by Roland Duchatelet | Nov 23, 2016 | Opinion
About 25 years ago, when internet emerged, I addressed an audience saying: “If newspapers [didn’t already] exist today” there is “no way investors or bankers would support the business-idea to collect news, print it on paper around midnight and dispatch this printed stuff using thousands of vehicles to bring it to shops and individual readers before morning comes”.
In most western countries, social security became significant approximately 70 years ago, when it got an extensive legal basis. It now plays a crucial role in developed countries to give purchasing power to citizens who do not have an income from a job. Moreover, in many countries it provides free health care for everybody.
Just like internet changed the way news is distributed, the fact that computers and robots replace human work is a “game changer” for social security, which was totally based on labour contributions since its inception. More and more jobs are subsidised and therefore do not really “contribute” to the social security system anymore. Just like we continue to get news, even better and faster, we want to keep social security and improve it despite paid labour becoming less important in our economic system. In most West European countries, the amount distributed by the social security system increased constantly as a share of income of households and is now, if you include benefits in kind, more or less equal to the net pay households get from work. There is little political awareness of this fact.
Assuming social security never existed and we decide to create it, how would we organise the cash redistribution part of it? Just like blood in the human body redistributes blood cells to make all parts of our body work, money fulfils a similar role in society: allowing exchange of goods and services amongst individuals.
Like the heart of the human body pushes blood in various parts of our body and collects the blood on the other side, the social security system injects money, purchasing power, into society to fuel exchanges of goods and services.
In the future, the total amount of money distributed should be no less than today, and should gradually increase when automation further decreases the demand for paid labour in our economic system because we need purchasing power to drive economic activity.
The conditional character of the current social security system limits freedom to work, to move in with friends and so on. It is a huge deterrent to work and enjoy life. Assume a Belgian person gets 1200 € unemployment benefit and could get a job paying 1350 € net per month. Because that person loses the 1200 € as soon as she/he starts to work, the marginal reward is 150 € per month. Since there are approximately 150 working hours in a month, it is only worth 1 € per hour. Stupid system, yes indeed.
Therefore, the biggest part of the new social security system’s cash distribution, around 90 percent, should be a straightforward unconditional basic income distributed to everyone, the amount solely depending on the age. In the example above, this unconditional basic income could be 800 € per month for the 26 to 67 age group, lower than the highest “replacement income”, but not much lower than the average unemployment benefit in Belgium today. A second layer to the system should be conditional, based on specific needs or situations like invalidity, requiring administration. By comparison the administration cost of the new social security system would be roughly 90 percent lower than the current one.
There is no need of for additional taxes in the new system (see this Economist graph) if the basic income becomes a part (and does not come in addition) of the current income from work (or current social security benefits). For example if we decide the basic income for adults in the US to be 900 $ per month and a person’s net income from work is presently 1900 $, his pay-check will read: “basic income 900$, income from work 1000 $”. This could be done in two ways. The first way is the employer pays the basic income of his employee. The second way is that the state pays the basic income to the employee but charges a tax equal to the basic income to the employer. Either way, the employee keeps getting the same income, the employer has the same employment cost as before and the state has no extra cost. But to be aware of all these things, the employer might need to take advice about employment law from the advisors of the consultancies like Sentient in Leeds. If you own a company, you can look out for similar firms in your city or state to get an idea of all the laws before any kind of settlement about salary or employment contracts.
Only citizens which have no income at all or less than 900 $ would get more cash from the new system than what they get today. This extra distribution of money can be funded thanks to the lower administration cost of the basic income system in comparison to the present one.
If we could start all anew, we would cherish the local economy, promoting free and uncomplicated exchanges of goods and services between individuals to improve our well-being. For instance, if we have a plumbing issue in our home, instead of calling expert service providers, who have already made a big name for themselves and are doing well, we might want to contact local plumbers (such as royalflushsa.com.au) who do not necessarily have much publicity, but have excellent reviews. With an unconditional basic income-based social security, working for each other would be allowed. It would be even better if there were no labour taxes on services individuals provide to each other in the “proximity economy”.
Would the state lose much of the revenue from the income tax? Not much, since those exchanges of services do not tend to occur now, unless in “black”. But there would be an increase in revenue for people involved in proximity services, like for those who do not perform paid work today. Retired people would also consider earning money on top of their pension if they are sure there is no paperwork hassle at their Social Security office locations in Colorado, or wherever was local to them, and no risk for them to lose part of their retirement benefit.
The extra income would – for example – be spent in restaurants. That spending will yield income taxes and consumption taxes for the state, paid by those restaurants.
The social security system we know is a 70-year-old house to which our governments did not stop adding extensions. Meanwhile, they changed the windows, put in a new kitchen and bathroom, isolated the roof and connected everything by lots of cables.
We can reorganise the redistribution or purchasing power in a much better way: let’s build a new house.
by Guest Contributor | Nov 21, 2016 | Opinion
Original post can be found at TRANSIT
Written by Bonno Pel & Julia Backhaus
On Saturday October 1st 2016, the Basic Income Earth Network celebrated its 30th anniversary at the Catholic University of Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). The picture shows the founding meeting in 1986, but is also quite applicable to BIEN 30 years later. The conference was held at the same location and many of the founders and their fellow militants met in good atmosphere to commemorate the early beginnings of the network. Together with other scholars and generally interested people, they discussed current developments in science and policy and ‘the way forward’ for the basic income movement.
picture source
An unconditional income for all
First, the picture is telling for the ways in which BIEN pursues transformative social innovation, namely through the development, discussion and dissemination of persuasive “new framings” and “new knowings”. The seminar room in the picture gathers several individuals who by now have become eminent scholars in economy, social philosophy or sociology. Over the course of three decades and together with activists, politicians and citizens, BIEN members have developed a whole complex of arguments, evidence and framings around the basic income. The idea itself is simple: An unconditional, individual income entitlement, more or less sufficient for fulfilling basic needs, promises real freedom for all.
It offers individual empowerment in the form of income security and the material conditions for a self-determined existence in society, but it is also in many aspects about changing social relations: between men and women (as the conventional breadwinner model is challenged by individual income entitlements), between employed and unemployed (as stigmatization lessens when entitlement is universal rather than for the ‘unproductive’ only), and between employee and employer (the latter’s possibilities to exploit the former are decreased by the basic income security). In current institutional-ideological constellations, the idea of a basic income is bizarre and outrageous for rewarding jobless ‘free-riders’. Apparently relinquishing hard-earned social security arrangements, BIEN members met (and continue to meet) with tough press, sidelining them as ‘irresponsible freaks’. Yet the power of BIEN members’ socially innovative agency resides in showing that it is actually many common ideas about work and income that are outdated, and harmful even.
Claus Offe (credit: Enno Schmidt)
Impressive examples of outdated conceptions were provided by prof. Claus Offe, who argued that we do not earn our income, as commonly believed. Wage flows from labour that forms part of ever-extending production chains of individuals and machines. The availability of jobs fluctuates cyclically, and independently from individuals’ employability efforts. Moreover, the current productivity in highly industrialized countries is possible because ‘we stand on the shoulders of giants’. It is largely inherited from previous generations. So it is rather the current insistence on employability, on meritocracy and on ‘earning one’s income’ that is out of tune with economic reality. Production has become post-individual, and this requires a matching social security system. Harmful effects of a capitalist system that ignores its obviously collective character through individualist ideology include blaming the losers and accepting precarious conditions for some. Economist Gérard Roland outlined how the basic income provides a better trade-off between labor market flexibility and precariousness than current social security arrangements. Sociologist Erik O. Wright views the basic income as a “subversive, anti-capitalist project”. He expanded how the concept allows moving on from merely taming to escaping the globalized, capitalist system. For him, the basic income can provide the basis for numerous social innovations that also the TRANSIT project considers, such as social and solidarity economy initiatives or co-operatives.
BIEN thriving on internal differences: many streams forming a river
Second, based on the variance of people’s clothing, the picture above also visualizes how BIEN has developed as an association of very different individuals. At the conference various founding members recalled the routes they had traveled towards the transformative concept. They arrived at the idea on the search for liberalist re-interpretations of Marx, through feminist commitments, when rethinking meritocracy, as a response to the structural unemployment of the time, or as a logical conclusion of a transforming and ‘robotizing’ economy. The forthcoming case study report on BIEN by yours truly spells out in more detail how these different little streams came to ‘form a river’, as expressed by a founding member. The internal differences between the generally principled and intellectually sharp BIEN members led to fierce debates, it was recalled. According to a longstanding motor, evangelizer and lobbyist for the basic income, BIEN has only survived as a network for members’ capacity to ‘step back a bit’ from their ideological disputes at times, and to recognize what united them. BIEN even thrived on its internal divisions. It functioned as a discussion platform, and helped to institutionalize basic income as a research field. Since 2006, there is even an academic journal on this example of transformative social innovation: Basic Income Studies.
Evolving communication: spreading the word
Philippe Van Parijs (credit: Enno Schmidt)
Third, the black and white photo immediately suggests how different the world was three decades ago. At the time of founding, network members and conference participants from various countries had to be recruited through letters. Initially, the newsletter was printed out, put in envelopes and stamped, for which members gratefully sent envelopes with pesetas, Deutschmarks and all the other European currencies, subsequently converted at the bank by standard bearer professor Philippe Van Parijs and his colleagues. Today’s e-mail, website and Youtube recordings obviously make a crucial difference when it comes to facilitating discussion and spreading the word fast and wide – especially for this social innovation that primarily travels in the form of ideas. The presentations on the history of basic income underlined the significance of the communication infrastructure. The history of basic income can be conceived of as a long line of individuals working in relative isolation, often not knowing of others developing similar thoughts and blueprints. The evolution of BIEN very instructively shows the importance of evolving communication channels and knowledge production for transformative social innovation – critical, weakly-positioned, under-resourced individuals no longer need to re-invent the wheel in isolation.
BIEN, a research community? Ways forward
A fourth, telling element the picture above is the confinement of the seminar room. There have been discussions about BIEN’s existence as a researchers’ community, with the expert-layman divides it entails (during this meeting of experts, yours truly fell somewhat in the latter category). There are in fact also other networks of basic income proponents that have rather developed as citizen’s initiatives and activist networks. BIEN, as a network that can boast such a high degree of conceptual deepening and specialization, is illustrative for the ways in which it remains confined in its own room. It is significant in this respect that the current co-chair brought forward two lines along which the network should reach out more. First, BIEN should be more receptive towards and engaging with the various attempts to re-invent current welfare state arrangements. While this may imply using a more practical language and taking off the sharp edges it may yield real contributions to social security. Often these change processes (regarding less stringent workfare policies, for example) are not undertaken under spectacular headings and transformative banners, but they involve application of some basic income tenets such as unconditional income entitlements. A second line for outreaching confirms the importance of comparative research into transformative social innovation like TRANSIT: The co-chair highlighted that BIEN will explore and develop its linkages with other initiatives, such as Timebanks and alternative agriculture movements more actively.
Basic income: a ‘powerful idea, whose time has come?’
Fifth and finally, the seminar room setting depicted in the photo raises attention to the knowledge production that BIEN has been and is involved in. The socially innovative agency of its members can be characterized as ‘speaking truth to power’. Basic income activism has taken the shape of critiques, pamphlets and counterfactual storylines (Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ being a 500 year-old example), but also featured modeling exercises, forecasts, and economic evidence to support the case. BIEN members’ key resource is their expertise. Moreover, considering the strong arguments and evidence gathered in favor of the basic income over the past decades, there are reasons to be confident in basic income ending up as the ‘powerful idea, whose time has come’. As described in Pel & Backhaus (2016) and currently considered further, it is remarkable how much BIEN seems to have developed in line with the trend of evidence-based policy. The commitment to hard evidence gives rise to an important internal discussion on the recent developments towards basic income-inspired experimentation (such as in Finland and in the Netherlands). The common stance of BIEN members is that these experiments fall short of providing any reliable evidence for their limited duration and scope, and for the system-confirming evaluative frameworks that tend to accompany them. However, there is also a somewhat growing attentiveness to the broader societal significance of experiments and pilots in terms of legitimization, awareness-raising and media exposure. It is therefore instructive for the development of TSI theory to study the basic income case for the new ways in which ‘socially innovative knowings’ are co-produced and disseminated.
About the authors:
Bono Pel (Université libre de Bruxelles; bonno.pel@ulb.ac.be) and Julia Backhaus (Maastricht University; j.backhaus@maastrichtuniverstiy.nl) are working on TRANSIT (TRANsformative Social Innovation Theory), an international research project that aims to develop a theory of transformative social innovation that is useful to both research and practice. They are studying the basic income as a case of social innovation, focusing on national and international basic income networks and initiatives.
by Tim Widerquist | Nov 18, 2016 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This is a guest post by my brother, Tim Widerquist
With Donald Trump in charge of the executive in the United States, Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and a conservative judicial system, the time seems to have come for serious reorganization of American social welfare programs. House speaker Paul Ryan’s proposed 2015 budget cuts 3.3 trillion over a ten-year period from programs (Pell Grants, SNAP nutrition assistance, Medicaid, Section 8 housing) designed to assist those with low incomes.
Since the Reagan administration conservatives have pushed the notion that removing these programs will reduce the “culture of dependency” and removes the incentive for low income individuals to participate in the free market. They believe simply removing these programs will be a stimulus to income growth. Sadly, this is contrary to research on the effect of reducing assistance to low income populations. Much more likely is greater income disparity and real suffering for lower income populations.
Tim Widerquist
This leaves us with a rather bleak situation, greater poverty and less infrastructure in place to assist the poor. At that point America will desperately need to act. Will we choose to rebuild a system like what we have now — a mixture of housing, education, nutrition, and health programs — or is there a single program that would quickly provide support for those in need? Is there a program that would go directly to each person’s greatest need? Luckily there is. It’s getting a little bit of press now, but you’re sure to hear more about it in the future: it’s called The Basic Income Guarantee.
The adoption of BIG may be closer now than if Clinton had won. The unfortunate, desperate situation that Republicans are likely to create over the next two-to-four years effectively clears the playing field for new ideas. When progressives take over the Democratic Party they may find BIG an attractive policy; it is the sharpest tool available for slicing into the income inequality and income inequality that is coming. The midterm election is only two years away. BIG is a winning issue in this political environment. The future could be exciting.
Dark clouds
by Dave Clegg | Nov 16, 2016 | Opinion
The London-based Apolitical website’s article on basic income (BI) opens with “Money for nothing – it sounds like a utopia” and then looks at some examples of BI concepts that have already been applied around the world.
This phrase, “money for nothing” represents a commonly held bias that, when there is no commodity returned for the money, whether that commodity is a thing or someone’s labour, then there is no tangible value returned for the monies. This bias is widely held and promoted by many adherents of modern-day economic theories – a bias which too often dismisses, or simply ignores, the numerous personal and societal benefits that others have evaluated and documented as attributable to BI models.
The article does a fairly good job of maintaining its organizational claim of being “apolitical” in that it does not overtly favour any particular side in the issue. Yet that does not mean it has escaped the narrow-minded focus that so many politicians, their handlers, and media commentators alike have grudgingly adopted regarding the BI. In fact, the Apolitical article offers a wonderful example of the very limited ways in which the BI idea is being appraised, namely as simply a response to job automation and/or carrot-and-stick welfare programmes.
Apolitical does, occasionally make mention of the fundamental roots of a BI, roots that run far deeper than simply jobs and poverty. Yet to emphasize that a BI is simply about addressing poverty or unemployment is to overlook the very foundation of a BI – namely that such a policy is meant to be an expansion upon, and commitment to, something that should never be commodified, namely personal freedom. All other aspects of a BI flow from this fundamental premise. That is, if a nation and its people are sincerely committed to the idea of freedom itself.
The five points made by Apolitical in the above article are all legitimate and commonly discussed around the world. Yet the shallowness of these points is intricately tied to the same old penny-pinching issues that surround welfare, as well as the easy access to cheap human labour that employers have enjoyed for far too long.
Yes, a BI can help eliminate the stigma and overbearing bureaucracy associated with welfare programmes. It would also force employers to be truly competitive regarding employee wages and hours. However, the most valuable asset each and every person possesses is our time in this life. We should be the stewards of that time – not employers and not bureaucrats. It is the personal freedom provided by a BI that is truly important to everyone, not just the workforce and welfare recipients.
A BI would allow individuals to tend to family and personal concerns without the anxiety of how to survive without a “job” income during these times of personal need. For example, if a family member severely injured as the result of a car accident. The family of this person may be too young for jobs, or on very low income as they had been relying upon the injured family member for income and cannot afford a carer to help in these times. In this case, a BI would help tremendously. Some might say that they can seek a uber accident attorney Glendale or a personal injury lawyer in order to seek compensation and financial security. Indeed these cases can bring great compensation, but court cases can take time, what will the family do in the meantime? Again, a BI would allow individuals to tend to family and personal concerns should anything happen. There may be no greater freedom than to have the time and economic stability necessary to order our lives as we, ourselves, see fit, rather than as employers demand, as is becoming far too common these days.
Politicians are slowly coming to accept that individuals are the best stewards of their monies, not bean-counting governments who tend to value the beans over the people the beans are intended for.
Let us examine each of Apolitical’s five points to see how personal freedom is addressed here.
1. Governments are not thinking the same as tech optimists
Apolitical is right about this and politicians are notoriously slow to respond to social changes of any kind, never mind one of this magnitude. Yes, the tech optimists foresee an evolutionary step in human time management when robotics and automation take over the monotony and the drudgery of the repetitive and injury-prone tasks found in so many labour-intensive “jobs”. Of course, these robotic inventions will not come soon enough to stop so many of our hardworking population from getting injured. In the meantime, if you’ve been injured at work, you will likely be entitled to personal injury compensation. Hopefully, the workforce of tomorrow will mean fewer people will have to take legal action in the future. If at all an employee needs to take some legal action but do not know where to head out for the same, check for firms similar to Douglas Beam, P.A. We should create a new workforce that is far more reliable (never taking time off), disposable (without regrets or complaints), and economically more efficient than human beings.
From the technologist’s viewpoint, a BI becomes an essential aspect of employment and personal advancement because of the accelerating pace of technological advancement. Every new innovation requires that the humans who will be utilizing those innovations undergo time-consuming training and up-skilling. These advances can even lead to whole new careers for which a BI would be the springboard to pursue those educational and up-skilling goals. To tech experts, this is not “money for nothing” but instead an investment in the future of the nation, its economic infrastructure, its people and its economy.
But there is also a very real need to understand how a BI frees workers – especially those who only have labour, rather than any marketable skills or training, to sell – from the spectre of destitution and homelessness if they are unable to find work, or simply to feed and/or shelter themselves on the meager, subsistence wages offered today to unskilled labourers.
Of course, time management in this case refers only to the workplace. What is overlooked here is the personal freedom that a BI introduces into the optimist’s time management scheme. A BI would provide an individual with the economic freedom to then choose to acquire more skills or education, or to spend more time with family, or to take a much-needed break. This freedom is of great value to the individual, as well as their future prospects, but has little or no meaning to many economists.
Apolitical, however, does make a very good point about welfare reform. It is true that eradicating the expensive and needlessly patronizing welfare bureaucracies would entail huge cash savings for governments at national, provincial/state and municipal levels everywhere – savings that could be utilized far more efficiently and effectively when incorporated into a BI.
2. People already get money for nothing
Actually people get money from their government because they are deemed, by their government, to be in need and it is a government’s principal responsibility to succor to its citizens in times of need. While Apolitical talks about how “money for nothing already exists in the state pension” system, it ignores a number of other social safety net programmes such as health care, welfare, student loans, disability, make-work projects, employee subsidies, food banks, and shelters, to name a just a few of the most common.
Social safety net programmes always incur infrastructure and staffing costs associated with the policing and distribution of these monies. A BI removes the stigma associated with so many of these programmes via its universality but it cannot ignore the special needs associated with people such as the disabled, seniors, and the unemployed. Their special circumstances can easily entail more than simply a “free money” infusion involving things such as in home support, accessibility of public buildings, mobility aids, wheelchair-friendly streets and curbs, and emotional and mental supports to deal with chronic and acute complications, to name just a few.
Apolitical also mentions the Alaska Fund, a decades old statewide “free money” programme that, today, is surrounded by much controversy, with some demanding the money be used, instead, to fund state social programmes while others are happy for the money to be put directly into the hands of the people themselves.
This is a very good example of how the assets of a community – its resources, both natural and human – are the heart and soul of its economy. However, the Alaska Fund’s greatest feature is that it offers good, sound support for the premise that some of the wealth flowing from a community’s resources should be returned to the people that comprise the community.
The debate here is not whether “free money” should be distributed to the citizenry, but rather how much and in what manner.
3. The schemes in the developing world aren’t really analogous
Apolitical is absolutely right to point out that the drastically modified BI programmes implemented in Namibia, India, and Brazil cannot be directly applied in more developed areas. These programmes are largely a response to severe destitution and poverty in those countries, while here in North America the BI is framed as a response to automation and welfare inequities.
However, Apolitical does recognize that there is a self-empowerment and entrepreneurial spirit that blossoms within the poorest individuals in the above-mentioned countries once they have been freed to make their own choices of how best to utilize their time and abilities to address their own needs and interests.
These observations correlate well with Canada’s own Dauphin Manitoba Mincome BI programme, which ran for five years. Mincome was well monitored and documented at a variety of levels and interests. Documentation that highlighted the many personal advantages derived from a BI. These advantages included the reduction of both individual and family stress levels, greater ability to cope with family issues and, most importantly, noticeable improvements in children’s health and growth due to better nutrition which lead to higher learning evaluations. While some people did indeed leave the workforce, they did so to upgrade their education and skills, to attend to personal and family issues, or simply to take a much needed break.
All of these findings amount to huge social and personal savings that invariably strengthen and improve communities, yet, once again, they are not benefits that economists are able to quantify or put a monetary value on and are too often deemed to be without value.
4. It actually all comes down to incentives
Here Apolitical addresses the commonly held fear that a BI would act as a disincentive to “working,” as if “paid employment” should be every person’s preoccupation rather than the management of their lives. However, Apolitical cites Hugh Segal, a Canadian senator who has been a long-time advocate for BI programmes and who laments the very real disincentives to improving one’s life that have been built into Canada’s social programmes. This is why Senator Segal has long applauded the personal empowerment that a BI could provide to all Canadians.
It is here that Apolitical acknowledges Sam Altman of Y Combinator – a US private investment firm – who sees a BI as the seed money necessary to provide the personal freedom allowing individuals to be economically empowered to address the rapidly changing education and training demands of a technologically driven economy. Of course, Altman seems far more interested in employing a BI to address the demands of technology and its impact upon production and the workforce than in actually addressing personal freedom per se.
Apolitical is absolutely right to acknowledge that BI differs from existing, welfare-style social programmes and highlights the divide as between those who insist upon “incentives” used coercively to promote job seeking and those who support the “freedom to choose” as incentive enough for anyone.
5. It’s not utopia or bust
Apolitical wisely concludes that, if supporters of a BI succeed, “…they will establish the principle that you can simply give people money and trust them to use it in a way beneficial to themselves and, indirectly, to society.” This is a sentiment long-shared by those who advocate for BI and wonderfully demonstrates that this sentiment is central to personal freedom and the creation of an empowered population. For Apolitical and the rest of us only time will tell.
by Guest Contributor | Nov 14, 2016 | Opinion
Written by: Dr. Louise Haagh
On September 22nd to 23rd, BIEN Danmark, the Danish affiliate of BIEN, hosted the Nordic Conference on Basic Income Pilots at the Danish parliament buildings of Christiansborg.
The event aimed to stimulate discussion and forge closer ties between local groups and fielded speeches by activists from Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland, as well as talks by politicians and researchers from inside and outside the region.
The first of its kind, there is talk the event may be the beginning of many more to come. I certainly hope so. It was one of the best organised and most fun of the BIEN events that I have attended. With Karsten Lieberkind from BIEN Danmark quietly leading proceedings and a large contingent of BIEN Danmark and other local actors present, it was both very well-organised and a site for constructive critique and self-reflection.
From my perspective, one of the most positive aspects of the conference was the way it engaged the union movement in debate. I was especially encouraged in the exchange I had with Bjarke Friborg and Finn Sørensen, who had both at the outset – Sørensen in particular – staked out their opposition to a BI reform.
Louise Haagh
Credit: Michael Husen, BIEN Danmark
I tried to stress the different ways the historical objectives of workers’ movements and a BI reform had affinities, as well as ways the BI can be complementary to and upscale the policies and institutions the union movement supports and administers. I think that is generally true in any context. But, in addition, being Danish, and having worked with both the union movement and other social movements in the past, it seems important and feasible to me to bridge the divide that is perceived to exist.
In general, I argued that it is important to think about BI in terms of its general effects on human security and relational freedom, and in that sense its transformative potential in relation to changing and improving social relations and institutions’ quality. An upshot of that is that in thinking about finance proposals and transitions into a BI, the affinity with existing mechanisms of economic security needs to be thought about positively, and steps taken gradually.
Specifically, I tried to argue that the BI proposal does not have to be viewed as in conflict with the unemployment insurance funds and the unions’ administration of them. In fact, there is a strong potential affinity between the claim BI supporters make for a right to basic income without conditions, and the concern of trade unionists – expressed by Friborg – about the state using its subsidy of the unemployment insurance funds as a means to exercise greater leverage of the unemployed individual’s job search behaviour. This direction in the state’s role is precisely one that both BI supporters and trades unions want to reverse, so here is the basis for a natural alliance.
Finn Sørensen
Credit: Michael Husen, BIEN Danmark
I made a similar point in response to Sorensen. I was encouraged to note that both Friborg and Sorensen in turn noted that – with this new perspective in mind – they might be able to engage more positively in an investigation into BI and what it might mean positively for unions, their members, other workers and citizens.
I have always argued (Haagh 2011, a.o.) that it is a mistake to necessarily pit the finance of BI directly against the state’s subsidy of the unemployment insurance in the Nordic states. It is possible to see each as elements in a multivariate structure of economic security that is more freedom-promoting by virtue of its composite form. There might have to be accommodations and details can be worked out in different ways, but I see no conflict in principle between a BI and state subsidy of a voluntary insurance. One can think about ideal institutions of work and mechanisms of developmental security. But it is also important to work with the existing institutions that act as life-style stabilisers within the capitalist economy such as it is. Considering that institutions transform gradually over time, what matters is that the steps taken at a given time have in general positive systemic effects.
Bjarke Friborg
Credit: Michael Husen, BIEN Danmark
It is important to acknowledge the historical importance of the gains of organised workers in Nordic states – together with mechanisms and services of the public sector – in democratising education, work and welfare. Today, labour market institutions and welfare services are under different forms of strain, including from the influence of global competitive forces and ways state initiatives extend those pressures within the education and employment systems. BI supporters, the union movement and other defenders of public services and more stable and unconditional forms of distribution and services, have interests in fighting pressures to hollow out the taxation system. In this context of a race to the bottom in pubic spending, it is the more important not to stake claims for different elements of economic security as in conflict in principle. In reality, their stability rests on broad coalitions across social groups.
In terms of the Danish context, the contribution of the political party The Alternative, hosting the conference in Christiansborg, and the information from municipalities experimenting with lifting conditionalities, gave the event a sense of a political momentum. Finally, hearing about the political initiatives in other Nordic states, the Pirate Party’s proposals in Sweden, the upcoming pilot in Finland, and thoughts about an experiment in an Icelandic city, suggest the basis exists for building a regional coalition for transformation of the Nordic welfare state.
Finally, Uffe Elbæk, leader of the Alternative, in his welcome speech, cautioned BI supporters about being too complacent and inwardly focused, and argued the BI movement should not be afraid of engaging critical voices. In my speech I echoed this view in the sense that I argued we should be more open and responsive to the views of our critics and be self-critical when we are unable to persuade others of the force of our ideas.
Overall, in my view the Nordic conference went some way to create a new platform for a more positive debate about BI in the wider society.
by Guest Contributor | Nov 14, 2016 | Opinion
Still More People Want to Discuss Basic Income
Written by David Lindh; translated and edited by Karsten Lieberkind
All over the world we are witnessing a growing interest in basic income – an unconditional basic allowance for all citizens. A number of experiments have been scheduled for next year, and on September 22-23, representatives for the Nordic basic income movements as well as researchers and politicians met at a conference in Copenhagen to discuss the upcoming pilot projects.
The conference took place in Christiansborg Palace, which is the seat of the Danish Parliament, situated in central Copenhagen. Organizers of the conference were the Danish branch of BIEN (Basic Income Earth Network) in collaboration with the political party the Alternative.
Guy Standing
Among the speakers were Guy Standing, Professor at SOAS, University of London and author of a number of books on the precariat, Thomas P. Boje, Professor of Social Sciences at Roskilde University and Annika Lillemets, MP for the Green Party of Sweden.
The conference was met with much anticipation and was fully booked. Journalists and other members of the press were present, and not only the invited speakers but even quite a few members of the audience were active, one way or the other, within the basic income movements in the Nordic countries, Europe and USA.
The first day of the conference focused on the pilot projects with basic income that are planned for Finland, the Netherlands and France. Nicole Teke, representing the French basic income movement, talked about the experiments that are to be carried out in the Aquitaine region. Sjir Hoeijmakers explained why, in recent years, ideas about basic income are spreading in the Netherlands, and Olli Kangs, Professor at Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, outlined the Finnish basic income pilots that are scheduled to begin in early 2017.
Thomas Boje
On the second day of the conference, there was an in-depth discussion on how the various basic income models could be implemented in the so-called Nordic Model, the social welfare and economic systems adopted by Nordic countries. Dorte Kolding, spokesperson for BIEN Denmark, in her opening speech of this day of the conference, explained how basic income might contribute to a development in society in which fear and control will be replaced by a sense of security, freedom and happiness.
A key element in the discussion during the second day was about the future relation between the basic income movement, which seems to be growing stronger each day, and the labour unions with their often quite critical or even negative view on basic income. Finn Sørensen, MP for the Red-Green Alliance and spokesperson for labour market affairs, took part in this discussion and was to be counted among the critics of a basic income society as, in his view, it would weaken the position of the labour unions relative to the employers.
During lunch, I asked Guy Standing whether the basic income movement and the labour organizations are likely to approach each other sometime in the future.
I am in favour of strong labour unions, but the labour movement must realize that we have witnessed dramatic changes in society, and we are now facing other conditions and challenges than in the 1970s and 80s. The labour unions are deeply concerned about the fact that they are losing members, but they are themselves partly responsible for the situation.
I also talked to Göran Hansson, active in the Malmö Basic Income Group, about the doubts that the labour unions have about basic income as a future model.
Many labour unions are critical towards basic income because they are afraid that they will have less power and influence. While this is true, it is also a fact that basic income would enjoy greater support from the population if the labour unions were to change their views on this issue.
Annika Lillemets
Annika Lillemets, is a Member of Parliament for the Green Party, but also a member of BIEN. She talked about how political parties in the Swedish Parliament, no matter their political orientation, in recent years have been almost obsessed with wage labour because they want to position themselves in relation to the increasing unemployment.
She thinks it is an indication of fear and to break this fixation we should question the very nature of work, what counts as work and what not. Annika Lillemets also criticized the Swedish culture of consensus.
Thomas P. Boje, Professor of Social Sciences at Roskilde University, pointed out that basic income reforms might have a positive effect on the democratic participation in society and contribute to the strengthening of democracy in the Nordic countries.
Safety and security encourage participation in society and a sense of wanting to contribute. Today, insecurity in jobs and economic inequality breed suspicion towards the democratic institutions and society as a whole.
Karl Widerquist
Karl Widerquist, Associate Professor at Georgetown University, has been attached to BIEN for a long time and is the author or editor of several books and articles on the subject of basic income.
He talked about how the basic income movement is growing fast in the USA, and I asked him why this is happening just now.
One reason is that both civil rights movements, political parties and businesses are beginning to realize the advantages of a basic income reform. Also, the fact that the subject is not linked to any particular political party or system helps spread the idea.
Photo: Michael Husen, BIEN Danmark (more…)
