The wave of basic income experiments in the last two years was a positive development in giving Universal Basic Income (UBI) some level of attention and political legitimacy in Western countries.
It is time to recognize the experimental wave is coming to an end.
Basic income activists in the next wave of UBI political discussions should push for policy changes in the direction of basic income. There are ongoing and completed trials testing cash transfers in countries with different stages of economic development. It makes more sense to build a foundation for policy changes as these results trickle out over the next few years rather than pushing for yet another experiment.
In Canada, the push for experiments backfired because a Conservative government canceled it before any results could be collected. I supported Ontario’s experiment and there was value in the research.
However, Ontario’s cancellation demonstrated that as activists move forward, we must recognize that experiments do not create a political constituency. In Alaska, the partial basic income policy has broad and significant support because everyone has benefited from it. Building a constituency that can be expanded and deepened is where activist energy should be placed in the next stage.
UNICEF funded experiments in India helped make basic income a real political discussion there, and now basic income inspired policies are being proposed by both of the main parties and a minimum income is set to be implemented in the state of Sikkim.
Experiments in developing countries and regions where basic income is still not well known may still be politically necessary. In Western countries, though, activist energy on more experiments rather than policy action seems ill-placed since UBI has already entered mainstream discussion in the West.
Experiments have already shown us cash transfers make people happier, healthier, and free them to pursue what they are interested in. The myths about basic income have been consistently undermined, particularly the idea that it would decrease work in any meaningful way. More experiments will keep telling us that giving people cash is generally good in most of the ways we measure positive outcomes.
How many times do we need an experiment to tell us cash transfers do not make people “lazy”?
Those who will not be convinced by the existing and upcoming experimental results will not be convinced by yet another experiment. The reaction to Finland’s experiment is evidence that unpersuadable opponents will latch onto even neutral effects on employment to prove basic income is a “failure.”
To truly put UBI to the test in America and Europe, actual policies that incorporate significant elements of basic income should be pushed. Cory Booker’s baby bonds is a start. Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit that incorporates students and caregivers would instantly help millions. Political campaigns such as Andrew Yang’s are also important to bring the debate to a mainstream audience.
That is not to say pilot programs with the intent of expansion are not helpful. These provide valuable information to governments on how to implement basic income. Pilot programs with the primary intent of yet more research on “laziness” are the issue.
However, as the experimental wave of basic income begins to sunset, activists must look toward the next wave, which should focus on concrete policy steps that realize the spirit of basic income.
For these reasons, I see more experiments as an inefficient use of activist energy in the West. Worse, pushing experiments focused on gathering more data trades off with more useful discussions of how to bring elements of UBI to reality in the near-term.
by Karl Widerquist | May 17, 2019 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
At the links below, you can find 492 pages of notes, mostly in anthropology, some in history and other disciplines. I accumulated them in the process of researching two books (Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy and the Prehistory of Private Property), both of which use(d) sources from anthropology and other disciplines to criticize empirical claims philosophers and political theorists often accept without sufficient skepticism. These notes are not a broad-based coverage of the discipline as a whole; they involve only information relevant to the claims addressed in those books. I’m posting them publicly (in both DOCX and PDF formats) in case anyone doing related work will benefit from them in any way. I hope some people find these notes to be a useful aid for their own research.
Four-hundred and ninety-two pages of anthropology notes (in DOCX format)
Four-hundred and ninety-two pages of anthropology notes (in PDF format)
by Guest Contributor | May 14, 2019 | Opinion
Written by: Mônica Dallari and Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy
After the article “A Critical Poverty Eradication Experiment in Kenya”, published in the last issue of the BIEN News Flash, we now offer this complement with the interviews of the beneficiaries of the UBI in the rural villages of Kenya.
Stimulus to work
Richard O., 43, is a father of nine children. The couple and the eldest son, aged 18, receive a basic income. Richard paid school fees for his children to study and bought goats, $150 and $200 USD each. He also bought a cow for $250, which provides milk for the family. Now he wants a bull, which costs $300. Richard says basic income has encouraged him to work harder: “when there is opportunity, ambition grows”, he explains. “The benefit has created the possibility for people to dream of a better life.” Richard is dreaming.
Empowered women
Jane M. feels stronger now with basic income because she has the power to decide how the best use of her benefit. She and her husband have the same power in the negotiations. She felt very good to gain independence. Jane says that the basic income comes along with the responsibility of making the best use of resources, for being unconditional. As a seamstress, she receives $0.50 a day. She participates in a group of 10 women in the village who help each other. Once a month, they all get together and deliver $10 to one of them. By relay, one of the beneficiaries gets $100 each. Jane waits her turn, she wants to invest in her own business.
New house
Edson O.N. was happy for all the villages receiving Universal Basic Income (UBI), not just selected ones. Married, now 31 years old with two children, when he does not have occasional jobs in the field, he helps his wife sell used clothes in popular markets and gets $1. He lives in a house with a mud wall and a straw roof in his father’s terrain. He is raising money to acquire his own land and build a home for his family. He estimates that will need $1,000. The steel roof tiles, for the capture of rainwater, alone cost $210.
Reduction of domestic violence
Kennedy A.A. realized that violence and stress within families have greatly reduced with the introduction of the UBI. He is the elder of the village, a joint judge and chief of the community, not necessarily the eldest. He is often called in neighbors’ quarrels and family disputes. He is married at 43 years old with three daughters. He says: “when there is money, conflicts decrease. Men do not come back home angry and frustrated. The benefit brought peace to the families. Children, who grew humiliated in old and torn clothes, began to wear decent clothes. Access to food and medicines has improved. Everyone starts to know the feeling of well-being.”
No piper water
Nilton is 12 years old and Elvis is six years old. They are brothers and were carrying for the second time in the day buckets of water. The houses in the village don’t have sewage or piper water. In Kenya, 37 percent of the population do not have access to drinking water. Nilton and Elvis are responsible for getting water for the family. They walk about 400 meters to the reservoir. Nilton carries two buckets of 10 liters and Elvis two of 5 liters. When it rains, those who can take advantage of rainwater with the use of gutters in the steel roof, a privilege for only a few families.
Community teacher
Mary A. is illiterate. In the village, only 8 percent of the villagers know how to read and write. In Kenya, illiteracy reaches 22 percent of the population, but the prospect is that literacy will improve with the introduction of UBI. Now, no child leaves school. They all have food when they return home. In the village, no one else sleeps hungry. With three grandchildren in elementary education, Mary helps pay a teacher hired by the community. Since few teachers are offered by the government, parents get together to pay more teachers.
Prosperity
Aggrey O., 56, raises five children alone. Everyone studies. The money was primarily used to pay the high school of the two older children. Annuities can range from $300 to $550. As a farmer, Aggrey earns $1.50 a day. When the yield from his garden is very good, he can earn up to $3 a day. For him, life has improved a lot with basic income. To live it is necessary to have prosperity. He wants to send his children to university. He says that Felix, the youngest at eight years old, is very clever. “Why do I desire to send the children to university? The same way you left Brazil and are here for having studied, I also want my children to go to Brazil because they studied.”
Precarious health
Jane A., 76, is a widow and lives with her sister. She spends the money on medicine. Lack of sanitation causes many diseases. According to data from “Doctors Without Borders,” in 2016 there were 216 million cases of malaria in the world, with 445,000 deaths. Sub-Saharan Africa is responsible for 90 percent of the cases. Malaria is the leading cause of death in Kenya, followed by tuberculosis, a consequence of the HIV virus, which affects 1.5 percent of the population. Violence against women is one of the main causes of the spread of HIV.
Polygamy and the Marriage Law
Ruth O., 34, is the second wife of a bigamy husband. She has three daughters and takes care of five orphans: a nephew and four children from her husband’s first wife, who died in 2011. As the wives get along well, which is rare in these situations, Ruth decided to raise the children when their mother passed away. Frequently in cases of polygamy, wives live in separate houses with their children, but they share the same family terrain. The relations are not easy, the treatments are differentiated, a lot of rivalry arises between the children and the women. The first wife has certain privileges and rights, for being the only relationship officially recognized. There is no law regulating the registration of other polygamous relations.
Although the 2010 Constitution does not provide for polygamy, in 2014 the Matrimonial Law was approved by the National Assembly and the Senate, and sanctioned by the president, which legalized marriage as a “monogamous or polygamous union” between men and women. The women’s claim to allow the first wife to be consulted about the convenience of her husband having a second wife was rejected by deputies of the situation and the opposition. Polygamy is valid only for men.
No tools
Victor O., 24, has a son. He lives in his mother’s house along with five brothers. He is an electrician, he repairs cell phones, radios, and electrical materials, but he has no work. Victor stopped his studies in seventh grade. Victor regrets he has no tools to perform the repairs, which ends up restricting the work a lot. He has no offer of service, so he goes from house to house. He can do three or four services a month and earns about $4 a month.
Cemetery at home
Mary S., 48, has seven children and is the second wife of polygamous husband Joseph S.O., who died in 2010 and is buried in the family backyard. In the same terrain are the houses of the two wives. According to custom, the cemetery is reserved only for those who have no family. In fact, it is the solution to bury people who die at home without any kind of medical care. In 2017, according to data from the Kenyan government, of the 190,000 deaths, 100,000 occurred in hospitals and 90,000 in the residences.
by Andre Coelho | Apr 26, 2019 | Opinion
Creativity has nothing to do with money. That might sound strange, in a world where some artists get rich beyond recognition, and thousands go by unrecognized. But when someone creates something, he or she does it out of a primal urge to give life to something new, to express feelings and to show there is more to a human being than meets the eye.
Money is about access to resources and trust. Of course, an artist needs access to resources, like any other human being, and to trust and be trusted in the use of human talent. They need things in order to survive and thrive. There is no such thing as an absolutely independent person. We are all interdependent. What sometimes gets difficult to understand is the role of art in society. Because, what is art anyway? And, is it important? If so, are there art forms we should value, and others which are worthless?
A society without art is a dead society. Surely, it is not indispensable for survival but, really, who wants to just survive? Our brains have grown too large to be satisfied only with the comings and goings of getting shelter, food, water, and clothing. At the end of the day, we all crave for song, story, and image. For some kind of beauty. Granted, people like different things, and that is why there are audiences, smaller or larger, for every conceivable form of art. But to say some art products are genius, and others are rubbish, misses the point.
First, because that is simply not true. Art quality is totally relative to taste, culture, and time. Even to a particular personal disposition: the same song might appeal to us on a sunny day, but not on a rainy one. Secondly, because to say something is rubbish implies that whoever thinks otherwise is somehow wrong, or inferior. That is also wrong. There are no second-rate humans or species. Nature does not create inferior beings: all are part of this universe’s creation, and unique as such. Hence, all beings are equally important. Even if we do not like what they do.
This brings us back to the original point: selling art makes no sense. Because let’s face it, when we love something, it is not about the money. We may worry we do not have enough of it to go to that concert, or to buy that book or, from the creator side, to spend enough hours creating without knowing if that will generate enough income to sustain a human life within this society. But the primal thrust is related to feeling. To the need to feel, not to have enough food on the plate. And that is something universal.
So, probably, in no other human activity will a universal basic income make more sense than in the arts. If creators are freed from the nonsense of selling their art, for a bunch of coins or for millions, eventually people will also be freed from the need to pay for it, which is what we all want. For who is he or she that does not like to be offered a gift?
