by Kate McFarland | Jul 11, 2016 | Opinion
An article in the June 4th edition of The Economist, entitled “Basically Flawed,” argues that universal basic income is a radical policy that is just too risky to pursue. The anti-UBI argument itself is flawed, however, largely due to understating the benefit of UBI–if not ignoring its moral necessity.
According to an article in the June 4th edition of The Economist [1], universal basic income (UBI) is a policy of uncertain need but certain costs. A simple risk-benefit analysis, then, would advise us to maintain our current welfare states (perhaps with less radical adjustments) rather than gamble with a UBI.
The argument has two main components: first, establishing that there is no definite need for a UBI; second, establishing that a UBI presents unavoidable costs.
Concerning the first, the author assumes that there is one (and only one) reason why something like a UBI would become necessary: widespread unemployment due to new technologies. Here the author notes that the robot job takeover has not happened yet, and expresses skepticism that it ever will:
Worries that technological advance would mean the end of employment have, thus far, always proved misguided; as jobs on the farm were destroyed, work in the factory was created. Today’s angst over robots and artificial intelligence may well turn out to be another in a long line of such scares.
Having set aside robot-driven angst, the author turns to defend the claim that UBI has sure costs. The first and most obvious of these is financial: a UBI is certain to be expensive to any government that implements it. For example,
An economy as rich as America’s could afford to pay citizens a basic income worth about $10,000 a year if it began collecting about as much tax as a share of GDP as Germany and replaced all other welfare programmes with the basic-income payment.
Moreover, the author complains that a UBI would “destroy the conditionality on which modern welfare states are built” — leading to an “erosion” of the workforce:
During an experiment with a basic-income-like programme in Manitoba, Canada, most people continued to work. But over time, the stigma against leaving the workforce would surely erode: large segments of society could drift into an alienated idleness.
Finally, the author worries that it would be impossible to combine UBI with a reasonable immigration policy; immigrants would have to be barred or else treated as “second-class citizenries without access to state support.”
Thus, the author concludes, the risks of UBI — which are both large and near-certain — greatly outweigh its sole benefit as insurance against technologically-driven job loss (which might or might not occur).
Reply by Basic Income News editor Kate McFarland
The basic income proponent could, if she wished, directly attack any one of the author’s premises. She might be tempted to argue that a universal basic income could be afforded and that it could be reconciled with a fair immigration policy, contest the claim that it would cause people to stop working, or produce evidence that mass technological unemployment is indeed very likely.
For my own part, I am not particularly interested in quibbling over any of these points, however important they might be independently. Instead, I will concentrate on two overarching problems with the author’s argument:
1. The argument understates the potential benefits of a universal basic income, which far exceed security against a robot job apocalypse.
2. The argument assumes that risk-benefit analysis is an appropriate method by which to answer the question of whether to adopt a universal basic income. But this would not be the case if, for example, a basic income is required as a matter of individual rights or social justice.
Why do we need UBI?
In an article published last April, Rutger Bregman writes, “Forget about robots. The reasons why we need basic income are infinitely better.” This is a crucial viewpoint–and one common in basic income discourse, the media’s apparent fondness for “the robot issue” notwithstanding–which must be taken into account when addressing potential benefits of UBI.
Take, for instance, the elimination of poverty. When scholars and researchers like Pranab Bardhan, Nkateko Chauke, and the team at GiveDirectly–to name only a few–argue that developing nations should adopt a basic income, they are not worrying about robots; they are thinking about poverty and inequality.
But, of course, poverty is also a pressing and immediate concern in high-tech countries like the United States. Indeed, a recent article in the New York Times sparked a debate about whether a UBI could abolish poverty in the US. When Scott Santens and Vox’s Matthew Yglesias joined the fray to argue that it indeed could, they remained focused on the issue of present poverty–not future automation.
Perhaps the author of The Economist article believes that a UBI is unnecessary to fight poverty, because existing welfare programs could just as well be tweaked to accomplish this goal. But, if so, the author would overlook many known problems with means-testing, which a UBI might eliminate.
The abolition of poverty–along with all the hurdles, stigmatization, and poverty traps created by means-tested programs–is a potential benefit of UBI that is clearly quite profound, yet one the author fails to mention.
Furthermore, a benefit unique to UBI is that, if high enough, it would enable workers to refuse employment. This too promises many positive results in the here and now, without waiting for robots to arrive at the door.
A UBI could be an enormous boon to workers who need or desire to leave full-time employment, if only temporarily, in order to raise a child, care for an ailing family member, return to school, start a small business, participate in voluntary community services, contribute to the arts, or pursue any other unpaid project. UBI is often said to recognize the value of unpaid labor in all of its forms; current systems of social welfare do not.
Moreover, it is often argued that this ability to refuse work benefits even those workers who do wish to retain full-time employment, insofar as it increases their bargaining power: if a worker cannot be replaced by someone desperate to take any job just to survive, it is easier for that worker to demand higher wages, better working conditions, or shorter or more flexible hours. It is UBI, not existing welfare systems, that would generate this type of bargaining power.
None of these advantages of UBI are mentioned in the risk-benefit analysis in The Economist, despite the fact that they are arguably as near-to-certain as any of the alleged risks–robots or no robots–and would be positive impacts of very high magnitude. A UBI might well be expensive, but one should to consider its full range of benefits in order to properly assess whether it is worth its high price tag. The author does not.
Of course, this is all to grant that the use of risk/benefit analysis is a fitting approach to the decision of whether to pursue UBI–but I believe that even this assumption can, and should, be questioned.
Is UBI “just just”?
As evidenced by the various articles linked above, it is popular to argue in favor of basic income on the basis of its predicted effects: pro-UBI authors of cite empirical evidence of effectiveness cash-transfer to establish the claim that a UBI “will work”. That is, many authors argue that UBI will achieve certain desired outcomes (or not cause certain outcomes generally deemed undesirable, such as decreased workforce participation, laziness, or higher spending on alcohol or other temptation goods).
But what if a basic income is not merely an effective means to attain socially desirable ends? What if universal and unconditional basic income is mandated as a matter of social justice?
This is, in fact, far from an uncommon view within the basic income movement.
For example, Guy Standing and Yanis Varoufakis have recently described UBI as a form of social inheritance (cf. their linked lectures). The idea here is this: the money distributed in a UBI is money that rightfully belongs to all of us, equally, as inheritors of the wealth generated through the collective activities of our forebears.
Alternatively, one might argue for a right to a livable basic income in other commonly recognized individual rights–such as, perhaps most straightforwardly, a right to a certain minimal standard of living, just for being alive. Furthermore, a well-entrenched view in philosophical work on basic income–canonically presented by Philippe van Parijs and later developed in a somewhat different form by Karl Widerquist [2]–holds that the protection of freedom mandates an unconditional basic income.
If a universal basic income is a universal human right, then there is no question of whether the benefits are worth the risks; thus, arguments of the form given in The Economist don’t get off the ground. There is simply no question as to whether a UBI should be adopted: it should. The only question is how to manage whatever risks the policy would create, or perhaps how to tweak and fine-tune the policy to minimize risk.
If a basic income is a right–if it’s necessary as a matter of social justice–then we must find a way to fund it, even if it requires hefty tax increases on the rich (or even German levels of government spending!). And we must be willing to assume risks, including the possibility that some individuals will leave the workforce (some of them, perhaps, to simply smoke weed and watch Netflix).
This is not to suggest that we should ignore the potential risky outcomes. On the contrary, it is crucial to understand what the risks are, so that we might build safeguards against them. But, under the present supposition that basic income is simply a right, they should be viewed as potential problems that can–and must–be surmounted for the sake of what is owed to individuals and society.
[1] “Basically flawed,” The Economist, June 4, 2016.
[2] Such arguments are made in the books mentioned in the embedded links. N.B. All chapters from Widerquist’s work are available for free download from his website.
Thanks to Genevieve Shanahan and André Coelho for reviewing a draft of this article, and thanks to my supporters on Patreon.
“MET II Robot Lab” photo CC Georgina Rose.
by Guest Contributor | Jul 7, 2016 | Opinion
Introduction: the minimum income
In Italy, the debate on basic income has lasted for almost 20 years. Back in August 1997, the ECN.org website published my pamphlet titled “Ten thesis on citizenship income”. This text, which saw a successful circulation, especially underground, was re-edited in the book “Tute Bianche” [1], presented an overview of the Italian debate regarding the introduction of a basic income, a proposal that had begun to circulate in the neo-worker environments in the previous 2 years [2].
Twenty years later, it should be acknowledged that the definition of “citizenship income” has created more negative effect than positive. At that time, the phenomenon of migration had not yet assumed today’s proportions, although it had started to see an uptick. So, guiltily, the term “citizenship” was used without thinking that the concept of “citizenship” is terribly ambiguous. In fact, it can be used in an ethical and philosophical framework for designating that every human being is born as a “world citizen”, regardless of his or her nationality of origin. But today, the concept of citizenship is increasingly tied to the legal-national sphere within a grid of limited rights ius soli, not be extended to all those who were born elsewhere. From this point of view, the idea of a “citizen’s income” can only be misunderstood as a limited proposal to whomever has that specific nationality, in contradiction with what is our idea of an individual “right to income”. The term “basic income” appears therefore more appropriate and inclusive.
There are now numerous proposed pieces of legislation in Italy and abroad, as well as policy initiatives and declarations in favour of the introduction in Italy of some form of income support independent of employment status.
There are also numerous different interpretations of such a measure. In the cultural political debate promoted by Bin-Italy [3], which for years has promoted a cultural and socio-political campaign aimed to introduce a guaranteed minimum income (basic income), it is necessary to define certain parameters, to reduce the interpretive confusion that has now reached a critical level, making it unclear what a “citizen’s income”, “minimum income” or “a dignity income” actually is (to use the most common names).
To actually talk about “basic minimum income” (we use this term in a broad and provisional sense), we believe that at least 5 criteria have to be verified:
- Individuality criterion: the minimum income must be paid at the individual level and not filtered through family members. From this we can discuss if children under 18 years enjoy this right or not.
- Criterion of residence: the minimum wage must be paid to all individuals who, residing in a given territory, live, rejoice, suffer and participate in the production and social cooperation regardless of their marital status, gender, ethnicity, religious belief, etc.
- Criterion of the maximum extension of unconditionality: the minimum income must be provided by minimizing any form of compensation and/or obligation, maximizing free individual choice.
- Access criteria: the minimum wage is paid in its initial phase of experimentation to all individuals who have an income below a certain threshold. This threshold may, however, be greater than the relative poverty line and converge toward the median level of the personal distribution of existing income. Moreover, this level of income must be expressed in relative terms, not absolutely, so that increasing the minimum threshold (as a result of the initial introduction of the measure) the range of beneficiaries will increase continuously until it reaches universality.
- Criteria for funding and transparency: the modalities of financing of minimum income must always be set out on the basis of economic viability studies, detailing where resources are obtained based on an estimate of the necessary costs. These resources have to fall on general taxation and not on other assets of origin (such as, for example, social security contributions, sale of public assets, privatization proceeds, etc.)
The criteria 1, 2, 5 should not be amendable, while criteria 3 and 4, are expressed in relative terms, may be subject to additional definitions depending on the context of reference, but within the principle directives we have just outlined.
The basic income as a primary income and therefore unconditional
The basic income today is a good and just idea. The reasons for this claim are inspired by the forms of the social composition of labor and the modalities of accumulation and exploitation which are today dominant.
In this regard, it is necessary to propose a cultural leap before we take the political leap and affirm that Basic Income is a primary distribution variable: the basic income must intervene, in fact, directly in the income distribution of productive factors, such as salary (which remunerates certified work hours), profit (which rewards the business entity), or rent (which derives from a property right). Primary distribution variable means that it is not a re-distributive variable: it directly occurs at the level of the balance of power and social relations within a certain process of accumulation. Despite it, a redistribution of income, which occurs at a later stage, is the outcome of a second level of indirect distribution, an extra market level, thanks to appropriate discretionary economic policies.
If basic income is remuneration, the question is what is the level of pay. To answer this it is necessary first to analyze what the main sources of exploitation are in contemporary capitalism. More and more studies confirm that today life itself, in every daily event, is the productive factor par excellence [4]. If we take into account the acts of daily life that characterize our existence, they can be categorized into four types: labor, work, leisure, entertainment/games. Today it is not only labor that is the basis of added value, but also the time of creation (opus/work), the otium/leisure time, entertainment time. These are all included in a growing and continuous enhancement mechanism.
The classic dichotomy of the Fordist paradigm between labor and non-labor time, between production and consumption, between production and reproduction are now partially obsolete. It is the result of a historic process of structural changes in manufacturing processes and labor organization, which marked the transition from a material Fordist capitalism to a bio-cognitive and financialized capitalism. Today, wealth production derives, at the same time, from absolute surplus value and relative surplus value extraction, where for absolute surplus value we intend the existence of a sort of primitive accumulation in capitalist organization based on capital employment and on private property. The result is the change of the relationship between productive and unproductive labor. What in the material Fordist capitalism was considered unproductive (i.e. no production of surplus value and therefore not remunerable), has now become productive, while the remuneration remained anchored to the one of the Fordist era (the salarization crisis). As a result, we are facing new ways of valorization such as “dispossesion” (Harvey [5]) and “extraction”, to whom no remuneration is applied, according to the dominant rules (legal, industrial relations, uses and so on).
It is no coincidence that unpaid labor is sharply increasing from those sectors in which more has been invested by the transformations of the enhancement methods and the adoption of the new linguistic-communicative technological paradigm (cognitve-relational activities).
Against this background, one proposal that could be advanced to counter this phenomenon of unpaid labour (i.e., basically “slavery” with another name, even though for most it is not perceived as such) is to proceed with its salarization. But we ask yourselves: is it possible? If the answer is yes, then the basic income should be not necessary
The vagueness of labor time
This question opens up a second theoretical problem – both political and methodological. When technological and organizational transformations favor the spread of increasingly intangible productions with a high degree of non-measurability, when value is created by a whole range of life activities, from learning processes, to social reproduction [6] and networks of relationships, then arises the problem of “measure.”
The theme of the measure is linked to the calculation/quantification of labor productivity. Unlike in the past, where this calculation was possible because employee labor activity could be measured in hours and by an equally measurable amount of production on an individual basis, productivity today has changed shape: it depends on the increasing use of new forms of scale economies: learning and network economies. These are scale economies no longer static but dynamic, because it is the flow (continuously) of time to allow for growth and learning of social skills as well as social reproduction and thus increase productivity, whose effects can be seen no more on individual basis but on social one. Both learning and networking, in fact, need a social context and a social cooperation. The productivity in bio-cognitive capitalism is therefore primarily social productivity or, with reference to the role of knowledge, general intellect.
Learning economies are based on the generation and dissemination of knowledge. Knowledge is not a scarce resource, such as material goods, but abundant: the more you swap, the more it spreads, the more it grows, with a highly productive cumulative mechanism: cumulativeness requires relationships and social networks. Learning and network are two sides of the same coin: if knowledge is not spread through relational over individual processes, it is not economically productive. Only if you develop social cooperation and general intellect does it become productive.
We are not talking in the traditional sense of the term co-operation, that is, “join forces” but co-operation, namely the interaction of individual operations that only achieve synergy in the common processes of accumulation and thus of surplus value creation. These relational activities often hide forms of hierarchy and exploitation, whose value is difficult to measure, not only on individual basis but collectively as well. If traditional factory productivity was based on precise technical mechanisms that allow you to measure individual productivity in the labor places today, then the productivity of social cooperation cannot be measured in terms of individual productivity.
Not just individual productivity but also the same product of social cooperation is not measurable. When you are producing symbols, languages, ideas, forms of communication, social control, what kind of measurement can we take? Every relationship between output value, its production time (measured in hours) and its remuneration (measured in wages) becomes almost impossible or very difficult and subjective.
The crisis of the labor theory of value derives from the fact that the individual contribution today is not measurable and the output tends to escape a unit of measurement, as production tends to become immaterial. And this takes place in a context in which the measure of value is no longer constrained by a scarcity factor. As was pointed out earlier, learning (knowledge) and network (space) are abundant inputs, theoretically unlimited (especially if we consider the virtual space), as the human nature. A theory of value based on the principle of scarcity, such as the one implicit in the theory of free market founded on the law of supply and demand, no longer has any economic and social relevance. It is only artificially perpetuated in market dynamics which have continuously defined power relationships. Paradoxically, the only theory of value that appears adequate to contemporary bio-cognitive capitalism, the labor theory of value, is not able to provide one measure.
How to give a measure to social cooperation and general intellect?
It is a question that can only surmise some answers. One possible aspect to consider has to do with the sphere of financialization. The pervasive and central role of financial markets, such as investment financing tools, privatization of social welfare and the form of partial compensation of the high content of knowledge labor, has affected not only the sphere of realization but also that of production. In capital gains, the speculative activity partially derives from the value produced by the cognitive-relational living labor. It is in financial markets that we can roughly see the implementation of the process of expropriation of social cooperation and of general intellect.
This process is not immediate and direct. It is often handled by the dominant bio-power management and the hierarchical relationships that continually redefine the property structure and market structure.
From this point of view, basic income, as a primary income, becomes even more a tool of direct re-appropriation of the wealth that is generated by the common life time put to labor.
The inadequacy of wages form at the time of the body-mind
The order of discourse leads us to say that the traditional salary structure is no longer adequate, it does not fully capture the transformations in the valorization process. The classic wage structure can still be useful in those parts of the overall production cycle in which there is a measure of the value of labor in term of time. But it cannot be generalized. From a theoretical point of view, this issue leads to the need to review, rethink and redefine the Marxian labor theory of value.
The inadequacy of the wage form as remuneration of all the productive life, leads us to say that we need another way of remuneration (in addition to the wage forms where these are measurable). From this point of view, basic income is something structurally different from salary (though potentially, in the future, convergent); it cannot simply be understood as an extension of the wage form, because it is necessary to take into account the quantitative and qualitative change that new technologies have generated.
In particular, I would like to stress the relationship between human and machine.
In the sixties, the relationship between human beings (with his body, his nerves, his muscles, his brain, his heart, his eros) and the machine was a relationship between separate domains: on the one hand, the human being, living labor, on the other hand, the machine, the dead labor. The relationship between life and death was clear, physically traceable. From the point of view of human inner, the machine was something external and tangible, separate from himself.
From the nineties to the present, such a separation is no longer as clear. The machine becomes mechanic and loses some of its materiality: the old Tayloristic machine becomes increasingly linguistic and relational. In presence of linguistic-communication technologies (ICT), only the support is material (hardware) but the core depends more and more on cognitive-relational human faculties processes. The use of language as the main tool of the mechanic operation changes the relationship of interdependence between human and machine typical of Taylorist technologies. In digital technologies, the despotism of the machine is less prevalent.
But is this hybrid between man and machine that takes direction? And is it the machine that is humanized or rather the human becoming mechanical? That is the challenge of bio-robotic.
Consider the web 2.0 and the recent spread of social media. “The profit of advertising agencies, just like the profit of all firms in web 2.0, depend almost entirely on the ability to develop control technologies. Social control is then presented as the only way to innovate and develop in the future. But what is checked, exactly, today? Our identities and how they change. “The profiling algorithms of digital technologies feed on human biodiversity that it is itself channelled and integrated “in a Panopticon space, completely transparent, where we are called to act publicly”. See Google Pagerank, for instance.
Control of the body-mind becomes today (in agreement with the unpaid labor) the new enhancement border. Even if such activities were salarized or simply paid otherwise (which is not), our freedom of choice would be conditioned.
An unconditional basic income is a tool not only to recognize that our life is an active part (though often not aware) of contemporary exploitation but also able to exercise the right to choice, that is towards an individual and social self-determination: the right to choose our destiny as far as social participation is concerned, and also the right to refuse bad and indecent labor conditions. And this cannot be allowed, otherwise there is the risk to break the fragile balance between social control and the supine condition of subordination. From this point of view an unconditional income is subversive and that is the political struggle.
Author: Andrea Fumagalli (Università di Pavia – BIN Italia)
Andrea Fumagalli note for the conference: “Future of Work” Zurich 4 May 2016
[1] A. Fumagalli, M. Lazzarato (eds), Tute Bianche, Derive-Approdi, Roma, 1999
[2] M. Bascetta, G. Bronzini (eds), La democrazia del reddito universale, Manifestolibri, 1997. Il tema di un reddito sganciato dal lavoro, etichettato con il termine salario sociale era già stato patrimonio del dibattito degli anni Settanta a parte dalla formulazione del rifiuto del lavoro (salariato).
[3] See www.bin-italy.org
[4] A. Fumagalli, C. Morini, “Life put to work: towards a theory of life-value”, in Ephemera, vol. 10, 2011, p. 234-252
[5] D. Harvey, “The new imperialism. The accumulation by dispossession”, in Socialist Register, 2004
[6] C. Morini, “Riproduzione sociale” in C. Morini, P. Vignola (eds), Piccola Enciclopedia Precaria, Milano X, Milano, 2015
by Kate McFarland | Jun 30, 2016 | Opinion
Oxford Fellow Max Harris presents an argument that a universal basic income (UBI) could contribute to loneliness. The argument as given, however, seems to rest on misconceptions about what a UBI would and would not do, and even in its strongest form does not give us reason to reject a UBI.
Would a universal basic income exacerbate loneliness?
This is the question posed by Max Harris, an Examination Fellow at Oxford’s All Souls College, in a recent article for openDemocracy.
In Harris’s assessment, there are two ways in which a universal basic income might contribute to loneliness:
- A UBI “removes the social interaction that some people gain from employment.” Harris worries that recipients of the UBI would “curl up in individualist cocoons” rather than initiating social contact, since they have already been conditioned by the norms of a society in which interpersonal contact has become limited (“we email people who sit in the same office as us, for example, and often text people over talking to them in person”).
- A UBI by itself does not provide any “accompanying public infrastructure to underscore the value of community.” It is, of course, an investment directly in individuals — not in, say, community programs or public parks, libraries, or recreation centers.
Harris himself does not endorse the conclusion that, as a matter of fact, a UBI would make us lonely. Indeed, he does not take a firm stance on whether it would or not. His objective is merely to raise the concern.
As Harris points out, citing basic income proponents such as Scott Santens and the UK think tank Royal Society of Arts (RSA), one can also make a case that a UBI should be expected to foster social relationships. After all, if people are liberated from dependency on full-time paid employment, they would be able to spend less time in jobs that are themselves socially isolating — as some jobs surely are — and more time “pursuing communal projects” outside of work.
According to Harris, the question is in part empirical: we won’t know whether a UBI increases loneliness in society, or whether it reduces it, until it is actually tested.
A Non-Empirical Assessment
I want to offer a counterpoint to Harris’s loneliness worry that differs slightly from the brief pro-UBI response entertained in his essay.
It’s no doubt correct that some office work does inhibit individuals from engaging in community projects (a point that Harris attributes to Santens) — or, for that matter, prevent individuals from spending time with friends and family — but it’s a bit beside the point to argue about whether jobs facilitate valuable social interaction or whether, more often, they just get in the way. Presumably, there are jobs of each type. The key point here is that a UBI would provide options: with a UBI, a worker can choose to say at a job, or a worker can choose to quit (perhaps for the sake of engaging in some communal project).
Contra Harris, I believe that we don’t need an empirical study to demonstrate the flaws in the argument that “a universal basic income would make us lonely.” The argument, as he presents it, is a non-starter.
Look again at his two major concerns: (1) a UBI removes the social interaction gained at a job, and (2) a UBI offers no infrastructure to replace this lost interaction.
Credit: The Open University via flickr
The first of these premises is plainly false, and it doesn’t take a pilot study to see why: receiving a basic income does not prevent an individual from also continuing in paid employment. Thus, there is no sense in which a UBI “removes” the social interaction gained at a job; it does not even remove the job!
Indeed, one oft-touted benefit of basic income is that, because a UBI is not means-tested, it is not a disincentive to work (in contrast to most existing systems of welfare, in which benefits vanish if a receipt receives a job or earns income above a certain amount). Despite loose talk in the media about “paying people to do nothing” and “giving people money not to work,” receipt of a basic income is not conditional on quitting work (obviously); quite the contrary.
We might assume that people are able to recognize whether their jobs provide a valuable source of social interaction and connections — and that, if this is so, they will retain their jobs even if UBI came to be. (I will, though, revisit this assumption shortly.)
To be sure, UBI is often discussed in parallel to forecasts of mass unemployment (e.g., especially, due to automation). In the scenarios envisioned, many workers will lose their jobs — but, of course, this job-loss is not due to UBI. A UBI, insofar as it’s in the picture, is there to offset one of the worst effects of joblessness: loss of income. By itself, it is not meant — and should not be expected — to replace all aspects of the lost jobs. A UBI “merely” ensures that displaced workers won’t have to worry about paying for food or rent, thereby providing a foundation that allows us to focus on concerns at higher levels of Maslow’s hierarchy — such as how and where to find social interaction.
This leads to the second concern raised by Harris: a UBI does not provide alternative infrastructure for social interaction. Here, I think that we should accept Harris’s claim, but we should question its relevance.
It’s true that a UBI does not by itself provide schools, parks, or community programs; it also does not cure for cancer or end warfare. It would be patently absurd, however, to oppose UBI on the ground that it does not achieve the latter goals. A UBI might accomplish a lot, but it is not a panacea; no advocates take it for one.
Credit: Valerie Shane via flickr
We can even grant that the development and enrichment of the commons is a goal that we ought to pursue in conjunction with a basic income.
Guy Standing, for example, incorporates a call to protect and revive the “physical, social, and information commons” as part of his Precariat Charter (immediately after his proposals for basic income and sovereign wealth funds, as it happens).
And Harris himself describes the RSA’s idea for a “public contribution contract” to be introduced alongside of a basic income, by which individuals express commitment to contribute to their communities.
As an argument against basic income, Harris’s loneliness worry holds no water. At most, it is an exhortation to UBI proponents not to forget about parallel programs, such as the construction and enhancement of public spaces, that could foster social interaction and community well-being.
A Concession and Response
Credit: NoirKitsuné via flickr
I do, though, want to offer an important caveat. Above, I suggested that individuals can recognize when the social interaction fostered by a job is beneficial to them, and that they will act accordingly. But, in fact, I think it’s quite probable that there are some individuals who — were they to receive a basic income — would leave their jobs and cocoon themselves in their homes, even if doing so would not be in their overall best interest. A guaranteed income could indeed be the catalyst that drives some individuals into a voluntary, but potentially harmful, life of isolation.
What sorts of individuals? There might be some who would intentionally avoid social interaction as a consequence of mental illness, such as social anxiety or depression. Meanwhile, others might quit their jobs to pursue passions that just happen to be solitary (whether writing, painting, computer-programming, or what have you). After all, one major talking-point in favor of basic income — and one with which I wholeheartedly agree — is that the policy would allow individuals to quit their jobs to pursue their passions. The loneliness worry might well arise, however, when a naturally introverted person engages herself in an inherently solitary pursuit; even if avoiding social interaction is not her goal, it might be her natural inclination — an inclination that would be unthwarted if paid employment is not necessary to make a living.
Against Harris, perhaps, I believe that the loneliness worry would be greatest for those people who don’t avidly desire social interaction — for they are the least inclined to be proactive in ensuring that they receive a healthy dose. (Harris states, “While some individuals might enjoy this time on their own, others might feel isolated by this lack of social contact,” which suggests that he forecasts that those who crave social contact will be the hardest hit.)
Would this problem arise under a UBI? If so, how big of a problem would it be? These, I think, are indeed empirical matters.
But a better question for our purposes is this: if there is a risk of the type of self-induced loneliness that I’ve described above, would this be a reason not to favor a UBI?
And here I think that the we can, with some confidence, answer no.
Consider an analogy. Presumably, there are people in industrialized nations who currently receive very little physical activity, and who would receive more physical exercise were it not for the mechanization of labor. (Perhaps, say, they’d work in the field instead of sitting at a desk.) Such individuals could hit the gym after work, or ride a bike to the office instead of driving a car, or jog in the morning, or so on; however, because exercise is not required to make an income, many opt out, despite acknowledging that they’d be healthier if they moved around a bit more.
Nonetheless, it would be inappropriate to attempt to impede progress (e.g., by banning mechanized agriculture) simply because some percentage of the population is disinclined to exercise unless their life and livelihood depends on it. Such a reactionary policy would be not only unfair to society as a whole but also condescending and paternalistic to those it endeavors to help. A better approach might be to make other options for physical activity more accessible (e.g., say, installing bike lanes, funding parks and community recreation centers, or sponsoring free fitness classes).
Likewise, the possibility that a UBI would lead some to reduce their amount of social contact — even if this possibility is likely — is not a good reason to deprive society of the myriad benefits that would be bought about by a UBI. That said, there is likely little harm in preparing for this contingency by thinking of ways of encourage social contact in a world with less work (or, perhaps more accurately, less mandatory paid employment), such as by expanding and protecting commons areas.
Max Harris, “Will the Universal Basic Income make us lonely?” openDemocracy, May 25, 2016.
Feature Image via Chris de Nice (flickr)
Thanks to Dave Clegg for reviewing a draft of this article.
Thanks to my supporters on Patreon.
by Guest Contributor | Jun 28, 2016 | Opinion
Author: Robin Ketelaars
The Swiss referendum for an unconditional basic income ended on June 5 with 23 percent voting yes. The organizers had expected 20%, so in many ways this was still a positive outcome.
With a turnout of only 47 percent, the result demonstrates that 53 percent of the population are indifferent about the basic income.
Opponents managed to bring forth negative stereotypes about the basic income. Enough money was available to manufacture billboards bearing the prejudices about the basic income concept. Mostly the opposition focused on the amount of money a basic income would cost, while basic income proponents had to raise awareness on their own.
WAY TOO HIGH
Abroad, there are plenty of opponents who believe they have sufficient knowledge to comment on the basic income. Thus, according to some, the amount proposed in Switzerland is too high: SFR 2500. This seems high when it is directly converted into euros (€2,250) or dollars ($2,577), however there is more to it. The proposed amount is based on the standard of living of the Swiss, but that is rarely discussed.
The cost of living in Switzerland is 68.87% higher than in the Netherlands [1], so 2500 SFR is about the equivalent of 1480 euros, which is an appropriate amount for the Netherlands. [2]
For Europe the amount comes to 60% of the median income poverty threshold [5]
Some comparisons
Big Mac in:
- the Netherlands € 3.71
- Germany € 3.86
- Basel € 6.44 [3]
A simple ticket for a ride will cost public transport in:
- Paris € 1.80 / trip
- Hamburg € 1.50 / trip
- Rome € 1.50 / trip
- Amsterdam € 0.89 + € 0.154 / km
- New York $ 2.65 / Trip
- Basel € 3.10 / 1 ZONE / 1 hour
- Zurich € 2.60 / 1 ZONE / 1 hour [4]
Notes
[1] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Switzerland&displayCurrency=EUR
[2] https://basisinkomen.nl/debat-basisinkomen-haalbaar-betaalbaar-utrecht-22-mei-2016/
[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/
[4] Basel https://www.bvb.ch/en/tickets-fares/standard-fares/single-tickets
Zuerich https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/vbz/en/index/tickets/tickets_prices/day_pass_single_ticket.html
Amsterdam https://www.amsterdamtips.com/tips/transport-tickets.php
New York https://web.mta.info/metrocard/mcgtreng.htm#payper
Rome https://www.rometoolkit.com/transport/rome_travel_pass.htm
Hamburg https://www.hvv.de/en/tickets/single-day-tickets/overview/
[5] https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do
by Guest Contributor | Jun 27, 2016 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
By Karl Widerquist, co-chair BIEN, and Louise Haagh, co-chair BIEN
BIEN has made great strides in the last few years. Two years ago, our main goals were to charter BIEN as a legally recognized non-profit organization, to organize the 2016 Congress in Seoul Korea, and to expand Basic Income News. We succeeded in all three. The Seoul Congress will be our first in Asia, and it will bring together hundreds of Basic Income supporters from around the world. Official non-profit status will be completed if and when it is ratified at the 2016 Congress. This status will allow us to raise and spend money more easily in the coming term.
Our biggest success of the last two years has been Basic Income News (along with its accompanying email NewsFlash). Basic Income News has grown both in how much news it reports and how many people it reaches. Before the creation of Basic Income News, BIEN produced one NewsFlash (with perhaps twenty news stories) every two or three months, most of them excerpted from elsewhere. Today BIEN’s all-volunteer news team produces an average of two or three news stories every day, most of them original. Thanks mostly to Basic Income News, BIEN’s website has grown from 60 unique visits per day in June of 2013 to 1,365 unique visits per day in May of 2016. Some articles have reached more than 45,000 people. NewsFlash subscriptions have more than doubled in the last ten months, from 2,100 subscribers in August 2015 to 4,300 subscribers by June 2015.
Basic Income Earth Network’s Logo
BIEN’s growth has coincided with an enormous growth in the Basic Income movement around the world. New groups are forming. People are taking action. And people in power are taking notice. Government-funded pilot projects are going to take place in at least two countries and possibly several more over the next few years.
Major international institutions such as the Council of Europe and the Economic Commission for Latin America of the UN, have funded research, conferences and reports that endorse basic income and seek to connect it with other contemporary progressive movements and ideas. BIEN representatives have been instrumental in these developments, which is evidence of the influence BIEN is having in official organizations. An important objective for the coming term is to continue and extend these efforts to engage with these organizations, and we currently have activities and plans in the works to do so.
With BIEN’s Congress and General Assembly approaching, now is a good time for BIEN to set some goals for what it can do to strengthen the movement in the following year. This article proposes some priorities for the coming year-our “vision” for BIEN if you will. We speak for ourselves, but we hope others will agree.
We begin with one thing that BIEN should not do. It mustnot to dictate a grand strategy to the worldwide movement for Basic Income. The movement has gotten as far as it has by different people in different places attempting very different strategies. Some have worked better than others, but they have all made their contribution, and the combined result has been enormous growth in the political prominence of Basic Income. Any effort to force that diverse movement to follow one central script would be arrogant and divisive.
BIEN’s charter calls on us to serve that movement, “as a link between individuals and groups committed to, or interested in, basic income … to stimulate and disseminate research and to foster informed public discussion.” BIEN. How can BIEN serve that movement better?
We suggest two board objectives: our news service (Basic Income News) and our efforts to improve our outreach and networking with Basic Income groups and sympathetic individuals. In pursuit of these two broad objectives, we suggest the following priorities:
- Expand Basic Income News.
- Start holding yearly congresses.
- Improve BIEN’s outreach to affiliates and nonaffiliated organizations.
- Set up the website to take online donations and determine a crowdfunding strategy through means of Paypal, Patreon, ect.
- Improve BIEN’s website (which may be a complete website redesign), including an effort to create a depository of research and expertise.
- Increase BIEN’s presence on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, ect.
- Attempt to obtain representation on international bodies.
- Create better democratic institutions within BIEN.
This is an ambitious agenda for next year (and the coming years). This op-ed is the third in serious arguing for this vision. Louise Haagh and I argued in two previous op-eds for yearly Congresses, and for the importance of these taskforces (and others our supports might create) in improving our outreach and networking.
With those goals of BIEN already discussed, this article makes a special case for expanding Basic Income News-the only website in the world specializing solely in news about Basic Income. This service provides a badly needed source of just-the-facts reporting on Basic Income by well-informed writers. This kind of news reporting is something that we do well. It is something that no one else is doing. It is something that few other groups could do or are likely to do. Basic Income News provides an important way for BIEN to inform and to the influence debate over Basic Income. Basic Income News provides a mouthpiece for BIEN’s members and affiliates by reporting and publicizing their activities. Basic Income News provides information that our affiliates and other groups need to work together to build the movement.
In this way, Basic Income News supports BIEN’s other certain objective: outreach and networking with other groups and individuals interested in Basic Income. BIEN is able to do the other things it does because it reaches out to people daily on the web and monthly by email.
Basic Income News is BIEN’s principle strength. We need to build on this strength.
Basic Income News has done all this on a budget of less than $100 a month for webhosting and emails services. It has no paid labor. Everything Basic Income News does, it does with an all-volunteer workforce, and is unlikely to move to a paid labor force anytime soon. We have too many other things that we need to do with the money we raise before we can start paying our volunteers.
So, what do we do to expand? We suggest, four things.
First, BIEN’s Executive Committee (EC) has agreed to dedicate four of its members to Basic Income News as their specified task for the coming term. (Every EC member commits to work several hours per month on a specified task.) Dedicating four EC members to the news reflects its high priority, but it is not out of line with BIEN’s other priorities. The list of EC functions for next year provides for two Co-Chairs, two Co-Secretaries, and four people working together on outreach and communication.
The four news editors share the joint responsibility of keeping Basic Income News up-to-date, ensuring that it has regular features, trains volunteers, and so on. With oversight from the whole EC, they divide those functions among themselves as they think best. Typically one member acts as lead editor, taking overall responsibility for the news service. One takes on the role of “features editor,” recruiting guests to write reviews, Op-Ed, interviews, and so on. One or more trains new volunteers. We need several EC members to take charge of these very different roles.
Second, Basic Income News needs to recruit more volunteers. Although we publish a lot of stories, many more stories go unreported because we don’t have enough writers to cover them. Very often we are asked, “why didn’t Basic Income News cover this…” and the answer is almost always the same: “We wanted to, but we didn’t have enough volunteers.” This is our principle limitation. We need to have one scheduled reporter online every day of the week, every week of the year, so that we can cover news stories as they come in. We also need reporters to clear out our backlog of story ideas on our website. We also need to find reporters who are fluent in German, French, Spanish, and other languages to improve our reporting from non-English sources and perhaps to translate some of our content into other languages. We need copyeditors to review the work of our reporters. Maintaining and improving quality is a constant struggle in any all-volunteer organization. All of these things require us to recruit a lot more volunteers.
Third, Karl Widerquist has made the following motion to the General Assembly: “BIEN encourages all affiliates to provide at least one person to work with Basic Income News to report on their news and the news from their region.” We make this request to improve our reporting of each affiliate’s activities, to improve our reporting of local events around the world-especially those in non-English-speaking countries. The relationship between Basic Income News and its affiliates should be a two-way street. We should not only gather news from our affiliates, but we should also provide a platform for them to publicize their activities and to discuss their concerns with a worldwide audience. If at least one person from each network learns to use Basic Income News’s system, they can directly use it to broadcast their events and concerns. We can also offer to our affiliates using our news stories in their newsletters and on their websites, if that is a help to them.
Fourth, Basic Income News has to increase-not only its hard news reporting-but also its opinions, reviews, analysis, interviews, audio, video, and so on. One strength of Basic Income News is a clear separation between just-the-facts news reporting and opinions. With this separation, people in and out of the movement can learn how the movement for Basic Income is progressing without being distracted by propaganda or by uninformed reporting. The “Features” side of Basic Income News has been minimal, publishing perhaps one feature per week. Yet, there is no limit to how many features we can publish. In this effort, Basic Income News has appointed a features editor who is in charge of contacting our affiliates, other organizations, and individuals to contribute occasional features.
None of this means that BIEN should promote Basic Income News to the exclusion of everything else we do, but we have to have priorities, and Basic Income News should be our top priority or very close to it. We have done a lot, but we can do a lot more, and we can do it better.
In sum, over the coming years, we see BIEN improving its efforts to serve as a link between individuals and groups that support Basic Income by having yearly congresses, raising funds, creating a web depository of research, increasing our social media presence, working more closely with our affiliates and other Basic Income groups, creating ties with appropriate institutions, and by creating a larger and more professional news service that will provide news about Basic Income and a mouthpiece for Basic Income supporters around the world.
-Karl Widerquist, co-chair BIEN (Karl@Widerquist.com)
-Louise Haagh, co-chair BIEN (louise.haagh@york.ac.uk)
BIEN Congress 2016
by Guest Contributor | Jun 25, 2016 | Opinion
Dear friends,
The basic income movement is picking up momentum at an enormous rate, but even with past and present trials, many are still looking for further evidence of what would happen if a guaranteed income were provided over the long-term.
So we’re planning to run what will likely be the largest long-term pilot of a basic income ever, and we have got some of the world’s leading economists on board to perform a rigorous evaluation.
You can learn more and join the pilot here.
For years, GiveDirectly has been providing short-term cash transfers to the extreme poor and seeing positive results — people do not stop working or drink it away, they invest in bettering their lives. If this basic income pilot shows similarly positive results, it could open the door to governments around the world beginning to adopt policies like basic income.
But we need to move fast — the debate over basic income is happening now and people are shooting down the idea based on speculation. If we are going to provide evidence in time to effect this debate, we need to launch the pilot this year. We will guarantee thousands of individuals living in extreme poverty in East Africa a basic income for over ten years, but we will have results on impact — do people invest more, seek more education, become more creative? — within a year or two.
But to launch this year all of us need to chip in a small amount — we can make it happen for less than the price of a cup of coffee per day:
Learn more about our project and, for just $1 per day, support the basic income of one person in poverty.
At best, we will break through the impasse of the basic income debate with evidence that shapes our economic futures; and at worst, we will provide life-changing aid to some of the poorest people on the planet.
We are teaming up with leading researcher Abhijit Banerjee from MIT and have calculated that we can run and study this pilot for $30 million, and we are willing to match the first $10 million donated. If just 5,000 people commit $1/day by this summer, we can make it happen.
Join us: for just $1 per day, support the basic income of one person in poverty.
This is the moment to launch this potentially historic pilot. Be a part and join now.
Sincerely,
Ian Bassin
At the home of Caroline Awino Odhiambo in Koga village on 22 October 2014. With the cash transfer from Give Directly, Caroline bought a cow, a sewing machine, put metal sheets on her roof, and paid school fees for two children in primary school. Caroline and her family in front of their house
At the home of Beatrice Achieng in Nduru Upper village. She used the cash transfer from Give Directly to dig a 30-foot borehole that now supplies her family with fresh water. She also build the foundation for a new house on her compound. Beatrice fetches water at the borehole.
At the home of recipient Rispa Atieno Okoyo in Koga village on 22 October 2014. Rispa used the cash to build this goat pen, she bought 2 cows, and planted maize and beans. Rispa with her children in front of their house.
At the home of recipient Gabriel Otieno Awoche in Koga village on 22 October 2014. Gabriel built a house and chicken coop with the cash. He also bought woodworking tools for his furniture workshop. Gabriel with his wife Lucy Adhiambo and their daughter Charlotte, 3. They also have another daughter, Mariam, age 1 1/2.
