by Guest Contributor | Jun 9, 2017 | Opinion
“(…) mental health cannot be defined in terms of the “adjustment” of the individual to his society, but, on the contrary, that it must be defined in terms of the adjustment of society to the needs of man,[highlighted in original version] of its role in furthering and hindering the development of mental health. Whether or not the individual is healthy, is primarily not an individual matter, but depends on the structure of his society. A healthy society furthers man’s capacity to love his fellow men, to work creatively, to develop reason and objectivity, to have a sense of self which is based on the experience of his own productive powers. (…) Society can have both functions; it can further man’s healthy development, and it can hinder it; in fact most societies do both, and the question is only to what degree and in what directions their positive and negative influence is exercised.” Erich Fromm (1956/1959)
This is the third and last part of a series of articles published on BI News, in which I call for accompanying a UBI with reforms in the domain of public interest services (please see the first and second parts). The analysis will help one to imagine how the work experience could be transformed to contribute to happiness in a UBI society.
In the current employment system, work organizations are rarely adjusted to human needs, such as self-fulfillment and meaning. In the article on Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber (2013) observes that the more a job is useful for society and able to provide a sense of meaning, the less it is rewarded in monetary terms. Furthermore, employment is an exclusive form of work organization. UBI could help transform work if accompanied by initiatives to create frameworks for useful and meaningful contributions. This paper draws on empirical research of a cooking collective known as People’s Potato. There are similar initiatives where work is distributed among volunteer – for example, the global movement, Food Not Bombs, Les Petites Cantines, which are participative restaurants in poor neighborhoods of Lyon, or the Brooklyn-based food cooperative, Park Slope Food Coop, with about sixteen thousand member-peers.
Example of People’s Potato as a project of regaining work and producing commons
People’s Potato distributes vegan lunches for free at Concordia University in Montréal. It is managed by a workers’ cooperative. However, much of the work is done by volunteers, who can come and go without notice and choose from available tasks. Three other publications provide more details (Gajewska 30 June 2014, Gajewska 2014, Gajewska 10 April 2017). In September 2014, I interviewed several students and non-students helping out in the kitchen. In this article, I will analyze the elements that attract volunteers to People’s Potato to illustrate the potential of advancing human happiness by creating spaces of spontaneous work contribution in the domain of services of general interest.
Work as source of meaning and belonging
Gerald Hüther (2015) defines work as a system of relationships (Beziehungsgefüge) that integrates an individual into society. In order to develop, our brain needs experiences created with other people, a shared undertaking and it is structured by these experiences. Many people simply are deprived of the opportunity to contribute work that has meaning with tangible results, that might enrich the lives of other people. Gallup data shows that only 13 percent of people are emotionally invested in their work. 63 percent are “not engaged”—in other words, simply unmotivated and unlikely to exert extra effort. The remaining 24 percent are “actively disengaged,” or truly unhappy and unproductive. The United States and Canada actually have the highest engagement rate in the world. 29 percent of respondents from these countries reported that they are invested in their work, whereas only 14 percent of Western Europeans are (MacGregor 2013).
Volunteers that I interviewed indicated that doing something useful was an important reason to join People’s Potato. One woman mentioned that giving out food for free generates a spiritual satisfaction in her. Many participants stressed that they contribute because they believe in the cause. For one, the integration of handicapped volunteers, working with the other volunteers in the kitchen, was especially important.
The importance of having fun
How can work be organized so that no coercion is needed? Despite all the developments in the domain of technology and entertainment, Western societies seem to have lost the capacity and the conditions to play. In my view, this lack is one of the fundamental obstacles for changing the economic system. Therefore, it should become the subject of political debate and in-depth research to determine how to create a society based on play, not as a form of consumption but as a joy of engagement. Bob Black describes play in the following way: “Play is always voluntary. What might otherwise be play is work if it’s forced. (…) Playing and giving are closely related, they are the behavioral and transactional facets of the same impulse, the play-instinct. They share the aristocratic disdain for results. The player gets something out of playing; that’s why he plays.” (Bob Black 1996: 239).
Organizing work processes so that volunteers have fun is an important element of People’s Potato’s philosophy. For example, people often perform tasks in groups, close to each other, so that talking is possible. Once when we chopped the same vegetables for quite a while, the coordinator asked: “Are you guys still having fun?”
One participant in People’s Potato mentioned that he would continue to contribute at the cooking collective only if it retains its current non-hierarchical structure. Another volunteer said that she would not participate if the involvement felt like her regular job in a commercial gastronomy where she worked part time at the time of the interview.
Alternative work spaces for a healthier society
Loneliness is a health issue. Therefore, government should also think about policies that might limit the extent of isolation in our modern atomized society instead of subsidizing pharmacology and conventional medicine as the only solutions for health problems. Being a critic of modern civilization, Helena Norberg-Hodge demonstrates in her book “Ancient Futures” how the different organization of work in indigenous Ladakh society includes (or used to include) older people. Since there is no pressure, people can contribute at their pace and be part of a joyful community. She observed that, in this society, typical old-age diseases were rare and elders were well-integrated in this society, throughout their lives.
People’s Potato also creates conditions for different types of people to contribute and enjoy a community. Meeting people and interacting with folks outside of one’s studies were important reasons to come and help out. A Brazilian woman had been coming to the kitchen to integrate in Montreal, her new home, at the beginning of her stay. Eventually busy with new friends and activities, she came less often. For her son, an artist suffering from depression, volunteering at the People’s Potato gives structure to his days. Two women in their early twenties told me that they feel more at ease to meet and interact with people by joining collective work rather than going to a party. A young woman said that one of the reasons why she keeps coming to the People’s Potato is that they know her and she can keep in touch with people through helping out.
Bringing people together around useful tasks does not, however, automatically translate into deeper ties, even if they are crucial for health. Longitudinal research has shown that the quality of relationships does determine possible health advantages. One of the interviewees, an aged unemployed man, comes to volunteer to be part of a community. Yet, during eight years of volunteering, he has not managed to build stronger ties with other participants of the project. He wishes that people would notice him and be interested in keeping in touch outside of the kitchen. Unfortunately this did not happen.
Experimenting with work organization to prepare the ground for a UBI
People’s Potato’s alternative work organization exemplifies how a post-capitalist system of production could look and feel. In order to change the perception of and feelings about work shaped by the employment system, neurobiologist, Gerald Hüther (2015), proposes to re-condition the brain by creating positive work experiences. This is what People’s Potato’s team does. New forms of work organization can rewire society to manifest new ways of approaching work. These could be considered as laboratories of inner transformation to induce those attitudes and behaviors necessary to build a new kind of society. This new understanding of work could foster the ideological and mental foundation needed for an unconditional basic income society. In the interview published on basicincome.org (Gajewska 2016), I argue that a transformation of work and social relations to prevent substance addictions is a crucial element to prepare the ground for a UBI. We can convince opponents by prefiguring the well being that we strive for.
Black, Bob (1985): The Abolition of Work, “The Abolition of Work and Other Essays”, published by Loompanics Unlimited,
Fromm, Erich (1956/1959) : The Sane Society. London : Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
Gajewska, Katarzyna (10 April 2017): UBI needs peers (PT 2): Re-imagine work organization, basicincome.org,
Gajewska, Katarzyna interviewed by Tyler Prochazka (January 2016) : Beyond temptation: Scholar discusses addiction and basic income – an interview
Gajewska, Katarzyna (30 June 2014): There is such a thing as a free lunch: Montreal Students Commoning and Peering food services. P2P Foundation Blog,
Gajewska, Katarzyna (2014): Peer Production and Prosumerism as a Model for the Future Organization of General Interest Services Provision in Developed Countries Examples of Food Services Collectives. World Future Review 6(1): 29-39.
Greaber, David (2013): On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, Strike!https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
Hirnforscher Gerald Hüther im Gespräch „Erst die Arbeit macht uns zu Menschen“https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/wirtschaftswissen/interview-mit-hirnforscher-gerald-huether-erst-die-arbeit-macht-uns-zu-menschen-13963189.html 31 December 2015
MacGregor, Jena (2013): Only 13 percent of people worldwide actually like going to work. October 10, 2013,
Norberg-Hodge, Helena (1991): Ancient Futures: Lessons from Ladakh for a Globalizing World. Sierra Club Books.
Photo from People’s Potato.
About the Author
Katarzyna Gajewska is an independent scholar and a writer. She has a PhD in Political Science and has published on alternative economy and innovating the work organization since 2013. You can find her non-academic writing on such platforms as Occupy.com, P2P Foundation Blog, Basic Income UK, Bronislaw Magazine and LeftEast. For updates on her publications, you can check her Facebook page or send her an e-mail: k.gajewska_commATzoho.com. If you would like to support her independent writing, please make a donation to the PayPal account at the same address!
by Jason Burke Murphy | Jun 7, 2017 | Opinion
An economic study of Iran’s Basic Income, which was implemented to make it easier to phase out expensive (and ecologically destructive) fuel subsidies, shows that there have been no negative effects on employment. In the first section, I will summarize the study. In the middle, there is a list of past contributions made by Basic Income News authors. In the final section, I will make a few observations.
Iran’s Fuel Subsidy Reform and Employment
The unconditional grant program was launched in 2011. The monthly grant amounted to 29% of median household income, or about $1.50 extra per head of household, per day. Around 90% of Iranians are funded through this program. (Wikipedia has a good summary of the program at the time of this writing. It does not include the end of the universal cash grant program.)
Most people in Iran and in the government came to believe that the grant discourages employment. One often hears anecdotes and assertions in national and local Iranian press. The Iranian Parliament called for cuts in the program. (See Tehran Times, April 19, 2016.) After some wrangling, cash subsidies were finally ended in 2016, with funding reserved now for low-income citizens, they could possibly begin performing a criminal background check on applications for this funding in the future. Costs were cited. It is important to note half of the cuts in fuel subsidies went to business grants and other government expenses. (See Kate McFarland in Basic Income News, “Iran: Parliament Slashes Cash Subsidies to Citizens”). What is frustrating here is the fact that the program did not undermine work participation at all.
This study shows that some people in their twenties reduced work hours, often to go to school or improve their schoolwork. But this only averaged out to a matter of months (and is likely to yield medium- and long-term benefits.) Many people increased work time a little, especially in the service sector. The authors think that these businesses used the income to find more work opportunities. Empirical evidence contradicts a lot of presuppositions about the impact of an unconditional cash grant.
The study, “Cash Transfers and Labor Supply: Evidence From a Large-Scale Program in Iran“, is put out by the Economic Research Forum and was authored by the economists Djavad Salehi-Isfahani and Mohammad H. Mostafavi-Dehzooei.
The World Economic Forum posted a summary of the Economic Research Forum study here.
Past Articles on Iran’s Basic Income
Basic Income News has repeatedly covered Iran’s Fuel Subsidy Program to make sure it is regarded as a basic income policy. Here is a list of additional articles on the subject:
Djavad Salehi-Isfahani wrote an earlier piece for the ERF. Josh Martin writes about it at Basic Income News here.
Mathieu Ferry writes about Jacques Berthiller’s piece in Basic Income News here.
The Citizens’s Income Trust, based in Britain, wrote this opinion piece for Basic Income News here.
Karl Widerquist wrote four articles early in the program’s history. “Iran: Basic Income Might Become Means Tested” and “Iran: Basic Income Gets International Attention.” “Iran: On the Verge of Introducing the World’s First National Basic Income” and “Iran Might Be Moving Toward a BIG”
Hamid Tabatabai wrote an article that, very early on, points out that a country that had not been debating a basic income implemented substantial basic income grant.
III. Observations
These are conclusions reached by the author, Jason Burke Murphy, after reading the ERF study and the other articles on Iran’s program. I wanted to separate them because the first section of this article is meant to review an important study and past contributions by BI News authors.
(1) There was no point at which this program was embraced as a way to promote real freedom or to roll back poverty. Fuel subsidies were just unleashing such strong side effects that something needed to be done. It is amazing to know that a program that raises average income by 29% could be launched in order to solve a problem other than “lots of people would be better off with more money”. Had this been debated as a basic income guarantee, maybe things would turned out better.
(2) The idea that some people who can work might not work seems to bother people so much that the government ended a program that raises income for a majority of its people and for its least-well-off.
The idea is so powerful that the fact that people are NOT refusing to work can’t seem to overcome the fact that many people MIGHT or COULD refuse to work. There is a lot of work to be done here.
(3) Everyone should ask the question: What sort of percentage of people not formally working is even a problem? Most of them will do work for their families, after all. Many will gain expertise with the idea of applying it to future. Some will do work for their communities or as entrepreneurs.
(4) The impact of this grant was likely affected by the fact that it was never been presented as permanent. It also is not large enough to sustain most people at a standard of living that Iranians find decent. This may not serve as the rock-solid proof that a sizable grant won’t affect employment.
(5) In the US, an equivalent percentage of support would be around $16,000 a year. Can we assert that the Iranian experience shows that this amount would not trigger a mass refusal to work? Hard to say. Would a small-to-medium dip in job seekers even be a problem? Probably not. Lots of places in the US have average income below $16,000. Can we really say that they would be worse off with this grant just because some of them quit their jobs?
(6) All countries should take a good look at their subsidies, especially ones that benefit the already wealthy. They should cut them and fund an unconditional dividend. We get rid of something bad and replace it with something good. We see how high the dividend would be and think about the next step.
(7) As Basic Income advocates, we need to list Iran alongside Alaska and Macau as regions with a Basic Income. This is difficult because only Alaska has described its dividend as “permanent” and only there have recipients come to believe it is dependable. In the US, it is a little unusual to say “let’s do what Iran did” but that is our fate as a truth-telling movement.
by Karl Widerquist | Jun 1, 2017 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
In the process of cowriting a book about the upcoming Unconditional Basic Income Trials, I’ve been trying to come up with a list of the claims that tend appear in the debate. Below are two lists: first a list of supporters’ claims and then one of opponents’ claims. I gave each claim a name to make it easier to talk about them, but these names do not reflect any standard definition. I tried to order the claims in each list from the relatively more important or more common to the relatively less important or less common.
To say that a claim appears on the supporters’ or opponents’ lists is not to say that all supporters or all opponents agree on it. In fact, some of the claims contradict each other, which is to be expected, because different people support or oppose UBI for diverse reason. They might have little in common but their support or opposition to one policy proposal.
Supporters have claimed:
- The freedom claim: UBI gives people greater freedom by giving them more effective power over their own lives.
- The poverty claim: UBI (usually in combination with other policies) can eliminate poverty.
- The anti-exploitation claim: UBI reduces exploitation in employment by giving all workers the power to refuse exploitive working conditions.
- The welfare claim: UBI raises the welfare of net-recipients (by eliminating destitution, reducing poverty, increasing incomes of people near poverty, reducing inequality, and other effects) and many net-contributors (by removing the fear of destitution, improving their bargaining position in the market, and so on). To the welfare claim we could add many supporting claims, that UBI is good for physical and mental health, that it decreases homeless and malnutrition, that it decreases infant mortality, and so on.
- The increased-worker-income claim: UBI increases in the income of workers directly by acting as a wage subsidy for lower-income workers and indirectly by creating market conditions likely to increase wages.
- The better-working-conditions claim: UBI improves working conditions for many workers both by giving them the flexibility to move more attractive sectors and by creating market conditions likely to give employers incentive to improve working conditions.
- The affordability claim: UBI at the desired level is affordable. (Most UBI proposals call for one high enough to eliminate official poverty or to raise incomes to 150% of the officially poverty level. Some call for meeting basic needs or to enable social participation and to secure a life in dignity. Some simply call for the highest sustainable UBI regardless of what that might be.)
- The economic equality claim: UBI increases economic equality both by direct redistribution to lower income people and by creating market conditions where workers can command higher wages and better working conditions. (The taxes used to support it can also be formulated to increase equality.)
- The social equality claim: UBI increases social equality by reducing social isolation of people with very low incomes, by reducing the stigmatization of people who benefit from redistributive programs, by reducing housing segregation, and by other means.
- The poverty-trap claim: UBI encourages people on benefits to reenter the labor force in greater numbers than a conditional system, by ensuring they are always better off earning more private income than earning less.
- The anti-ghettoization claim: UBI reduces (both personal and social) costs linked to high concentrations of poverty both by reducing housing segregation and by significantly raising average incomes in those communities.
- The cost-effectiveness claim: UBI is relatively more cost-effective than traditional, conditional welfare policies (in achieving goals such as increasing equality, raising welfare levels of recipients, and so on).
- The reduced-capture claim: UBI’s benefits are less likely to be captured by others (such as employers, landlords, and bureaucrats) than conditional welfare state policies.
- The bureaucracy claim: UBI reduces the overhead cost associated with income support.
- The labor-productivity claim: UBI increases labor productivity both by encouraging employers to substitute skilled for unskilled workers and by improving workers’ ability to enhance their skills and search for higher-productivity jobs.
- The productive non-labor claim: UBI allows people to do more unpaid work (such as care work and volunteering), some of which is more productive (or socially valuable) than many forms of paid labor.
- The politically-enabled-proletarian claim: UBI—by freeing low-wage workers from long hours and low pay—makes them a greater force for progressive social change on all other issues.
- The acceptable-labor-supply-effect claim(s): if UBI causes a reduction in labor supply, it will be within acceptable levels, and/or if UBI causes a greater-than-desirable labor-supply reduction, it can be at least partially counteracted by other policies to increase labor supply or the demand for higher-wage employees.
- The macro-stimulus claim: UBI, in combination with the taxes that support it, helps improve economic growth and reduce unemployment by helping to stimulate and stabilize aggregate demand.
- The “degrowth” claim: UBI helps economies move away from overconsumption and overexploitation of resources.
- Greater respect for people in need: UBI and other universal programs treat everyone with respect while many conditional programs treat virtually all recipients as suspected cheats, even if they fit almost anyone’s definition of the most truly needy.
- The increased-overall-redistribution claim: UBI results in greater overall redistribution to the poor, because universal policies foster greater feelings of solidarity and support once in place
Opponents have claimed:
- The reciprocity claim: UBI allows people to share in the benefits of social production without contributing their labor.
- The exploitation claim: a tax-financed UBI redistributes income from workers to people who do not work, thereby exploiting workers.
- The harm-to-workers claim: the taxes needed to support UBI financially harm workers, all things considered.
- The unacceptable-labor-supply-effect claim(s): UBI causes an unacceptably large reduction in labor supply that is not easily counteracted by other policies.
- The self-destruction claim: UBI increases self-destructive behavior in recipients.
- The meaninglessness claim: UBI makes it possible for people to live lives that they will eventually find meaningless because paid labor is a central source life meaning.
- The capture claim: many of the benefits of UBI will go to someone other than the recipients, perhaps because employers reduce wages, because landlords increase rents in low-income areas, because bureaucrats create overhead costs, etc.
- The inflation claim: UBI causes inflation that is not easily counteracted by other policies.
- The migration claim: UBI encourages immigration and/or migration into areas with UBI.
- The unaffordability claim: UBI at the proposed level is prohibitively expensive.
- The negative, relative cost-effectiveness claim: UBI is more expensive than other programs that can achieve similar goals.
- The gender-role reinforcement claim: UBI helps maintain traditional gender roles by making it easier for women to remain out of the paid labor force while performing unpaid care work and other traditional women’s roles.
- The macro-deterrent claim: UBI decreases economic growth by enabling reduced labor market participation and increasing costs.
- The shut-door claim: UBI creates political pressure to restrict immigration and migration.
- The bought-off-proletarian claim: UBI—by providing a minimal level of contentment for workers—reduces their effectiveness as a force to challenge the deeper inequalities and other social inequities in society.
- The consumerism claim: UBI leads to even more environmental destruction because of increased consumption.
- The decreased-overall-redistribution claim: UBI is (politically and/or economically) feasible only at such a low level and only accompanied by so many other social programs that it will leave low-income people worse off than traditional, conditional social policies.
- The strategy-to-cut-redistribution claim: factions in government will use UBI as an excuse to cut other programs, then cut in a strategy that will lead to much less overall redistribution.
I compiled this list from general knowledge accumulated over years of reading about the UBI debate. It is bound to be incomplete. Many more claims (of various levels of relevance, certainty, and testability) are undoubtedly circulating in the academic and nonacademic literature on UBI. But I hope it captures a significant range of what is being said. This list is enough to demonstrate the difficulty of designing a trial and communicating its results in a way that successfully raises the level of debate over these claims. Some are things that can’t be tested. Some are things that can only be tested indirectly, partially, or inconclusively. Few if any of these claims can be directed tested with any accuracy in a trial.
I’m interested to know how comprehensive people think it is. Did I include all the relevant claims you can think of? Did I overblow any claims that don’t deserve to be on the list?
A stock image used to evoke a mental connect with the word “experiment”
by Guest Contributor | May 29, 2017 | Opinion
The crowdfunding campaign for “The Mincome Experiment” can be found here.
The Mincome Experiment is a documentary that is as much a story about basic income as it is about human socioeconomic evolution throughout the years. Vincent Santiago, the director for the documentary, first heard that University of Manitoba professor Dr. Evelyn Forget was looking for volunteers to digitize the results of the 1970s Mincome experiment. While Santiago did not consider himself an experienced social activist, he was nevertheless keen to study possible measures to prevent government excesses that he believed could lead to growing social inequality and injustices. Santiago was convinced that basic income and open government were foundations that could help prevent social inequality and injustice.
The Mincome experiment and the concept of basic income caught Santiago’s imagination, and he took a passionate interest in seeking out more information. He finally talked to Dr. Forget on April 2014. Another opportunity arose soon after to interview then-Conservative Senator Hugh Segal, a very vocal and strong basic income advocate in Canada. Vincent Santiago read about and researched basic income and talked to economists and others. In the process, he discovered several interesting side stories not widely known, even within Canada.
Santiago wanted to make the Mincome experiment into a documentary. He soon realized there was so much story to be told. He looked into the various forms of basic income and decided the film should be told as an engaging narrative about human socioeconomic evolution. Intertwined into the historical and visionary backdrop is the concept of basic income and its role. Of the film, Santiago said:
While the Mincome experiment is very much the central theme of the documentary, the documentary also looks into other basic income experiments and the various forms and possible implementation. I’ve started calculating the various ways to pay for it and how to implement them.
The promotional trailer created for the crowdfunding campaign asks various questions typically uttered by people who are cynical or against basic income. That is because Santiago did not want to make a film only for those already familiar with basic income. He wanted to create an entertaining and fun documentary that also draws in the skeptics by presenting facts, without shying away from common ridicule and prevailing concerns.
Another project that occupies Santiago’s time is creating a low-cost, no commission fee platform for crowdfunding, curating, and showcasing creative works. With this platform, which first went into development in 2012, Santiago is now launching the crowdfunding campaign for his documentary. The Mincome Experiment project is still a long way from reaching the stated fundraising goal, but the team remains confident the amount can be reached. Efficient use of the funds would allow the project to include more engaging footage and animation for the documentary, ensuring that it will capture and convince audiences worldwide.
The crowdfunding runs until June 15, 2017 and can be found here
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Written by the team behind “The Mincome Experiment.”
by Karl Widerquist | May 26, 2017 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
I just completed some simple, “back-of-the-envelope” estimates the net cost of a UBI set at about the official poverty line: $12,000 per adult and $6,000 per child with a 50% “marginal tax rate.” They are in a paper entitled, “the Cost of Basic Income: Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations.” It’s currently under peer-review at an academic journal and available in un-reviewed form on my website.
Here are some of its most important findings:
- The net cost—the real cost—of a roughly poverty-level UBI is $539 billion per year, less than 16% of its often-mentioned but not-very-meaningful gross cost ($4.15 trillion), less than 25% of the cost of current U.S. entitlement spending, less than 15% of overall federal spending, and about 2.95% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- This $539 billion UBI would drop the official poverty rate from 13.5% to 0%, lifting 43.1 million people (including about 14.5 million children) out of poverty.
- This UBI will be a net financial benefit to most families with incomes up to $55,000, making it an effective wage subsidy (or tax cut) for tens of millions of working families.
- The average net beneficiary of this UBI is a family of about two people making about $27,000 per year. The family’s net benefit from the UBI would be nearly $9,000 raising their income to almost $36,000.
- Lowering the marginal tax rate to 35% would spread the benefits of the UBI program to more of the middle class while increasing the cost to $901 billion.
- The cost of a UBI of $20,000 per adult and $10,000 per child is $1.816 trillion per year, less than 85% of total entitlement spending, less than 45% of total federal spending, and less than 10% of GDP.
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-Karl Widerquist, Begun in New Orleans, completed at Cru Coffee House, Beaufort, North Carolina, May 21, 2017
