by Yannick Vanderborght | Dec 5, 2011 | Opinion
Thomas Paine and many other libertarians concerned with fundamental human rights, dreamt of the day when no one would suffer from want and basic income security should be garanteed to all. The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) promotes the idea among all countries. In Brazil, Senator Eduardo M. Suplicy has been the champion for the basic income, here called “Renda Básica de Cidadania – RBC” or citizen’s basic income.
Brazil developed gradually, since 1994, programs do help the poor. The Lula government united social programs that were dispersed and created the “Bolsa Família Program”, a system of conditional transfer of money linked to school attendance and vaccination. The family income has to be below a defined amount to qualify for the benefits. The program has been a great success. Nevertheless conditionalities require a large bureaucracy to monitor beneficiaries. Senator Suplicy introduced a bill to create an unconditional basic income for all and President Lula sanctioned the law in 2004.
Suplicy’s efforts triggered initiatives by ReCivitas (1). This small organization tried to start a pilot experiment in Paranapiacaba, based on withdrawals from a fund belonging to all, without success. Then ReCivitas started a mini-pilot experiment, using money from donors, to pay a RBC to almost 90 people in a rural “bairro” in São Paulo state. That experiment is doing well and has been described in BIEN’s Newsflash 65, november 2011.
The encounter of Suplicy and the mayor of Santo Antonio do Pinhal, a small city (~7,000 people) at the Mantiqueira mountains in São Paulo, started another effort to bring the idea to a real test. Volunteers explained the idea in meetings at schools, churches, and community spaces. In 2009 the town deputies sanctioned a law, presented by the mayor, that created a town’s fund to be fed by 6% of the city’s earnings. The rest was supposed to be provided by donors. The experiment was analysed by NEPP (2) a organization that is part of UNICAMP (3) and funded by CAF (4). A group of volunteers provided data about the town and stats were recorded, without any clear recommendation. Simultaneously Anthony Baert, from the Economics School of Louvain, Belgium, joined NEPP, had access to the same data, and published his own study (see BIEN’s Newsflash 65) of the known basic income experiments around the world, with an analysis of the existing proposal for Santo Antonio do Pinhal (5). His conclusion stated:
“based on this research, we make recommendations for the implantation of the Citizen’s Basic Income in Santo Antônio do Pinhal (Brazil). We conclude that it is not viable on the short and medium term and we suggest instead to first launch a five-year pilot project.”
We have been aware of the enormous difficulties to implement a fund-based solution to RBC for Santo Antonio do Pinhal. A Basic Income Grant (BIG) Bank is providing the resources at Quatinga Velho representing around 90 persons (see BIEN’s Newsflash 65). Anyone can imagine the difficulties to implement a funding through regular withdrawals from financial investments even for a small city. Above all, we believe that RBC is a basic right and should not depend on donations of any type, although welcome. This right must be provided by the federal government.
As a large proportion of the poor receive already from Bolsa Família, the transition to RBC is a thorny problem considering all that has been invested so far. Also the costs to switch to the universal and unconditional system of RBC right away, would seen dounting.
We believe that the solution to gradually implement the RBC, as President Lula’s 2004 sanctioned law demands, is to define a future date, say January 1, 2013. All children born in Brazil since that day will be registered as recipients of a monthly value (say R$ 50.00 or R$ 100,00) delivered to his mother or legal guardian.
Less than 2-4 billion reais would be used at the first year in Brazil. For Santo Antonio do Pinhal, 60,000 reais would pay the first year, below the 90,000 reais that the law already sanctioned, and reserved annualy for the RBC fund. Bureaucracy involved would be minimal, there will be no conflict with the Bolsa Família program, the implementation will be progressive, viable, manageable and definitive. The RBC gradually will substitute for the Bolsa Família program.
Sustainability at its core is to manage resources wisely. We side with the great Julian L. Simon (6): the most important natural resource is human creativity. Educated and creative human beings are the scarce and precious “material” we need. They will turn natural materials (ores, oil, land, sea, waters, space, etc) and existing knowledge and technologies (history, humanities, biology, physics, chemistry, etc) into valuable and life enhancing assets. Possibly the most important task is to garantee that the coming generations will receive full support in terms of education and health. This is not possible without a measure of income security that the RBC could provide. We must start right away – the pressures of an increasingly old population will tax the young of the future in unprecedented ways. Caring for them is caring for the future of people and environment.
1 ReCivitas – Instituto pela Revitalização da Cidadania – www.recivitas.org.br
2 NEPP – Núcleo de Estudos de Políticas Públicas
3 UNICAMP – Universidade Estadual de Campinas
4 CAF – Confederação Andina de Fomento
5 Anthony Baert – https://www.proac.uff.br/cede/sites/default/files/TD54.pdf
6 Julian L. Simon – The ultimate resource 2 – 1996 – Princeton University Press
Marina Pasetto Nobrega and Francisco G. Nobrega
maripnobrega@gmail.com or francisco.nobrega@gmail.com
Santo Antonio do Pinhal, Novembro de 2011
by Yannick Vanderborght | Oct 10, 2011 | Opinion
I graduated in Social Work in 1964 and back then, in Australia, we were three quarters of the way through the 23 years of unbroken conservative rule. The prevailing welfare ideology of the time was heavily influenced by the combination of providing assistance to those ‘in need’ whilst sifting out ‘malingers’ and others who could but wouldn’t work. There was a sense of noblesse oblige [nobility obliges one to assist others less fortunate than oneself]. Yet such ‘generosity’ was hedged around by a prevailing view that some people were ‘bludging’ on the system and this meant that social security officials were wary of being taken for a mug. Fortunately, the Labor Party had consolidated the social security legislation in 1947 in one Act and set out eligibility entitlements in clearly defined categories. The ideological biases of social security administrators only came into play at the edges. In church run and other not-for-profit organisations, which supplied many of the ancillary welfare services, such conservative ideologies were very much to the fore.
Competing welfare ideological circles
In tropical Australia on full and new moons [which create huge tidal flows] currents flow very strongly. Whenever such flows are constricted, for example, by the narrowing of passages between islands, ocean eddies are formed that are so powerful they can force boats off course. Such eddies form patterns which are as unpredictable as the turbulence created in a jug of boiling water. Whenever I listen to neo-conservative economic fundamentalists pontificating about the propensity of social security recipients to sink into the “mire of welfare dependency” I have a sense of deja vu. As I try to untangle the twisted amalgams of ideological thought, I am reminded of the turbulence of these ocean eddies. At the same time in my mind’s eye, I see a gatekeeper of an 18th century Poorhouse berating those who enter with warnings about impending ‘sloth and licentiousness’.
Some of the competing descriptions exhibiting such ideological constructions are:
socially approved/ deserving/ good moral character- including previously adequately supporting ‘his’ family. Married/ widowed/ unmarried mother/ separated/ divorced/ living in sin. Citizen/ permanent resident/ migrant/ refugee/ over stayers / asylum seekers/ boat people/ illegal arrivals. Worthy/ entitled/unworthy. Universalism/ individual/ targeted/ categorical. Able bodied/ disability /sick/ malingerer/ blind/ old/ worker/ unemployed/ skilled/ unskilled/ contributing/ productive/ unproductive/ dependent/ self-reliant/ adequate/ inadequate/ helpless / hopeless/ taxpayer/ dole bludger.
Many of these ideological conundrums and often several other arcane protestations pop up when neo-conservatives discuss welfare issues and they have been doing much the same for many centuries. Joel Handler (2002 p. 56, footnote No. 217) pointed to 1348 Statute of Labourers admonishing the provision of assistance to ‘sturdy beggars’. Guy Standing (2002, pp. 173-174) makes the point that: “the principles of workfare were enshrined in the English Poor Law of 1536 dealing with ‘sturdy vagabonds’, and in the French Ordonnance de Moulins of 1556. The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act in Great Britain, was designed to reach only the ‘deserving’ and desperate poor (italics in original)”. Jennifer Mays (forthcoming) notes that similar ideological constructions prevailed in Australia throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. There is little doubt that those who wish to limit the scope or generosity of income support provisions find the frequent repetition of dependency rhetoric useful. However, it should be noted that the veracity of an idea is not established by its longevity nor by how frequently it is asserted.
The distinctions which neo-conservatives attempt to make in these dependency/ self reliance debates are based on distortions of reality. They are, as Joshua Holland (2006) notes, “a ‘zombie lie’ – no matter how many times you shoot it in the face, it keeps coming back to haunt you.”
Currently, in Australia, the favourite prevailing welfare myths are:
- Australians pay high levels of taxation compared with the rest of the world,
- asylum seekers without visas arriving by boat are entering Australia illegally,
- Aborigines get exceedingly generous welfare payments compared with other citizens, and
- there is such a thing as a ‘self-funded retiree’.
The reality is that:
- “Australia has a low tax burden, both currently and historically. In 2003, Australia had the eighth lowest tax burden of the OECD-30 countries and has typically ranked in the bottom third of countries for the period since 1965” (Treasury 2003).
- Because Australia has signed and ratified the 1951 Convention on Refugees asylum seekers have every right to enter this country to seek protection.
- As a group, Aboriginal citizens are the least wealthy section of the society, who face the greatest health difficulties and they get less generous assistance than other Australians. This is sometimes because of the rural and remote regions in which they live. But mainly it is often due to Indigenous people’s lack of bureaucratic sophistication coupled with non-Aboriginal racism and governments’ determination to foist their ‘best intentions’ upon Indigenous citizens rather than to listen to Aboriginal peoples’ suggestions.
- The statement that, unlike age pensioners, ‘self-funded retirees’ don’t draw on the public purse’ is a nonsense – they get exceedingly generous tax waivers on their superannuation and, provided their income is below $50,000 annually, get government subsidised medicines. Some of the recently beatified ‘self-funded retirees’ get more assistance from the government (by way of tax concessions) than age pensioners get from the pension.
The left is left behind
The absence of logic, in many of the arguments propounded by rightwing ideologues about the need to force recipients of social security to meet onerous obligations in return for payment of benefits, should make it easy to destroy their arguments. But in Australia, as elsewhere, this is not the case. As George Monbiot points out:
rightwing movements thrive on their contradictions, the leftwing movements drown in them. Tea Party members who proclaim their rugged individualism will follow a bucket on a broomstick if it has the right label … Instead of coming together to fight common causes, leftwing meetings today consist of dozens of people promoting their own ideas, and proposing that everyone else should adopt them.
Australia in the 21st century
After the economic fundamentalist and thirdwayism of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments in the 1980s and 90s. John Howard came to power, in 1996, promising even more economic fundamentalism coupled with conservative social policies. He set out, with alacrity, to fight the ‘Culture Wars’ it didn’t matter whether it was winding back the Native Title legislation ‘to give pastoralists more certainty’, removing industrial award protection, enforcing individual work contracts, setting up Star Chambers which compelled building workers to give evidence, tightening disability support pension eligibility, enforcing ‘work for the dole’ provisions on ‘job snobs’ (by which he meant people who were unemployed), expanding mandatory detention of asylum seekers, introducing temporary protection visas for refugees (which did not allow family reunion), excising offshore islands from our migration zone, sending those who did not reach the Mainland to be processed on Nauru or Manus Island and launching the Northern Territory Intervention in 73 Aboriginal communities. This Intervention involved suspending the Racial Discrimination Act, compulsorily acquiring leases of town areas, quarantining half of people’s social security pensions and benefits on a Basics Card that could only be used for government approved purchases (Altman and Hinkson 2007).
Monbiot (2010, p.59) quotes with approval Thomas Franks 2004 book What’s the matter with Kansas? whose thesis is that the new conservatism systematically erases economic explanations by blaming the trouble of the poor not on corporate or class power, wage cuts and so forth but on cultural factors. In 2001, Brendon O’Connor argued that George Gilder and Charles Murray’s “central claim (was) that welfare causes dependency and thus unemployment and poverty – and that welfare reform therefore needs to focus on changing the behaviour of welfare recipients rather than providing employment opportunities (p.221).
In 2007, Kevin Rudd led Labor to victory – promising to wind-back the worst excesses of Howard’s Work Choices legislation and ending offshore processing of asylum seekers but maintaining the Intervention and other conservative social policies such as continuing the suspension of the racial discrimination legislation whilst leaving in place the prohibition of same sex marriage and euthanasia. In 2008-9, almost all developed countries experienced recession. Largely through counter-cyclical spending, Labor managed to avoid it. Rudd tried to introduce substantially increased mining taxes. The billionaire miners launched a massive anti-mining tax campaign that somehow convinced average Australians that the increased mining taxes, which Rudd was proposing, were not in their best interests. Just prior to the 2010 election, his Deputy, Julia Gillard, rolled Rudd. She immediately decreased the amount the mining taxes would add to Federal revenue and limited the types of mining that would attract a tax.
The subsequent election resulted in a hung parliament. Gillard’s minority government rules with the assistance of the Greens and three independents. Opinion polls put support for Labor in the high 20s. Gillard promised 2011 would be the ‘year of delivery’ when what we needed was a year of deliverance. Gone are the days when it could truly be said “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” (such as in the run up to Gough Whitlam’s 1972 electoral victory) when it seemed that grand improvements in social welfare were imminent: or in early 1975, when it appeared that the government was about to introduce a guaranteed minimum income. But, that was before the Dismissal of the Whitlam government by the Governor General on the 11th of November 1975; when progressive Australians realised that “Man always is but never To be blessed” (Pope 1733).
What is on the Gillard government’s agenda is revealed when she speaks about: wanting everyone to have a job ‘for the simple dignity that work brings’, or wanting to process asylum seekers, arriving in Australian waters, in Malaysia, or increasing the hurdles which those with disabilities have to jump-over before they will be considered eligible for a disability support pension, or maintaining many aspects of the Northern Territory Intervention, or moving to be able to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act by extending the quarantining of half people’s social security from just Northern Territory Aborigines to other disadvantaged groups in other parts of Australia (Tomlinson 2011) and at the same time increasing the compulsory superannuation levy from 9 to 12 per cent.
John Howard won the ‘Culture Wars’ and there is no-one in a leadership position within the Australian Labor Party with the ticker to take on the continuing conservative dominance of the of the ideological debate. The Parliament has literally become a coward’s castle. The words: equity, justice, equality, freedom, least restrictive, honour, decency, solidarity and ensuring everyone has an above the poverty line Basic Income have disappeared from the Australian lexicon.
Bibliography
Altman, Jon & Hinkson, Melinda (eds.) [2007] Coercive reconciliation, Arena, North Carlton.
Handler, J. (2002) “Social Citizenship and Workfare in the United States and Western Europe.” BIEN 9th International Conference, Geneva, Sept.12-14.
Holland, Joshua (2006) “Myth of the Liberal Nanny State.” AlterNet, June 8.
https://www.alternet.org/story/36895/myth_of_the_liberal_nanny_state/
Mays, Jennifer (forthcoming) Australia’s disabling income support system: Tracing the history of the Australian disability income support system 1908 to 2007 – disablism, citizenship and the Basic Income proposal. PhD thesis Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.
Monbiot, George (2010) “Bogus, Misdirected and Effective.” The Guardian, June 14.
O’Connor, Brendon (2001) “The Intellectual Origins of ‘Welfare Dependency’”. Australian Journal of Social Issues. Vol.36, No. 3, August pp.221-235.
Pope, Alexander (1733) “An Essay on Man, Epistle I”, Princeton.
https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rywang/berkeley/magic3/paris/singles/eternal_spring.html
Standing, Guy (2002) Beyond the New Paternalism: Basic Security as Equality. Verso, London.
Tomlinson, John (2011) “Needs must when the devil drives.” On Line Opinion
https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11494
Treasury (2003) “International Comparisons of Australia’s Taxes.” Australian Government
https://comparativetaxation.treasury.gov.au/content/report/html/05_Chapter_3.asp
by Yannick Vanderborght | Oct 3, 2011 | Opinion
Almost a half year has passed after the Great Earth Quake and Tsunami on March 11 in East Japan which jointly victimized nearly 16,000 people’s lives, made around 4,600 people missing, destroyed a large number of houses and facilities, and induced the nuclear power-plant accidents in Fukushima. The 3 prefectures (Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima) in the Pacific coast district of Tohoku [North East] Japan were severely double-devastated by the earth quake and tsunami. In addition, people living in areas surrounding the nuclear-power plant were forced to evacuate from the caution zones. For families which lost their members and houses, a lot of funds were raised by the private sector domestically and internationally, and the funds have been concentrated to the Red Cross Japan and others and distributed to the prefectures in the disaster districts. However, the distribution of consolation money to the sufferers is slumbering because many municipal governments have lost their offices and staff members. Prefecture governments in the disaster districts have built about 100,000 provisional housings (free of rent), accommodating many evacuees. Although many households intend to rebuild their own houses, they cannot get refinance of mortgages unless they refund their previous mortgage on the block. Still today, more than 6000 people are living in shelters.
What is the most serious problem is that most sufferers lost their income sources.
Employed workers lost their jobs because their work places were destroyed or swept away, and even survived firms are in difficulty to purchase parts and materials and to restore customers, and many of the firms suspended their businesses and eventually got into bankrupt. Thus a lot of workers lost their employment.
According to Asahi Shimbun [newspaper] (2011.9.6), 63,352 people in the 3 prefectures (Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima) were registered as disaster-affected job seekers at public employment security offices from March to July. Among them only 13,017 people (20.5 %) got jobs by the end of July. It is estimated that 30 % of job seekers got jobs through public employment secure offices nationwide in the same period. The lowliness of re-employment rate of job seekers in the devastated zones is notable. Asahi said “It is sure that more than a half of the disaster-affected job seekers have not been reemployed yet.” Among the job seekers 60,221 people were provided unemployment allowance from April to July (the first period of payment). For most of them the covering period of the insurance is 2 months. They can get an extension period of 2 months under the existing scheme, and 2 months under the extra rule for the disaster-affected job seekers. In any case, there will be a sharply increasing number of job seekers outside of the unemployment insurance starting in coming October.
The Pacific coast of Tohoku Japan has an industrial concentration of fishery and fish processing. However, many of the fishing boats were destroyed or swept away, fishing harbors and fish markets lost their function, and many of the processing factories were destroyed. Fishermen and fishery-related employees lost their job. Farmland in this area (mainly rice fields) was flooded by seawater and the soil got a high level of saline. It may need a couple of years to resume rice cultivation. Shipping regulations on and consumer avoidance of the agriculture, meat and fishery products from these areas in the concern about the radioactivity contamination due to the diffusion of radio-active matters caused by the nuclear power plant accidents are giving further sufferings to the farmers and fishermen.
In response to this situation, the government is trying to expand financing and subsidizing for reconstruction of these industries respectively. However, these programs are operated within the framework of existing schemes; therefore, they entail minute conditions and cumbersome procedures. They are not easily available for the people in hurry. Under the circumstances, it will take a long time to recover production and employment. Therefore, it is desirable to ensure income for the sufferers, i.e. paying basic income by the government on a temporary basis.
The activists and researchers concerned, centering on BIJP (Basic Income Japan Pursuers), have been campaigning for establishment of a Basic Income scheme for the sufferers. They organized 2 meetings in the Parliament House (to impress politicians) after April. They insist as follows:
1) The government should pay 150,000 JPY (2,700 USD) per month to all of the sufferers unconditionally and individually for 5 years.
The un-conditionality and individuality can enable the beneficiaries to flexibly plan living and get through situations responding to each condition of work, production and living.
Along with the basic income, the government and local municipal governments should enhance in-kind services such as care for elderly citizens, disabled citizens and children, job training, employment placement and so on.
2) If the scheme is targeted within people in the 3 Tohoku prefectures (Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima), the estimated number of beneficiaries are 5,670,000. The necessary budget is around 10 trillion JPY (180 billion USD) per year.
The government estimates the funds necessary for rehabilitation as a whole at between 20 to 30 trillion JPY. In addition, 10 trillion JPY may necessary for compensation for damages by the nuclear plant accidents. It is impossible to cover such a huge budget by usual measures such as tax increasing, budge cut down and issue of usual government bonds. A simple and effective measure is that the government issues extra government bonds and the Bank of Japan (the central bank of Japan) buys all of the bonds. The fund from the bank of Japan will be all used by the government. This means in effect that the government itself issues currency on security of its financial credibility. It may be a sort of government-issue note. This financial measure will not increase governmental debt at all.
by Yannick Vanderborght | Sep 19, 2011 | Opinion
Japan’s social security system until now has been dependent on support from corporations and employers. Due to Japan’s present economic circumstances, however, they have become unable to endure such burdens any more. Basically, the aim of private corporations is to earn profits from their businesses and pay taxes from the profits. They are not intended to play the role of financiers for community welfare systems. Such expectations to them are, by the nature, unreasonable. Alternatively, I would argue that it may be reasonable for the government to directly secure people’s lives.
The causes of poverty are joblessness, inability to work due to illness or other conditions, low wages even in employment, and other reasons. Although Japan’s unemployment rate has been increasing during the recent economic stagnation, it has stayed at around 5 %, low when compared with those of other developed countries whose unemployment rates are around 10 %. Meanwhile, Japan’s poverty rate, as often pointed out, is close to that of the United States among the developed countries. This means that there are many “working poor” (low-paid employees) in Japan. This phenomenon has been supposedly impermissible in developed countries, because evidence of capitalism’s advantage when compared with socialism is that people willing to work are employed and paid enough to enjoy decent lives. One may be poor because he/she is lazy or ill. The former is deemed as an example of self-responsibility. The latter can be easily remedied with measures by the government. Thus capitalism functions well. This has been the basic justification for capitalism.
Costs of useless works
Let’s think the matter through simply. To be poor is to have little or no income. If so, the government should directly provide cash aid to the poor, i.e. the government pays basic incomes at a certain level to everyone. This is the most assured way to eliminate poverty in a country.
One may argue against this by saying that everyone would quit working to earn money, or that because working creates one’s self-respect and discipline, such a scheme would ruin the mechanism forming society.
Such abstract discussions are not useful. Let’s look at what the government has been doing. It has been promoting public works projects in order to maintain local employment. Let’s take the Yamba Dam project for example. When one looks at the huge bridge footings built near to the dam-building site, one may suppose that a large number of jobs have been created during the building of the bridge. As a matter of fact, the total amount of budget for this project is 460 billion JPY [around 5.4 billion USD](*), expended appropriation of 320 billion JPY [around 3.8 billion USD] and backlogged of 140 billion JPY [around 1.7 billion USD]. Further more, additional budget of 100 billion JPY [around 1.2 billion USD] is needed to continue its construction. In reality, however, almost all of the budgets have been spent on steel and concrete. In spite of this huge amount of budget, the dam’s utility or necessity is still a focus of discussion. Even in such a large construction project, local construction businesses have little involvement. Complex jobs can only be performed by talented persons. Such talents should have been utilized for other more necessary projects. The costs of useless projects performed by talented persons are much higher than not having them work at all.
(*) Translator Note: The conversion rate is set at 1 USD=85 JPY.
Or, let’s track back to China during the Great Cultural Revolution. It took superior capability for people on both sides: people who survived the rough time in the fear of being purged as anti-revolutionaries; and on the other hand, people who tried to move up the ladders in the oppressing force. Their talents were spent on useless activities and contributed to nothing to increase the wealth of the country. It becomes clear by comparison between the poverty of China during the Cultural Revolution and the great increase in wealth produced after the Cultural Revolution. Useless works are more sinful than doing nothing.
One may argue against me, saying that I am trying to convince readers of a general issue by presenting extreme examples. When you examine the public works projects throughout the nation, however, you will admit that I am not presenting the case of the Yamba dam project as an extreme example. The state would be much better off directly providing people with incomes rather than designing and implementing useless works projects expending excessive budgets.
In my view, because the Japanese constitution in its article 25, in fact, provides that “All people shall have the right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living”, people’s incomes should be ensured unconditionally. Although article 25 requires ensuring a subsistent level of life, it does not require doing so by increasing other people’s burdens.
Japan Has Sufficient Revenue for Direct Payment of Basic Incomes.
Whether for or against Basic Income idea, it is natural for people to question if we at present have the revenues to directly provide basic incomes. Therefore, I will answer this question first. The Japanese government used use to try to ensure people’s living by forcibly creating public works programs, providing aid for agriculture and small businesses and so on. There are, of course, policies to ensure the right to a living, such as welfare public assistance and others. How much budget is allocated to these policies? If such budget were allocated to direct provision of incomes to people, how much could we benefit? (My following estimation is based on the budget for the FY 2009 unless otherwise noted.)
The central government’s budget for public works within the general account was 7 trillion JPY [around 82.6 billion USD]. When including budgets for the same purpose within the special account and municipal governments, i.e. on the basis of National Economic Accounting, the total budget amounts to 19.6 trillion [around 231 billion USD] (FY 2008). The budget for agriculture aid within the general account amounts to 2.6 trillion JPY [around 30.7 billion USD]. Municipal governments had agriculture expenditure of 3.9 trillion JPY [around 46 billion USD], according to a survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications published in 2007 (the budgets referred to hereafter are derived from the same source). Because most of the central government’s agriculture budget is allocated to subsidies for municipal governments’ agriculture aid, it is natural to assume that the total budget for agricultural aid in Japan amounts to around 3.9 trillion JPY [around 46 billion USD]. The budget within the general account for small business sheltering amounted to 200 billion JPY [around 2.36 billion USD], along with the municipal governments’ budgets for the same purpose of 4.9 trillion JPY [around 57.8 billion USD]. The welfare-public-assistance budget of the central government amounted to 2.1 trillion JPY [around 24.8 billion USD] along with 18.7 trillion JPY [around 220.7 billion USD] for social welfare expenses. These budgets of 47.1 trillion JPY [around 555.8 billion USD] were expended, in effect, to help the poor. Let’s suppose that we cut the budget by half and allocate the half, 23.6 trillion JPY [around 27.8 billion USD] for financing basic incomes for people. Furthermore, 2.4 trillion JPY [around 28.3 billion USD] of the public expenditure for unemployment insurance can be added to the revenue. Thus, 26 trillion JPY [around 306.8 billion USD] in total, could be used to directly ensure basic incomes for people.
Setting the level of a basic income and its grounds
According to the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions (2007), the number of households with annual incomes under 1 million JPY [around 11,800 USD] is 2,980 thousand; 5,620 thousand under 2 million JPY [around 23,600 USD]. The per capita income in average of the households under 1 million JPY was 380,000 JPY per month; 870,000 JPY [around 10,300 USD] under 2 million JPY [around 23,600 USD]. Based on an estimated average head-count in a household, there were 3.9 million people with an annual income of 380,000 JPY [around 4,484 USD]; 9.65 million people with 870,000 JPY [around 10,266 USD]. When we assume that a half of 9.65 million people had an annual income less than 870,000 JPY, the number of people with an annual income under 870,000 JPY was 8.73 millions. (9.65 million/2 + 3.9 millions = 8.73 millions).
The 8.73 million people might have an annual income over 380,000 JPY [around 4,484 USD]. Therefore, we need to pay 8.73 million people 490,000 JPY [around 5,782 USD]. It is the gap between 870,000 JPY and 380,000 JPY. Its total cost is only 4.3 million JPY [around 50.7 billion USD].
To counter the criticism that any basic income would damage people’s work incentive, we would be better to design a system in which people who are paid subsistence basic incomes may earn additional income through their jobs. In my sample system, if a person who is paid a basic income of 70,000 JPY [around 826 USD] a month earns 50,000 JPY [around 590 USD] a month through his/her job, he/she is taxed on only the earning of 50,000 JPY [around 590 USD] at the rate of 30 %, leaving 35,000 JPY [around 413 USD] other than 70,000 JPY [around 826 USD] at their hand as a net income. Let me proceed to a more detailed design of the system and an estimation of the cost.
Basically, the annual income of every person will be {(his/her earning×0.7) + (given basic income of 840,000 JPY)} a year. People without their own earnings will be paid a basic income of 840,000 JPY. Every one will be taxed on their own earnings at the rate of 30 %. If their own earnings reach 2.8 million JPY [around 33,000 USD], they will have to pay a tax of 840,000 JPY. This equals the amount of their given basic income of 840,000 JPY [around 99,100 USD].
Here, I set the level of the basic income at 70,000 JPY [around 826 USD] a month (840,000 JPY a year [around 9,900 USD]). Let’s compare this amount with the existing cash payment for welfare. Under the present public assistance system, a married couple living in Tokyo receives 190,000 JPY [around 2,220 USD] a month including housing allowance. Wiping out this benefit to substitute it with a basic income will greatly reduce the amount of their benefits.
This reduction can be justified by the following reasons. First one is the relatively high level of current Japanese welfare public assistance. It is higher than the equivalent benefits in UK, France and Germany by 20 % to 30 %. (See my “Why is Japan poor?” Tokyo, Shinchosha Publishing, 2009, p.92). The present level of welfare public assistance is 120,000 JPY [around 2,160 USD] for a single person, 190,000 [around 2,242 USD] for a married couple. If these benefits are replaced with basic incomes of 70,000 JPY a month, single persons’ income will be reduce to 60%, married couples to 70 %, of the present level. The reduced levels of benefits are almost the same as the above exemplified countries. Secondly, the real coverage rate of the welfare public assistance scheme in Japan is much lower to stay at only 0.7 % of the total population. Professor Toshiaki TACHIBANAKI at the Doshisha University estimates that 13 % of the Japanese population lives with incomes below the criteria of the welfare public assistance system. (See his “The Gap Society,” Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten Publishers, 2006, p.18.) Even at the modest level, it is an urgent task to institute a basic income scheme to cover as many people as possible in need. Thirdly, it is evidence of the high level of Japan’s welfare public assistance that the so-called “Hinkon [povery] Business” is now thriving in Japan, in which criminal groups provide small rooms for poor people, mostly homeless people, and facilitate them to apply to and obtain welfare public assistance, and then poach large portion of the benefit as a commission and room rent.
A Concrete Framework of a Basic Income scheme
Here, I present a basic income scheme which the government would directly deposit 840,000 JPY [around 9,912 USD] as a basic income every year in the account of every adult regardless of marital status or number of nonworking dependents. In return, almost all tax credits under the present income tax systems, including basic allowance, and others for spouses and dependents would be cancelled. The existing “Children Allowance” scheme would continue, however the Dependent Children Allowance would be cancelled. As for those over 65, the existing pension systems would continue to cover them. (The basic proportions of the existing pension systems, the integration of which is now being debated, should be financed by tax revenues. But this issue is to be discussed elsewhere.) Thus, all Japanese adults between 20 and 64 (74.76 millions of the Japanese population of 127.5 millions as of 2009) would be given basic incomes and it would resolve the poverty problem of Japan. The total budget for this scheme to rescue people from poverty would be 63 trillion JPY [around 743.4 billion USD]. Next we will look at a national income survey.
According to the “National Economic Accounting 2008” published by the Cabinet Office, the total employment income in 2008 was 262 trillion JPY [around 3.09 trillion USD], and the total mixed income was 17 trillion JPY [around 200 billion USD]. (Mixed incomes consist of fruits from self-employed workers’ assets and their own work.) If the government taxes on this 262 trillion JPY at the rate of 30 %, 79 trillion JPY [around 932.2 billion USD] will come into its revenue. The gap between 79 trillion JPY and 63 trillion JPY needed for the basic income provision is 16 trillion JPY [around 188 billion USD]. This 16 trillion JPY equals the total revenue of the government from the individual income taxes at the present level. In the case of a household formed by a husband with an annual income of 5.6 million JPY [around 66,080 USD] and a wife with no earnings, they would be paid 1.68 million JPY [around 19,800 USD] in total per year as a basic income, and would pay the same amount of income tax (at the rate of 30 %). Their income tax would be zero in effect. Under the present tax system, however, the same husband is entitled to a deduction for employment income, spouse, dependents, and a basic deduction. Thus, his tax burden is only 100,000 JPY [around 118 USD] or more. As I mentioned earlier, we already have 26 trillion JPY [around 307 billion USD] coming from cutting expenditures for the public works projects and subsidies for agriculture and small businesses, welfare public assistance, and the public burden for unemployment insurance. With this revenue, a basic income scheme is affordable enough in today’s Japan.
The estimated financial costs for each income class are shown in the table below. The indicated incomes are not those of households but individuals. Under my proposed basic income scheme, everyone from the age of 20 to 64 would be paid 70,000 JPY per month or 840,000 JPY per year in their bank account regardless of their marital status. There would be no dependents exception in the tax system any more. 12.6 trillion JPY [around 148.7 billion USD] would be paid to 14.97 million persons with no income. 5.8 trillion JPY [around 68.4 billion USD] would be overpaid to the class with incomes under 1 million JPY. This amount is the difference between the basic income (840,000 JPY) they will get and their tax duty at the rate of 30 %.
Although it entails a budgetary cost of 15.6 trillion JPY [around 184.1 billion USD], this basic income scheme would wipe out the welfare public assistance and greatly curtail the budgets for public works projects, and aid for small businesses and agriculture. The basic income scheme is affordable with expenditure of 15.6 trillion JPY, significantly lower than current 26 trillion JPY [around 306.8 billion USD] for these existing schemes and works. The basic income scheme would also prevent intervening in the labor market such as extreme increases of the minimum wage and prohibition of labor dispatch services. This is because workers’ income would be secured by the basic income scheme.
The difference of 10.4 trillion JPY [around 122.7 billion USD] between 26 trillion [around 306.8 billion USD] and 15.6 trillion JPY [182.9 billion USD] would be available for many other objectives: support for the aging population, financial rehabilitation, income tax reduction, national economic stimulus and so on.
by Karl Widerquist | Sep 12, 2011 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
I write a lot about the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG)—about its labor-market effects, its use as cushion against instability, and so. In this essay I want to explain in simple terms why I believe it is so worth talking about.
The main reason I support BIG is that it is time to get serious about the elimination poverty. Most, if not all, the countries of the world today have the technical capacity to eliminate poverty and economic destitution. The more industrialized countries of the world have had this capacity for decades, and I believe it is now possible on a worldwide basis. In a world with so much wealth we must no longer force people to live with poverty, fear, destitution, and extreme economic uncertainty. We need to reach a state of economic maturity in which any poverty in our midst is unacceptable.
If we’re ready to talk about the elimination of poverty, BIG is the policy that can do it best, and it may be the only policy that can do it comprehensively. Because BIG is universal and unconditional, it has no cracks to fall through. It puts a floor beneath everyone’s income. If that floor is above the poverty line, poverty is eliminated universally.
Although BIG might have radical effects, it is not such a radical move. It streamlines and strengthens the welfare system to make it more effective and more comprehensive. Most nations of the world are already spending a substantial amount of money on poverty relief, but too much of that money is going to overhead costs, supervision of the poor, the creation of hoops for the poor to jump through to prove they are worthy, and so on.
Economic destitution is the biggest threat to freedom in the democratic nations of the world today. To be destitute is to be unfree. Economically destitute people are unfree to sleep undisturbed, unfree to urinate, unfree to wash themselves, and unfree to use the resources of the world to meet their own needs. (Jeremy Waldron has an excellent essay on this issue, “Homelessness and the Issue of Freedom,” in this book, Liberal Rights.) The destitute are unfree in the most liberal, negative sense of the word: the destitute are not unable to wash themselves or unable to use the resources of the world to meet their needs, they are unfree to do these things. Because our government enforces a property rights regime that says some people control natural resources and other people do not, someone will interfere with them if they try to do these things that they are very capable of doing.
Poverty is not a fact of nature. Poverty is the result of the way our societies have chosen to distribute property rights to natural resources. For millions of years no one interfered with our ancestors as they used the resources of the world to meet their needs. No one failed to wash because they were too lazy to find a stream. No one urinated in a common thoroughfare because they were too lazy to find a secluded place to do so. Everyone was free to hunt and gather and make their camp for the night as they pleased. No one had to follow the orders of a boss to earn the right to make their living. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were not rich, but they were not poor as we know it today. Our laws today make it illegal for people to satisfy the most natural and simple bodily needs, and our laws make homelessness such a fact of life that we can believably pretend that it’s all their own fault. There are billions of people today who are more poorly nourished than their hunter-gatherer ancestors. It cannot be simply their own fault. We have chosen one way to distribute rights to natural resources; we can just as easily choose a system that does not create poverty as a side-effect.
Many writers have argued BIG has a very good work incentive built into its structure, but the most common objection to BIG is not so much about work incentives as it is about a moral obligation to work. The argument I have in mind goes as follows. BIG is something-for-nothing, and something-for-nothing is unacceptable. People have a moral obligation to work. Lazy people who will not work should not be rewarded with anything. Therefore, any social benefits should be conditional on at least the willingness to accept employment. Even if BIG has better work incentives than conditional welfare programs, we must reject it because it allows some able people to receive something for nothing and shirk their obligation to work. I believe this is a common argument in everyday political discourse, and versions of it have appeared in the philosophical criticism of BIG.
This argument has several problems. I’ll discuss two of them. The first problem with it is that BIG cannot be accurately characterized as something for nothing. All societies impose many rules on every individual. Consider the discussion of homelessness above. Why can’t homeless people build their own shelter and their own latrine? Why can’t they drink out of a clean river? Why can’t they hunt, gather, or plant and harvest their own food? They cannot do these things because the state has made rules saying they don’t have the right to do these things. The state has imposed rules saying that almost all the resources of the Earth belong to someone else. Those of us who benefit from the rules by which our society distributes ownership of the Earth’s natural resources benefit every day from the state’s interference with the propertyless, and we pay them no compensation. A state without BIG is the state that has something for nothing.
BIG is (and should be seen) not as something for nothing but as the just compensation for all the rules of property and property regulations society imposes on individuals. Democracies, hopefully, make these rules with the consent of the majority. But even the best democracies cannot obtain everyone’s consent. No government can function unless it imposes its rules on the willing and unwilling alike. Governments, therefore, have a responsibility to make sure that their rules are not an undue burden on anyone.
Governments can live up to this responsibility by applying a simple principle in which each person pays for the parts of the Earth they use and receives a share of the payment for the parts other people use. One person’s assertion of ownership of some of the Earth’s resources necessarily involves interference with anything anyone else might want to do with those resources. Under a resource-tax-financed BIG, those who (directly or indirectly) pay more in resource taxes than they receive in the BIG are paying for the privilege of enjoying more resources than the average person. They are paying compensation for the interference they impose on everyone else. Those who receive more in BIG than they pay in resource taxes are being compensated for having less access to the Earth’s natural resources than everyone else. BIG is most distinctly not something for nothing. Furthermore, those who pay more than they receive do so voluntarily and willingly. They obviously think it is worthwhile to pay what they do for resources they hold or they would choose to hold fewer resources and become a net recipient.
The second problem with the work-obligation argument against BIG is that it conflates two different senses of the word “work”—one that means toil and one that means employment or time spent making money. In the toil sense, work simply means to apply effort whether it is for one’s own or for someone else’s benefit. In the employment sense work means to work for someone else—such as a client or a boss. Anyone with access to resources can meet their needs by working only for themselves or with others of their choosing. But people without access to resources have no other choice but to work for someone else, and they have to work for the same group of people whose control over resources makes it impossible for the propertyless to work only for themselves.
Working for someone else entails the acceptance of rules, terms, and subordination, all of which are things that a reasonable person might object to. There is nothing wrong with working for someone else and accepting the conditions of work as long as the individual chooses to do so. But because we deny people access to resources they need to stay alive until they work for someone who has some control over resources, we deny their natural ability to refuse. We force them, not to work, but to work for at least one member of a particular group of people.
We can create an economy based on truly voluntary trade and voluntary participation by applying the principle described above in which each person pays for the parts of the Earth they use and receives a share of the payment for the parts other people use. With a sufficient BIG to draw on, each person has the power to decide for themselves whether the offers in the job market are good enough to deserve their participation. Nothing protects a person better than the power to refuse. This power will protect not only the poor and marginal but all of us.
-Karl Widerquist, written mostly in Morehead City, North Carolina, August 2011
I discuss most of the arguments in this essay in greater detail in the following articles:
Widerquist, Karl. 1999. “Reciprocity and the Guaranteed Income,” Politics and Society 33: 386-401. https://works.bepress.com/widerquist/12.
Widerquist, Karl 2006. Property and the Power to Say No: A Freedom-Based Argument for Basic Income. Doctoral Dissertation. The University of Oxford.
Widerquist, Karl. 2010. “The Physical Basis of Voluntary Trade,” Human Rights Review 11: 83-103. https://works.bepress.com/widerquist/12.
Widerquist, Karl. 2010. “What Does Prehistoric Anthropology have to do with Modern Political Philosophy? Evidence of Five False Claims.” USBIG Discussion Paper no. 206. https://works.bepress.com/widerquist/19.
Widerquist, Karl. Forthcoming. “Is Universal Basic Income Still Worth Talking About?” The Economics of Inequality, Poverty and Discrimination in the 21st Century. Robert S Rycroft (ed.)
by Yannick Vanderborght | Sep 4, 2011 | Opinion
Anniversaries are poignant human moments, points on a journey, never an end in themselves. Twenty-five years ago, on September 4-6, 1986, a small group of us held a workshop on basic income, and on September 6 decided to set up a network, BIEN. The memory is blurred; the documentation is scattered. However, this 25th anniversary is a testament to several aspects of BIEN, and it is perhaps acceptable to reflect on the journey so far.
It is intriguing that a core of the group that set up BIEN has remained active in its cause. Many of the original group, including this writer, had written papers advocating and justifying a basic income before we established BIEN. At the time, and for long afterwards, we were regarded by many of our colleagues and friends outside BIEN as quirky, idealistic, stupidly utopian or naïve. I recall the Director of the ILO’s Social Security Department using the expression ‘bad, mad and dangerous to know’. We have always had members who had a talent for giving some credence to that simplistic denigration. But neither they nor the insults have dimmed the light.
I doubt if any of us would have imagined that BIEN would last more than a couple of years, if that. The longevity is a tribute to many in that group, some of whom moved out after playing important roles, some played leading roles before retiring to the ranks, some moved out and then returned, refreshed. Some of the early figures have died; they are not forgotten. Some of the fresh-faced, long-haired youths who were at the inaugural meeting have shamelessly gone on to become grand-fathers and grand-mothers. It happens.
In BIEN, it has always been true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It has always had distinguished social thinkers, some of whom have gone on to become distinguished names in their field. Yet we have always recognised that it is the collective network, not individuals, which makes BIEN special. In a sense, at a personal level, a network such as ours is an exercise in associational freedom, in that the voluntary unpaid nature of what we have been trying to do together has strengthened each of us, to a greater or lesser degree. Would we have held the line if we had worked individually? I doubt it.
What has also been invigorating is that BIEN has always been ecumenical. Many who have added to its vitality have been profoundly religious and spiritual, many others have been atheists or agnostics. Politically too, we have avoided sectarianism. Some have been on the political right, others have been solidly on the left. It is testament to our charter and the many individuals who have steered the network that BIEN has always been a ‘broad church’. Nobody has been turned away or been subject to insults or disdain because of their personal views. If they have wanted to join the conversation, they have been welcome.
From the outset, there has been at least two lines of thinking that have dominated our conversation, one that is broadly philosophical and libertarian, stressing the appeal of a basic income as a right and as a stand-alone matter, the other that basic income should be seen as one component of a redistributive political and economic strategy. A third line has always been there as well, but has become increasingly important, the potential of a basic income as a means of enhancing a more gendered and ecologically viable future. Perhaps it is this third line that will prove decisive in the next few years.
In sum, a fundamental defining feature of BIEN members is that they have been and will remain inherently non-conformists, in the great tradition of thinking that defines humanity. We all believe there is an alternative.
That leads to what has been the primary means by which BIEN has flourished, our national networks and our Congresses. Those networks have tended to fluctuate, sometimes depending on the energies of one or two people, to the extent of making them fragile as their leading lights move through busy lives. But it has been particularly invigorating to see how new networks have emerged in recent years.
This has partly been associated with the great change we made to our name, going from BIEN to BIEN in Barcelona in 2004, when after some background wrangling, we opted to formalise reality by changing the “E” from Europe to Earth, recognising that an increasing proportion of our members were from outside Europe. Looking back, it seems obvious that the name change should be made.
For some in our ranks that was not obvious at the time. Some worried that we would lose our focus; some worried that if, as was felt appropriate, we alternated our Congresses between a European city and one outside Europe that members would only be able to afford to go to one Congress every four years. The former fear has proved unfounded; the latter fear has meant we have a greater responsibility to raise funds to enable as many people as wish to come to be able to do so.
As for the networks, it has been impressive that the second generation have been daring and invigorating. It is invidious to single out particular networks, but besides our wonderful members in Brazil and Argentina, it has been exciting to see the emergence of BIN-Italia, BIKN in Korea, BIJN in Japan and USBIG in North America. My dream at the moment is to see one in India. In this huge and wonderful country, the debate about income security has suddenly become very topical.
As for our Congresses, I am sure many of us proverbially pinch ourselves from time to time in wondering how we have done them. Every single one has started with a sense of trepidation among the nominated organisers. Who is going to do the work? Where are we going to obtain the money? What should the themes be? Who will be our plenary speakers? Will there be enough quality papers?
Practically every Congress has had its moments of crisis during the organisational phase. And yet all have taken place, and an assessment of their evolution and contents would make a fascinating topic, perhaps for a Ph.D. Let me just recall the places where we have held our Congresses since our inauguration in Louvain-la-Neuve in September 1986. In chronological order they have been held in Antwerp, Florence, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin, Geneva, Barcelona, Cape Town, Dublin and Sao Paolo. The names trip off the tongue as great cities. In each case, those who did the incredible amount of preparatory work deserve tremendous credit.
In every Congress, there were wonderful contributions, often from newcomers, sometimes from distinguished politicians or personalities. Who could forget the moving speech made by Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Cape Town Congress? Of course, no BIEN members had anything to do with the content of his speech. It was the delivery and the commitment shown by him that moved us. It is almost unfair to single him out, since over the years there have been numerous fascinating contributions.
At the Sao Paolo Congress, I recall a private chat with a fellow founder member in which we both remarked how extraordinary it was to find that we learned new ideas and interpretations at every Congress. Only a small fraction of the papers presented over the years have ever been published; I have a volume from the Geneva Congress in front of me now. However, probably over 600 papers have been presented at the thirteen Congresses.
What then of the cause? Twenty-five years is a long time to have been refining our thinking without success. Well, progress has been substantial. In an early paper in the 1980s, I predicted that social policy would drift to workfare before an unconditional universal basic income became part of mainstream thinking, essential for responding to the growing inequalities and insecurities. Regrettably, workfare has been ushered into reality, in the United States, in the UK and in various ways elsewhere. It runs counter to any legitimate idea of freedom, and is divisive. It may grow uglier before there is a revolt against it. Then, I believe, our time will come.
In that regard, we might reflect on three quotations that have stayed with me during the twenty-five years. The first is a nice aphorism from Barbara Wootton:
“It is from the champions of the impossible
rather than the slaves of the possible
that evolution draws its creative force.”
We all know the feeling of being told a basic income is an impossibility. Usually, it is said by people who either presume it is impossible because it has never been done or do not wish it to be possible, because it might mean less for themselves or for their kind.
The second comes from William Morris, one of the early advocates of a basic income in his News from Nowhere. It was not from that book that the saying comes, but seems hugely relevant today.
“I….pondered how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.”
Those words were written in 1886. What is in a name? Probably, most of us in BIEN have toyed with terms that might work better than the familiar basic income – ‘social dividend’, ‘citizen’s income’, ‘basic income grant’ (BIG), and so on. In the UK at the moment, the government’s new universal credit is not a basic income, but could be seen as a major step in creating a basis for moving towards what we might regard as a basic income.
The third statement is from a stranger fellow traveller. In 1947, a small group of 36 mavericks, led by Friedrich Hayek, convened a meeting in Montreux and set up the Mont Pelerin Society. Their ideology would not appeal to most BIEN members. However, for the best part of thirty years they met and wrote and lobbied, mostly ignored or regarded with disdain by conventional circles. In his preface to his 1982 edition of his famous Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman, who had been a young economist at that 1947 meeting, wrote:
“Our basic function is to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the political impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
Perhaps he was being a little cute, since his thinking had become part of the Washington Consensus by then. None of us think we are analogous to the overtly political Mont Pelerin Society, but after decades of neglect, no less than eight of its 36 founders went on to receive Nobel Prizes in economics. My nominations go in on Monday!
More generally, the view that ideas go from being disregarded to being mainstream only after 30 years has, not surprisingly, appealed to me during the past 25 years. One could say that basic income is one of those ideas that Albert Hirschmann had in mind in saying that whenever a new progressive idea comes up it is subject to three reactions – the claim of futility (that it would be ineffectual), the claim of jeopardy (that it would endanger other goals), and the claim of perversity (that it would have unintended consequences). We have certainly faced those claims, and still do. But fewer people are being convinced by them.
As for the 30 years before an idea comes into its own, I feel quietly optimistic that we are ahead of the curve.
Why is that? First, in the so-called rich countries social policy is in disarray, while insecurity and inequality have become pervasive and threatening to the social stability of society. In this, the precariat has become pivotal, growing angrier and more alienated by the day and filling the squares of cities in numerous countries.
Second, we have seen a remarkable development in developing countries in the past decade. Here we have to admit that back in the 1980s we did not anticipate the extraordinary progress the debate on basic income would make in the near future. Yet in the past decade in particular, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, forms of non-contributory cash transfer have become hugely popular. We have seen the spread of so-called conditional cash transfers in Latin America and elsewhere.
These are not basic income schemes, being selective, targeted and conditional. However, they have legitimised the payment of cash in monthly payments as a vehicle to overcome poverty and insecurity. The task now is simpler – to show conclusively that targeting, selectivity and conditionality are profoundly wrong. Each day one can find more evidence and each day one can find that prominent policymakers have lost their confidence in one or other of the three. Conditionality is the worst of the challenges before us. It is pervasive and part of the new orthodoxy among politicians and some international financial agencies, notably the World Bank.
While the struggle goes on to show that conditionality is paternalistic, divisive and contrary to ideas of freedom and equality, a quiet revolution is taking place – basic income has been accepted as a legitimate option in development discourses. And we are seeing several countries where something like it is ‘on the cards’ or being tried. All BIEN members know of the law of 2004 in Brazil committing its government to a basic income. All BIEN members have been thrilled by the Namibian experiment. Now, we are in the middle of a pilot scheme in villages in India and in part of Delhi. Others in Brazil and elsewhere have lifted our spirits.
At national level, what amount to short-term basic income schemes have become integral to relief programmes following ecological and social shocks. And we are seeing national moves towards our goal in some unexpected places, including Mongolia and Iran. We should not be carried away by these. However, they may turn out to be harbingers of a breakthrough. The evidence piles up that if the financial constraints are lifted, people everywhere act rationally in the interest of their families and their communities. The essential optimism that lies in the heart of all BIEN members is being supported in wonderful ways.
All of this is for more considered analysis on later occasions. A point on a journey is one for lightness, for reflecting on what drives us. At core, it is a sentiment that goes back thousands of years – a sense of social justice. In that regard, I am reminded of Aristotle’s wondrous words about philia. As I look back at our modest efforts, I can only think right now that BIEN has been, is and will remain a tribute to the virtues of friendship. For what has kept it together is a spirit of philia cemented by a common bond of wanting to make the world of inequality and exploitation a little better for all those who are economically insecure.
La lotta continua!
BIEN’s very modest birth. Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), September 6th, 1986:
