by Toru Yamamori | Dec 25, 2015 | Opinion
Basic income activist Enno Schmidt give us his views on the recent recommendation by the Council of States, the upper house of the Swiss parliament, calling for people to vote against an unconditional basic income (UBI) in the national referendum next year.
The National Council, the lower house, issued a similar recommendation in September. The referendum is expected to be held next year – there are indications that it might take place as early as June. Swiss people will vote “yes” or “no” to a constitutional amendment that would introduce, if successful, the UBI as a right enshrined in the Swiss Federal Constitution.
Enno Schmidt is one of the promoters of the Popular Initiative that collected enough signatures to gain the right for a national referendum on the UBI. He is a painter, author and film-maker, and has been actively promoting basic income since 2006. He was born in Germany and lives and works in Basel, Switzerland.
In this interview, he tells Basic Income News what he thinks about the recent recommendations by the Swiss parliament, and the prospects for the referendum.
Toru Yamamori: Did you foresee the Council of States’ recommendation?
Enno Schmidt: We did not expect a majority in favour of the basic income initiative in either the upper or lower house of parliament. Still, it was good to see that there were positive contributions emerging from the two debates. There are MPs in both houses who understand some of the ideas behind the initiative. However, there was nobody voting in favour in the Council of States.
TY: How do the parliamentary recommendations affect the national referendum?
ES: The parliamentary motions are only recommendations. They are not binding decisions. Parliament fulfilled its obligations and debated the issue. The decision is entirely up to the Swiss citizens. The citizens are the highest decision-making body in a democracy. The parties, the Parliament and the government are organs of the sovereign. The ultimate sovereign is the voting population.
UBI activists dropped 8 million five cent coins outside Swiss National Council, Bern, October 2013.
TY: What is your next step?
ES: There are 8 Millions inhabitants and 5 million voters in Switzerland. We will do our best to promote debate on the idea of a basic income and talk to everyone about it.
TY: As you and others already did with the collection of the signatures for the referendum, with your films about basic income, and in public debates, tv shows, newspapers and collective actions.
What is your take on the final result of the referendum?
ES: It is not our victory if a majority says yes, nor our defeat if a majority says no. It is our business to give a chance to everybody to think about the possibility of an unconditional income, the difference between income and work, their future and the future of our society, and to encounter a positive vision for the 21st century.
We are not focused on the opponents. We want to make the idea attractive. The UBI vision is not against something, but asks for more. We want to show that a more exciting life is possible. We want to convince the majority. But even if only a quarter of the votes will be in favour of a UBI, then that would already be a great success. The referendum result is not the end. The discussion continues, and there can be another vote. Perhaps the Japanese are faster than the Swiss?
For more information, check out the English-speaking website of BIEN-Switzerland here, and our past news and commentary on the Swiss referendum:
Toru Yamamori, “SWITZERLAND: Council of States rejects basic income initiative,” Basic Income News, December 21, 2015.
Matthias Lindemer, “Swiss politicians reject basic income because they are scared of humans,” Basic Income News, December 7, 2015.
Stanislas Jourdan, “SWITZERLAND: Parliament rejects basic income initiative, but poll shows popular support,” Basic Income News, October 3, 2015.
Toru Yamamori, “Interview with Enno Schmidt, co-initiator of the Swiss Citizens’ Initiative,” Basic Income News, September 19, 2015.
Jenna van Draanen, “SWITZERLAND: Swiss parliamentary committee on social affairs opposes a federal initiative for basic income,” Basic Income News, July 14, 2015.
Karl Widerquist, “SWITZERLAND: National referendum will be held on basic income,” Basic Income News, October 5, 2013.
by Guest Contributor | Dec 22, 2015 | Opinion
By Tom Streithorst
The Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is back in the news. The Finns are considering implementing it, as are the Swiss, replacing all means tested benefits with a simple grant to every citizen, giving everyone enough money to survive. Unlike most current benefits programs, it is not contingent on being worthy or deserving or even poor. Everybody gets it, you, me, Rupert Murdoch, the homeless man sleeping under a bridge. Last seriously proposed by Richard Nixon in 1969, more and more economists and bloggers are suggesting that the Basic Income Guarantee may ultimately be the salvation of capitalism. The BIG will eliminate poverty, lessen inequality, and vastly improve the lives of the most vulnerable among us. But that is not why we need it. It may seem impractical, even utopian, but I am convinced the BIG will be instituted within the next few decades because it solves modern capitalism’s most fundamental problem: lack of demand.
Technology and capitalism have largely solved the problem of supply. We are able to make more stuff, with fewer inputs of labor and capital, than ever before. We have the know-how, we have the resources, we have the trained labor, we have the money. The only thing businesses lack is customers. Making stuff has become easy. It is selling it that keeps entrepreneurs (and central bankers) awake at night. Stagnant wages tell us that the supply of labor exceeds demand. Microscopic interest rates tell us that we have more capital than we need. Since the Great Depression most economists have recognized that demand is the Achilles heel of the modern economy.
Over the past 80 years, we have solved the problem of demand in three very different ways. The first is war. In 1938, US unemployment was almost 20%. In 1944 it was barely 1%. Everybody knows World War II ended the Great Depression. But it is worth remembering that it wasn’t the slaughter of civilians or the destructions of cities that reinvigorated the global economy, but rather the massive fiscal stimulus of government borrowing. Had we borrowed and spent as much on building schools, homes and roads as we did on defeating the Axis powers, the economic effect would have been even greater. The advantage of military Keynesianism is political: conservatives who loathe government spending are able to overcome their distaste when it comes to war.
The second, during the post war Golden Age, was rising salaries. Between 1950 and 1970, the average American worker saw his real wages double: since then, they have barely gone up at all. Back then, productivity improvements translated almost immediately into wage gains. As workers’ wages went up, so did consumer spending. Productivity increases meant each worker was able to make more stuff. Wage increases meant he was able to afford to buy it. Advertising transformed luxuries into necessities. Productivity gains combined with wage hikes gave the Golden Age the greatest GDP growth the world has ever seen.
In our most recent era, from 1982 until the financial crisis, the engine of economic expansion was ever increasing levels of private debt. After Reagan and Thatcher, median wages stopped going up, even as productivity maintained its inexorable rise. With wages stagnant, only by taking on more debt were consumers able to keep spending enough to buy all they produced. As long as banks were happy to lend, the economy managed to grow (albeit much more slowly than during the Golden Age) and the party could go on. But after the financial crisis, both household willingness to incur more debt and bank willingness to lend contracted, leaving us with the stagnant economy we are trapped in today.
These three old methods of stimulating demand have passed their sell by dates. Global war would reinvigorate the economy, but at an unbearable cost. Rising wages, unfortunately, are unlikely, with more and more of us replaceable by robots, software or much cheaper foreign workers. And higher levels of debt not only increase inequality, they also engender financial instability. What is to be done?
Every year, technological progress allows us to make more goods and services with fewer inputs of labor and capital. As consumers, this is wonderful. We can buy better and cheaper goods than ever before. As workers, however, productivity increases threaten our jobs. As we need fewer workers to make the same amount of stuff, more of us become redundant. And it is likely to get worse. The rise of the robots may eliminate 47% of existing jobs within the next two decades. Unfortunately, even though a robot can make an iPhone, it cannot buy one. If we are hurtling towards a post scarcity future, only a Basic Income Guarantee can ensure sufficient demand to keep the global economy ticking over.
It is not just the poor that profit. The rich get exactly the same payment, in the form of a tax cut. Corporations also win. With more money in consumers’ pockets, sales increase, raising profits. And since firms no longer need provide a living wage, labor costs could go down, which would give employers reason to hire. Meanwhile, workers, with a guaranteed income, no matter what, will have the freedom to tell an unreasonable boss to “take this job and shove it.” These benefits suggest that a Basic Income Guarantee could command considerable support from diverse sectors. But these are all merely side benefits.
If technological progress continues to eliminate jobs, the BIG may well be the only way we will be able to maintain demand in a post-work future. By giving every citizen a monthly check, a BIG will be as fiscally stimulative as World War II without requiring the murder of millions. The BIG is economically sensible and politically practical. What then stands in its way?
The first problem is that it sounds too good to be true. We have been told to be suspicious of anyone promising a free lunch, and giving people money for doing nothing certainly seems like a costless gift. Fear of scarcity is built into our DNA. For the BIG to seem viable for most people, they need to learn that demand, not supply, is the bottleneck of growth. We need to recognize that money is something humans create, not something with fixed and limited supply. With Quantitative Easing, central banks created money and gave it to the financial sector, hoping it would stimulate lending. Today, even mainstream figures like Lord Adair Turner, Martin Wolf and even Ben Bernanke recognize that “helicopter drops” of money into individuals’ bank accounts could have been more effective. Technocrats are beginning to recognize the practicality of Basic Income. We in the economic blogosphere need to bring this message into the public eye. The rise of the robots, ever declining prices for goods and services, and disappearing jobs may ultimately teach this lesson more effectively than any number of well-meaning essays.
The second problem is sociological. Most of us are still in employment. We feel, in some fundamental way, that our work makes us more worthy than lazy layabouts on benefits. This simultaneously makes us disinclined to raise benefits for others (or increase the number of people on benefit) and equally disinclined to think of ourselves as the kind of people that receive money from the state. Adam Smith, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (the book he considered his masterpiece), said that we humans are motivated primarily by the regard of others. We want people to think well of us, and we want to think well of ourselves. The psychological pleasure of considering ourselves better than welfare recipients can trump genuine economic benefit. To overcome this objection, we need to recognize that defining ourselves by our jobs is very 20th century. If technological progress continues to kill traditional jobs, this objection too will eventually dissipate. As full-time jobs become harder to find, more of us will recognize the need for a BIG.
The third problem is perhaps the most central. By stimulating the economy and pushing it towards its production possibilities frontier, the Basic Income Guarantee will be growth enhancing, but it is undeniable that it will also be redistributive. The pie will be larger, but it will be sliced differently. For the past 30 years, we have stimulated the economy by shoveling money towards rich people. A BIG shovels money towards poor people. And for many in the top 1%, that is anathema.
Conservatives generally favor tax cuts as a way of stimulating the economy. Although they do not like to admit it, this is textbook Keynesianism. As long as the government does not cut spending, more money in consumers’ pockets will inevitably increase demand. Unfortunately, tax cuts generally favor the richest among us, and they, unlike the poor, are liable to save rather than spend their windfall. Stimulating savings is a waste of a tax cut. Today, we have an over-abundance of saving and a shortfall of investment and consumption. A BIG can be thought of as a tax cut targeted to those most likely to spend it, which is what the economy needs.
The Basic Income Guarantee solves the problem of demand, stimulates the economy, increases corporate profits, gives workers more freedom, and provides a safety net to the most vulnerable. It is economically sound and politically savvy. But the very rich do not fear unemployment, they fear redistribution and they will be the most significant force against the implementation of the BIG.
Related reading:
Frances Coppola, “The changing nature of work,” Coppola Comment, August 5, 2012.
Francesc Coppola, “The wastefulness of automation,” Pieria, July 8, 2013.
Tom Streithorst, “The central paradox of the 21st Century,” Pieria, June 25, 2014.
Anna Hedge, “Basic income and a room of one’s own,” Pieria, February 26, 2014.
Anthony Painter, “In support of a Universal Basic Income: introducing the RSA basic income model,” RSA, December 16, 2015.
Tom Streithorst has been a union member, an entrepreneur, a war 
cameraman, a promo producer, a journalist. These days, he mostly does voiceovers and thinks about economic history. An American in London, he has been writing for magazines on both sides of the pond since 2008. He is currently working on a book on post scarcity economics, and how the incredible productive power of capitalism and technology has the potential to bring us all prosperity and happiness but so far, we keep screwing it up.
This piece was originally published in Coppola Comment.
by Guest Contributor | Dec 17, 2015 | Opinion
By Jim Pugh
“I like the idea, but it’ll never happen.”
I hear this response a lot when talking to people about establishing a universal basic income in the United States. Once you get past the explanation of what a basic income is and how offering it could eliminate poverty, support entrepreneurship, and prepare us for a future where most jobs have been displaced by automation, people are generally quite supportive”Š-“Šbut they don’t believe that it could ever be implemented here.
And their skepticism is entirely reasonable. In today’s political climate, it’s hard to imagine how a program as radical as basic income could be enacted. When simply passing a budget to keep the federal government operational starts to seem like a big accomplishment, what chance do we have for major reform?
But in spite of the perceived impasse, there is a viable path to implementing universal basic income in the United States. Here’s how it can work.
Step 1: Spread Awareness
If you were to stop a random person on the street and ask them what they think about basic income, you’d most likely get a confused stare. While more people have become interested in the idea in recent years, basic income is still unknown to the population at large. What’s more, when you first tell people that the solution to some of our biggest economic challenges is just giving everyone money, a lot think the idea sounds crazy.
For that reason, the first step on the path to an American basic income is raising awareness and support across the country. For radical reform to become possible, there needs to be a solid majority of Americans behind the idea.
There isn’t any secret formula for accomplishing this”Š-“Šit’s up to those of us who support the idea to make it happen. We can talk to our friends and family and convince them of the importance of basic income. We can produce compelling media that explains the idea and why it will work. We can organize events to capture the attention of the press and general public.
In 1933, a man name Francis Townsend wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper, proposing a plan to provide money every month to the elderly across the United States. Within a year, millions of people had organized into grassroots groups around the country, distributing pamphlets to their community and advocating for passage of the Townsend Plan. And just one year after that, Franklin Roosevelt proposed and passed the Social Security Act, providing the first-ever federal assistance to American retirees.
More and more, people are starting to realize the system we have right now is no longer working. If we let them know there’s a better alternative out there, we can build a movement in support of universal basic income in the United States.
Step 2: Test It Out
Providing a full basic income to all Americans would be a huge leap forward. Before we can make that leap, we need to try it out in a more limited capacity.
The second step on the path to an American basic income is to enact smaller-scale prototypes of the program and see how they go. By observing actual implementations of basic income-like programs in the United States, we can gain insight into how a full program would work and allay the concerns of skeptics. And the cost could be considerably lower, making prototypes much more achievable in the short term.
There are a couple of different models for how basic income prototype programs could work:
Dividends from Shared Resources
One type of basic income prototype actually exists in the US already: the Alaska Permanent Fund. Since 1976, the state of Alaska has managed a fund which is financed by oil revenue in the state. The fund pays out dividends each year, split equally amongst all Alaska residents. Over the last 25 years, the dividend payment has varied between $800 and $3,200 per person.
While the amount awarded isn’t sufficient to be considered a true basic income, the Alaska Permanent Fund is an example of an unconditional, universal income. In his book With Liberty and Dividends for All, Peter Barnes argues that this program could pave the way for adoption of similar plans by other states and could be expanded to provide increased universal income down the road.
Credit: 3D Printing Industry.
In fact, an analogous program is currently being considered in Oregon. Under the Carbon Fee and Dividend plan, polluters in the state would need to pay for the carbon they emitted, and this money would then be distributed equally to all Oregon residents. While the Alaska Permanent Fund model only makes sense for states with large oil industries, Carbon Fee and Dividend could be expanded to every state in the country.
Randomized Trials
Another potential prototype model is to provide a full basic income, but only to a small number of people. Randomized trials could be set up and run, where certain families in a given region would receive a basic income, and the program impact could be assessed by comparing to non-participating families.
In fact, an experiment similar to this was previously run in the US in the 60s and 70s”Š-“Šin various locations across the country (New Jersey cities; rural Iowa and North Carolina; Gary, Indiana; and Seattle and Denver), randomly-selected families were provided with a “negative income tax,” which gave substantial direct monetary support to those with low incomes.
The study showed some initial promising results, with increased school attendance rates and only a modest reduction in labor rates. Randomized trials are now being set up abroad in Finland to evaluate the effect of a universal basic income there. If more experiments were conducted in the United States, it could provide a much clearer picture of the full impact of enacting basic income here.
Although labeled as the second step on the path, implementing prototypes could actually happen in parallel to raising awareness amongst the public. These efforts could even be complementary”Š-“Šthe success of prototype programs would increase visibility and support for basic income. And in turn, greater support would make additional prototypes easier to enact. We need some very concrete examples of how basic income can work, though, before we’ll be ready for final step.
Step 3: Wait for Lightning to Strike
Let’s say we’ve reached a point where most people know about and support basic income, and there are prototype programs showing it working. Even then, given the current level of dysfunction in Washington, DC, it would still be extremely difficult to enact a federal version. That’s why the third step to implement an American basic income is to wait for the right moment.
In her book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein describes how in times of crisis, people may be willing to accept big changes that normally would seem far too radical. While Klein’s focus is on the enactment of exploitative corporate policies, the same principle can apply to positive changes.
If automation continues to displace jobs as predicted in the coming years, there will be moments of extreme disruption to our economy. Grocery stores will lay off big parts of their workforce as cheap, automated stocking and checkout services become available. More automated restaurants like Eatsa will appear, which employ fewer service staff. Millions of jobs will be lost in the transportation industry to self-driving vehicles.
There are no doubts about it, the transportation industry, in particular, has already undergone some significant changes over the past few years. For example, thanks to developments in technology such as Titanwinds trucking dispatch software, it is now possible for fleet managers to plan routes in real-time to ship goods and control their fleets in the most efficient way. With this in mind, it is certainly intriguing to consider what else might be in store for the future of the trucking sector for instance.
As the magnitude of these disruptions becomes apparent, people will be knocked out of their normal routine and be willing to embrace a big change. At that moment, if we have public awareness and support, and if we’ve demonstrated the program’s effectiveness, people across the country can rally behind a clarion call to push past the gridlock in Washington”Š-“Šand we will have a real chance to enact an American basic income.
What’s Next?
The steps laid out above are not theoretical”Š-“Šmany of us are already working to achieve them.
Discussion groups and panels are being convened around the country in places like New York, Palo Alto, Washington, DC, and San Francisco. A new nonprofit organization, Basic Income Action, is pushing presidential candidates to engage on the issue.
People are crowdfunding their own basic income and using the money to support themselves as they write about the idea. An Oregon nonprofit is working to push for the enactment of Carbon Fee and Dividend there.
And on the weekend of November 13, the first-ever Basic Income Create-A-Thon was held in San 
Francisco, where writers, artists, videographers, developers, musicians, and others came together to create content and media around the theme of basic income. More Create-A-Thons are now being planned across the country.
An American basic income is possible”Š-“Šand it’s up to us to make it happen.
Jim Pugh is the CEO of ShareProgress, a politically-progressive tech company offering tools for social sharing. He is the former CTO for Rebuild the Dream, and Director of Analytics for @BarackObama. He holds a PhD in Robotics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
by Nicole Teke | Dec 13, 2015 | Opinion
In the past few months, basic income has been widely debated in the French public arena and mainstream media are starting to pay attention to it. This trend has been influenced by the announcement of pilot projects in the Netherlands and Finland, and the upcoming referendum in Switzerland.
Recently, there have been important developments in the national political arena too. On November 13, an amendment to the 2016 Budget Law proposing the adoption of a basic income was debated in the National Assembly, one of the two houses of Parliament. The proposal was introduced by Frédéric Lefebvre, MP from the right-wing party Les Républicains. The amendment was not approved, but the chairman of the Finance Commission, Gilles Carrez, approved the creation of a multi-party parliamentary working group on the issue.
This constitutes a real improvement in terms of political discussions on this topic. However, BIEN French chapter, the French Movement for Basic Income (FMBI), has expressed concern about the proposed measure. The amendment promotes the introduction of a universal income for all French citizens – but not other residents – that would replace all welfare benefits. All unemployment and housing benefits, as well as student allowances and old-age pensions, would subsequently be suppressed. (You can read the amendment in French here.)
Most people who depend on their social benefits would be strongly affected. The amendment seems to have been designed to reduce public debt, without taking into consideration the negative impact it could have on the welfare system. The proposed basic income does not sit well with FMBI’s stance. A basic income should not undermine the welfare system, but reinforce it. It should also promote more freedom of choice.
The amendment mentions recent developments in Finland. In the Finnish case too, there are concerns that the government might be experimenting with a basic income to replace other social benefits and reduce public spending. As far as the French proposal goes, it does not consider the implications for citizens and residents, especially those in the most vulnerable groups. It also fails to look at how the proposed basic income would enhance individual freedom of choice.
This is just the beginning of a serious political discussion. There is still a lot of work to do to develop proposals about the kind of basic income France should adopt. Yet, the fact that there is growing debate in all spheres of French society is a positive and welcome development.
by Guest Contributor | Dec 11, 2015 | Opinion
By Otto Lehto
People have different ideas on what society should look like, but they can still agree that a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is a good idea. The struggle for BIG should be the struggle for a specific policy measure, not for a utopian ideal. We are trying to make BIG a reality. That’s it. We are engaged in an ambitious project with limited boundaries. We are not trying to find a panacea for world hunger, domestic abuse or global warming. All we need is for a critical mass of people, and a few shrewd politicians, to do the right thing and vote for BIG.
In Finland, nearly 70% of the population supports basic income. For the first time ever, more than half of members of parliament do too. Historically, BIG has been advocated in Finland by the Green Party, the Left Alliance and the Center Party, joined recently by the Pirate Party. Advocates are found in all political parties and across all sectors of society. The Finnish National Union of University Students has officially endorsed a universal basic income, and so have many academics and think tanks. Post and neo-Keynesians are calling for it, as are leftist intellectuals. Even the banker Björn Wahlroos repeatedly endorsed BIG on newspapers and TV shows. He is one of the richest men in the country and a free market enthusiast.
We need a broad consensus if we want basic income to become reality. As recently reported in mainstream news across the world, a basic income experiment is about to be implemented, under the new center-right government headed by Prime Minister Juha Sipilä from the Center Party. The experiment is set to begin in 2017. Hopefully, this is just the prelude to a nation-wide implementation of a universal basic income.
There is nothing wrong in being utopian and in favor of radical solutions. But utopianism is not a necessary condition for engaging in the struggle for BIG. Sometimes it can be a hindrance. As basic income supporters, we may disagree on how high a basic income should be. We may have different views on whether to use the tax system, as in the case of a negative income tax, or social welfare instruments, as with most other forms of BIG. We may see basic income as a socialist principle or a free market mechanism. But we all acknowledge the need for a universal, unconditional and simple solution. We do not have to agree on anything else. We believe that BIG is important, because it does three things:
1) it eradicates absolute poverty;
2) it reduces bureaucracy;
3) it lays the foundation for a new, sustainable relationship between states and markets.
In order to achieve this, we need to build alliances between utopians and realists of different persuasions. At BIEN-Finland, our national branch, we are confronted every day with the various political leanings and aspirations of our members. Our diversity is something we celebrate, even if sometimes it causes friction and animosity. A one-sided approach to basic income would seriously hurt the prospects of BIG becoming a reality.
We should learn from popular struggles that have rallied mass support, such as the campaign for extending the right to vote to women in the late 19th and early 20th century. Universal suffrage was advocated by various classes and social groups. Driven by the same goal, farmers and workers marched together. Women were joined by their husbands. Newspapers representing different interests endorsed the idea. After some time, opposition to it was frowned upon. It was not the exclusive battle of Marxists, or trade unionists, or social liberals, or enlightened aristocrats. It was a struggle owned by the whole population. From a marginal idea, universal suffrage became common sense. The opposition did not disappear overnight. But it gradually lost steam, until it became a remnant of the past, deprived of any real power. BIG will succeed when it will achieve the same broad consensus. Our goal is to make opposition to BIG unfashionable and a little reprehensible.
The danger is not that the “wrong people” like the idea. Rather, the problem is that some people want to appropriate the name to implement different policies. If a proposed basic income is not high enough to cover basic human necessities, like food, shelter and clothing, then it cannot be called basic income. BIG should also not be confused with means-tested grants or workfare schemes. We need to be clear about this. In Finland, the government’s position oscillates between a real basic income and austerity or workfare policies, but public pressure and intellectual debate are creating a space for a BIG experiment.
A universal basic income should gain the support of Marxists, trade unionists, neoliberals, businessmen, teachers, farmers, feminists, tech nerds, American billionaires and Nigerian chicken farmers. The alliance must be broad and deep, and focus on common human needs. The emerging domain of populist politics, increased media attention and the growing intellectual debate around BIG, provide an unprecedented opportunity to further our cause.
Of course, we should not kid ourselves that humanity would finally overcome its differences under the guise of a BIG campaign, nor that left-wing and right-wing interpretations would lead to the same result. BIG organizations should be democratic forums for people from different backgrounds. Some of them are naturally inspired by a variety of utopian visions. Broad-based BIG has the potential to act as a true meeting ground for popular struggle, in which conflicting visions of the good society can strategically talk to each other and put forward a shared, simple solution. People should be able to set aside their differences – at least for a short while.
We may not like all our friends in the movement. Some of our allies are horrible people. (By the way, they probably think the same about you.) But we still have to live together in the same house. If people can, for the time being, agree on basic income, then we have already won. Bickering partisans can still keep on fighting over other issues. Trust me, there will always be something to fight about.
So bite your nails and be wise about strategy. Smile to your enemies. Shake hands with the most awful people. The smiling basic income activist is a silent, deadly assassin. If we want to think BIG, we need to act stealthily. We do not have the luxury to choose our political allies.
Otto Lehto is a philosopher and a political activist. He is the chairman of BIEN Finland.
by Matthias Lindemer | Dec 7, 2015 | Opinion
By Che Wagner
Originally published in German in the Swiss online newspaper Tages Woche.
Translated by Matthias Lindemer for Basic Income News.
(Photo shows activists of the Swiss Basic Income Initiative with a banner inside a vault. Credit: Stefan Bohrer)
On Wednesday, September 23, 2015, the Swiss parliament debated a popular petition for an unconditional basic income. Enough signatures were collected to grant a national referendum. The parliamentarians seemed to compete to voice the most incendiary expressions. “The most dangerous initiative ever!” said Sebastian Frehner of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP). “A released grenade in our hands!” said Daniel Stolz of the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP).
The reactions to the initiative were stamped with fear. If you want to avoid danger, it is better for you not to move. Bernhard Guhl, speaking on behalf of the centrist Conservative Democratic Party (BDP), exhorted “Don’t endanger our prosperity!” The parties right of center, like the SVP, sounded even more dramatic. Peter Keller (SVP) declared, “You don’t even care who will be paying for that,” and Sebastian Frehner (SVP) argued that the Basic Income would swallow all of the country’s money and spell “the end of Switzerland.”
“The most dangerous initiative ever!” (Sebastian Frehner, SVP)
Where does the fear come from? Some of it stems from the worry that a basic income will make all of its recipients lazy. Keller, for example, called the proposal “a slap in the face of all the people getting up at 6 for work in the morning.” Others worried that the financial burden would render a basic income entirely impossible.
Behind these fears, however, lurked a quiet consensus: the question of whether a basic income is financeable is only a matter of political will.
What if there is a basic income and the people refuse participation in the workforce? There will be no more value-creation, and thus no more tax revenue, and thus no basic income. According to the politicians, the basic danger comes from human beings themselves; because of human “laziness”, the freedom of decision allowed by a basic income could be dangerous.
“The referendum result will tell us if the Swiss people fear themselves too.” (Che Wagner)
Not all Swiss politicians share these fears. Cédric Wermuth of the Social Democratic Paty (SP), who endorses a basic income, believes that the proposal represents the best defense against the rise of a neoliberal storm. Andi Gross (SP), who will soon go out of office, adds, “basic income is a shift of power from capital to activity.”
In general, parliamentarians on the left seemed less frightened by the alleged danger. According to those on the left, the main drawback to a basic income is that it could be misunderstood. Swiss citizens, for example, might mistake it for a “housewife subsidy,” encouraging couples to live a traditional way of life where the wife stay at home. Or they might mistake it for a social “parking lot” for people who have no chance of finding a job.
“Basic income is a shift of power from capital to activity.”
(Andi Gross, SP)
These “dangers” all come from the same source: human nature. According to critics, people would misuse a basic income grant and live in ways that go against the expected norm.
At the end of the long day of debate, the parliamentarians voted 146 to 14 against the basic income petition. This vote, however, might reflect the influence of the upcoming referendum, as politicians tend to hesitate to stick their necks out too far. However, even while the overwhelming majority of politicians reject a basic income, an impressive proportion of the Swiss people support it. A poll in the newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, for instance, indicated that 49% of the public supports a basic income.
Despite the fear and negative vote, the debate marked progress in the movement for a basic income. As Alain Berset of the Swiss Federal Council remarked, the possibility even to debate this idea in the parliament of Switzerland is “of great value.”
The Council of States will debate the basic income initiative this winter. Then, in autumn 2016, the decision will fall to the Swiss citizens. The political class has identified its fear: the Swiss people and the danger of a “laziness” epidemic.
The referendum result will tell us if the Swiss people fear themselves too.
Che Wagner studied economic history. He is the director of the referendum campaign for a Basic Income in Switzerland.
