by Kate McFarland | Feb 11, 2017 | News
A group of prominent Republicans has released a proposal for a carbon tax and dividend as an alternative to the Obama administration’s regulation-based approach to mitigating climate change.
The proposal would provide Americans with a small basic income, as it calls for revenue from the tax to be “returned to the American people on an equal and quarterly basis.”
A carbon tax (or fee) and dividend has often been noted as a possible means of financing a basic income in the United States, endorsed by groups such as the Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Chesapeake Climate Action Network and even recommended by the California State Senate in an August 2016 vote.
While campaigners typically focus on the taxation of carbon as a strategy to mitigate climate change, basic income supporters call attention to the “dividend” component: in most proposals, revenue from the carbon tax would be distributed to all individuals in uniform cash grants paid out on a regular basis (e.g. monthly or quarterly). The amounts of dividends vary across specific proposals, but are small, relative to a full-fledge liveable basic income. For example, the California Senate resolution was estimated to lead to payments averaging $288 per month to family of four. And economist James K. Boyce and With Liberty and Dividends for All author Peter Barnes argue for a $200 monthly dividend to individuals, funded by taxes on pollution and other rents from “universal assets”. However, dividends funded by a carbon tax meet the main criteria for a basic income: they are paid in cash, with no strings or conditions, to all members of a community on a regular basis.
A group of prominent US Republicans has now issued a call for a carbon tax and dividend, which they present as a “free market” solution to climate change.
The Climate Leadership Council (CLC) includes, among others, two former Secretaries of State (James Baker III and George Shultz), a former Secretary of the Treasury (Henry Paulson Jr), and two former Chairmen of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (Martin Feldstein and Greg Mankiw).
The CLC’s proposal, laid out and defended in “The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends” (February 2017), describes its dividend proposal as follows:
All the proceeds from this carbon tax would be returned to the American people on an equal and quarterly basis via dividend checks, direct deposits or contributions to their individual retirement accounts. In the example above [a carbon tax beginning at $40 per ton and increasing over time], a family of four would receive approximately $2,000 in carbon dividend payments in the first year. This amount would grow over time as the carbon tax rate increases, creating a positive feedback loop: the more the climate is protected, the greater the individual dividend payments to all Americans. The Social Security Administration should administer this program, with eligibility for dividends based on a valid social security number.
In justifying the dividend, the CLC states, “We the People deserve to be compensated when others impose climate risks and emit heat-trapping gases into our shared atmosphere” — a claim reminiscent of much discourse surrounding basic income.
The CLC also notes that the dividend would be especially beneficial to poor Americans: “The Department of Treasury estimates that the bottom 70% of Americans would come out ahead under such a program. Carbon dividends would increase the disposable income of the majority of Americans while disproportionately helping those struggling to make ends meet.”
The CLC’s proposal has gained the support of other advocates for a carbon tax and dividend.
In remarks to CNN, the Citizens’ Climate Lobby spokesperson Steve Valk called the proposal “an aggressive, properly designed carbon tax that employs the power of the free market to do the work is more effective and efficient than regulations.” Peter Barnes, whose 2014 book With Liberty and Dividends for All helped to popularize the idea of pollution taxes and dividends, also welcomes the conservatives’ proposal. Barnes states:
“This is a real step forward for conservatives. They are proposing to pay dividends to all Americans with money generated by pricing a previously unpriced common asset, the air we all breathe. These eminent Republicans effectively agree that the air belongs to everyone, one person one share. In this sense they are heirs to the late Republican governor of Alaska, Jay Hammond, who created the Alaska Permanent Fund on the same premise, with oil rather than air as the co-owned asset.”
Michael Howard, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maine and Chair of the US Basic Income Guarantee Network, has written a Basic Income News feature in response to “The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends.” Howard calls the publication a “very welcome development” in both the fight against climate change and the movement for basic income. A carbon tax and dividend, he claims, is “closest analogue on the national scale to Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend that we can hope for in the near term.”
Other responses, however, have been less enthusiastic.
In particular, some environmental advocates denounce the proposal’s demand that existing regulations on pollution be repealed. The National Resources Defense Council, for example, released the following statement in response to the CLC:
What’s important is that we cut carbon pollution fast enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Putting a price on carbon could be an important part of a comprehensive program. It can’t do the job alone, though, and is not a replacement for carbon limits under our current laws.
Likewise, Howard agrees that “unless the carbon tax is set high enough and is assured of rising regularly, to give away the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon emissions might be a fool’s bargain,” and doubts that carbon tax alone is sufficient to combat climate change. As he notes in his Basic Income News feature, reduced consumption, development of alternative technologies, and assistance to poor countries in their transition to non-carbon energy sources might be necessary components of the solution.
Members of the CLC met with White House officials on Wednesday, February 8 to present the proposal.
However, the White House has yet to comment on any planned action, and most commentators agree that it is unlikely the Trump administration will pursue any climate legislation (even if that legislation is proposed and defended by prominent Republican statesmen) in the foreseeable future.
More information:
Climate Leadership Council, “The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends,” February 2017.
Martin S Feldstein, Ted Halstead, and N Gregory Mankiw, “A Conservative Case for Climate Action,” The New York Times (op-ed), February 7, 2017.
Chris Mooney and Juliet Eilperin, “Senior Republican statesmen propose replacing Obama’s climate policies with a carbon tax,” The Washington Post, February 8, 2017.
John Schwartz, “‘A Conservative Climate Solution’: Republican Group Calls for Carbon Tax,” The New York Times, February 7, 2017.
Reviewed by Dawn Howard
Pollution photo CC BY-NC 2.0 Christina Carter
by Jason Burke Murphy | Feb 3, 2017 | Opinion
Basic Income as All-inclusive Democratic Subsidy: Securing the Social Freedom and Economic Power for All People
Written by: Katja Kipping
[A long translator’s note: Katja Kipping is chair of the Left Party (Linkspartei) in Germany and a member of the national parliament. She has served as spokesperson for Germany’s Basic Income Network (Netzwerk Grundeinkommen). Within the Left Party, she organized the “Emancipatory Left” faction and writes for the libertarian socialist magazine “Prague Spring” (Prager Frühling).
Kipping presented this lecture “Grundeinkommen als Demokratiepauschale” at the Basic Income Earth Network Congress in Seoul, Korea, July 19th. She has frequently argued for basic income throughout Germany and has helped organize a “Basic Income faction” that includes most political parties in parliament.
I have translated this with the hope that left organizations worldwide will pay attention to her vision of basic income as a core component for the democratic left. Basic income would provide a clear sign that the left has learned from problems wrought in the past by bureaucracy, technocracy, and authoritarianism. Kipping draws from a constitutional republican tradition of investigating institutions that promote robust citizenship and deliberation. See Casassas and De Wispelaere 2012 and 2015. She also links her hopes with that of the degrowth movement. I see basic income, as Kipping presents it here, as an antidote to alienation and right-populism. Social analysis shows basic income to be part of the design of truly public institutions.
Any lapses in quality or argumentation should be attributed to me.
Please note that Kipping also presented in Dublin at the 12th Basic Income Earth Network Congress in 2008. “Moving to Basic Income (BI) – A left-wing political perspective” can be found at BIEN’s website.
You can a video of Kipping presenting the original German speech at https://bien2016.org/en/video-basic-income-and-politics-of-democracy/.
The text of her speech can be found at: https://www.katja-kipping.de/de/article/1112.grundeinkommen-als-demokratiepauschale.html. ]
Basic Income as All-inclusive Democratic Subsidy
Securing the Social Freedom and Economic Power for All People
Contents
- Social Freedom and Democracy – radical democratic approaches to basic income.
- Economic Might for All – basic Income and democratic institutions
- Closing Remarks on social transformation
1. Social Freedom and Democracy – radical democratic approaches to basic income.
Radical democratic approaches to basic income pay close attention to the connections between people and to their mutual dependencies within a community. The community is here understood as something public and political. It is oriented towards the well-being of all and should be shaped by all. From this it follows that freedom should not be understood as a mere absence of intervention or interference. On the contrary, freedom should be understand as independence over against any arbitrary authority [Fremdherrschaft]. Freedom, in this sense, implies no arbitrary interventions or interference on the part of state institutions and also no possibility of such interventions and interference. Intervention is arbitrary if an intervention comes whenever the intervener wills it.
Freedom, on the other hand, is fulfilled primarily through self-governance. Self-governance is formed by social and individual organization and also by monitoring these potential interventions and the institutions capable of them. Individual freedom, viewed in such an intersubjective political context, is also social freedom. The highest value is active participation of all in the res publica – a collective deliberative democratic self-determination. This naturally implies social equality and the securing of social freedom, which implies preventing any economically grounded dominance and dependency. Laws and institutions also need to reflect, promote, and enable the common good and self-governance. (See Socialist Party South Korea 2009, Patry 2010, Cassasas/De Wispelaere 2012, Cassasas/De Wispelaere 2015).
The following six theses on the establishment of a basic income as an all-inclusive democratic subsidy can be derived from these basic principles of radical democracy and social freedom.
- Basic Income must secure what a political community requires from each citizen in terms of money. This includes securing existence, social participation, and participation in political life. This unconditional guarantee of existence and participation has a monetary component. Non-monetary components also exist, such as free access to public goods, and to public infrastructure and services. These monetary and non-monetary components do not exclude each other but rather they complete one another. Both these monetary and non-monetary forms should, first, provide people socio-economic independence and, second, preserve their status as citizens with economic negotiating power whereby they can participate in the formation of society. Without the adequate safeguarding of free and equal conditions of social participation, no democratic participation is possible – formal possibilities for participation are not enough.
Whoever does not have enough material resources is first of all excluded from political participation and, secondly, doesn’t have enough negotiating power within political processes. This means that basic income, like all vital services, needs to be provided long-term. As I see it, this is not a problem in a time of high productivity and surplus. At most, it is a problem for those who do not want to give up economic privileges and political power. There is enough for all—worldwide!
- From a radical-democratic perspective, the basic income on a regular basis is preferable to single disbursements, like with a stakeholder grant or starting capital. Only regular payments can guarantee a lifelong income and its corresponding participation.
- The right to an unconditional basic income must be combined with a modern understanding of citizenship. A distinction between a majority of citizens and a minority of immigrants with regard to elementary socioeconomic rights and opportunities would lead to a problematic division of the community and a majority’s dominance over a minority.
- From a radical democratic viewpoint, people receive the unconditional basic income as equal members of the political community, not as part of a needy group that depends on the state. Any particular stigmatization of population groups splits the community and is a source for domination. That would still be true with a partial basic income (or transfers that do not secure survival or make social participation possible) that is supplemented by need-tested, income-tested, or asset-tested social benefits in order to reach a sufficient level.
It is clear that a person, who must make him or herself a stigmatized petitioner at the social office has a significantly harder time taking an upright path towards the political formation of the community. As Zygmunt Bauman formulated it: “The decisive argument in favor of the basic income is that it is the conditio sine qua non of a republic, as it can only exist in the union of people with self-confidence, of people without existential anxiety. A basic income which actually secures existence and allows social participation would establish a principle of citizens’ rights, rights that are not subject to a divisive and disqualifying ‘access test’ by need tests.” (Bauman 1999). [Note: this is a translation of the Bauman quote as found in Kipping’s speech. –JBM]
Therefore 5 holds: All citizens only have their rights fully recognized reciprocally through a sufficient basic income. This also means that more affluent citizens are comparatively more likely to contribute to the financing of the basic income than the less well-off citizens. This poses the question of the redistribution of economic resources and economic power.
- Basic income is not tied to any condition. An obligation towards any social or political participation would be sources of new domination. These would enable arbitrary interventions. The question of what makes something socially recognizable, and what does not, opens up a considerable amount of bureaucratic discretion. A citizen’s right to a basic income that included a direct citizen obligation would also transform voluntary engagement into regulated compulsory participation.
I would like to end this section with a quote from a German supporter of basic income who is also a politician. “It is farcical that MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] claim to maintain their substantial independence through relatively high salaries in order to make themselves non-extortionable but most of these deputies do not consider it necessary to ensure such independence and non-blackmail for the sovereign, the people” (Spehr 2003, 105). Basic income’s individual guarantee of a secure existence and participation is, alongside other forms of universal security for people (such as free access to public goods, social infrastructure, and social services), an indispensable prerequisite for social freedom, democratic and political engagement and the negotiating power for all people. It is an all-inclusive democratic subsidy!
2. Economic power for all – basic income and democratic institutions
Whoever says A must also say B. Who calls for basic income so that people can enter the public sphere with negotiating power must also call for the public shaping of our political foundations, economy, and everyday life (see Casassas and De Wispelaere 2012 and 2015). We need this to secure a basic income and other sorts of public services. Arbitrary interferences in human affairs through economic power, by endangering survival, health, and natural resources is not acceptable. An economy that is deprived of public organization, an economy that is privatized, is unacceptable. That also means that an economy and a financial sector that is immune to democratic control and influence is likewise unacceptable.
An imbalance in power through the deprivation of the public (privatization) in one form or another reaches deeply into real political and social power relations and removes the political and therefore citizens from the formation and control of public affairs. On the one hand, this includes power that arises from economic distribution—income, assets, and investment opportunities. This certainly also includes power in the realm of shaping and administering the economy and the financial sector. Who actually determines the use of natural resources, production resources, investment and the way in which economic activities are taxed? Who is exercising an alienated domination over the people today with real, unequally distributed, forms of design and control, and who subjects society and the economy to the will of a minority?
In addition to basic income and other forms of life and of participation for all people, social freedom requires the self-government of the citizens: by means of joint and individual control and appropriate intervention possibilities, which are secured by appropriately democratic institutions. These institutions must give all people the opportunity to shape social and economic life individually and collectively (see Cassasas / De Wispelaere 2015).
Economic power for all means basic income, including other unconditional support for existence. It also means the safeguarding of the economy and society for all and the institutionally secured public and political shaping of the economy and the society by all. This makes a democratic social transformation all the more necessary and urgent. Tomorrow, I am speaking at another conference about the challenge that this entails for the European left.
3. Concluding Remarks on Socio-Ecological Transformation
Poverty and exclusion, power over the many by the few, and destruction of the natural foundations of human life – that is the situation.
The international degrowth movement, which is committed to a world with significantly less natural resource consumption and to a rollback of ecological destruction and damage to our planet, therefore argues for the cohesion of ecology, democracy and social security of all people, and thus for the convergence of the various social movements and political actors (see Blaschke 2016).
It seems to me that only with this complex point of view and a committed relationship between social movements can the challenges of the 21st century be countered. Basic income, which in fact assures material existence and enables social participation, is an important component of a social-ecological transformation, which seeks to also be a democratic transformation!
Literature:
Bauman, Zygmunt (1999), In Search of Politics. Cambridge. Polity Press.
Blaschke, Ronald (2016), Grundeinkommen und Degrowth – Wie passt das zusammen? https://www.degrowth.de/de/2016/02/grundeinkommen-und-degrowth-wie-passt-das-zusammen/
Casassas, David / De Wispelaere, Jurgen (2012), The Alaska Model: A Republican Perspective. In: Karl Widerquist / Michael W. Howard (Ed.): Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend. Examining his Suitability as a Model, New York, 169-188.
Casassas, David / De Wispelaere, Jurgen (2015), Republicanism and the political economy of democracy. European Journal of Social Theory, September, 1-18.
Kipping, Katja (2009), Ausverkauf der Politik. Für einen demokratischen Aufbruch, Berlin.
Patry, Eric (2010), Das bedingungslose Grundeinkommen in der Schweiz. Eine republikanische Perspektive, Bern, Stuttgart, Wien.
Socialist Party South Korea, Unconditional Basic Income and General Social Care, Party Program, Supplement No. 1, 2009 (Translation of Socialist Party of South Korea, “Basic Income for All und Universal Welfare”, translation by Min Geum, https://www.grundeinkommen.de/ Content / uploads / 2010/08 / 10-05-22-bge-program-socialist-party-korea-endrb.pdf
Spehr, Christoph (2003), Gleicher als andere. Eine Grundlegung der freien Kooperation, in: Christoph Spehr (Hg.), Gleicher als andere. Eine Grundlegung der freien Kooperation, Berlin, S. 19-115.
Spehr, Christoph (2003), Gleicher als andere. Eine Grundlegung der freien Kooperation, in: Christoph Spehr (Hg.), Gleicher als andere. Eine Grundlegung der freien Kooperation, Berlin, S. 19-115.
Translated by Jason Burke Murphy, Elms College
by Kate McFarland | Jan 13, 2017 | News
In a recent interview and article, economist James K. Boyce defends a universal basic income of $200 per month, funded in part by taxes or fees on carbon emissions and financial transactions.
Boyce, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and program director at the Political Economy Research Institute, recently co-wrote a article on the topic with entrepreneur Peter Barnes, who authored the 2014 book With Liberty and Dividends for All. The article was originally published as “$200 Dollars a Month for Everyone? Universal Income from Universal Assets” on Triple Crisis, a blog devoted to finance, development, and the environment. It has also been republished on Medium as “How To Pay For Universal Income”.
Boyce and Barnes argue that a modest basic income could be funded from “universal basic assets” — wealth that is rightfully owned by all members of society, such as that which is derived from appropriation of the commons (e.g. extracting minerals or timber from the land or releasing pollutants into the atmosphere). They argue that universal basic assets also include a portion of wealth generated from society’s financial and legal infrastructure.
On their view, a portfolio of such commonly held assets could (and should) be used to fund a citizen’s dividend of $200 per month to all Americans, distributed automatically via wire transfers to individuals’ bank accounts.
Boyce provides further explanation of the proposal in an interview with Kim Brown of the Real News Network (see video below).
In the interview, while elaborating upon the idea of universal basic assets, Boyce compares and contrasts his proposal with Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), which provides all Alaskan residents with an annual basic income ($1022 in 2016) from the revenues on a permanent fund created from royalties on the sale of the state’s oil. Boyce notes that whereas Alaska’s PFD incentivizes drilling for more oil, a carbon tax and dividend would dis-incentivize carbon emissions, thereby promoting more sustainable energy production.
Boyce further articulates his ethical justification for a citizen’s dividend in response to a question concerning whether it is fair to give money to those who don’t work for it: “All we’re talking about is returning to people the money that comes from uses of assets we all own or should own in common. So, it’s not about handing out free money. It’s about not letting people use those assets for free. That’s the real handout.”
A transcript of the interview is available on the site of the Real News Network (“Universal Basic Income: A Solution to Inequality, Economic Instability, and Climate Change,” November 21, 2016.)
Cover Photo: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Pembina Institute
by Kate McFarland | Jan 9, 2017 | News
A newly launched grassroots campaign is using social media and video to protest recent cuts to the state’s annual dividend.
As reported in previous Basic Income News stories, Alaska Governor Bill Walker vetoed half of the Legislature’s allocations to the 2016 Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD). Often regarded as one of the best examples of “real-world basic income,” the annual PFD provides all Alaskan adults and children with checks of an equal amount, funded by earnings on a permanent fund in which a portion of the state’s oil revenues are invested.
The amount of the PFD reached its peak of $2,072 in 2015. In 2016, it dropped to $1,022 — though it would have been $2,052 absent Walker’s veto.
Although intended to help preserve the PFD during a significant budget crisis, Walker’s action unsurprisingly generated much controversy. State senator Bill Wielechowski filed a lawsuit charging that Walker’s veto was unconstitutional. The suit was dismissed by a superior court judge in November, but Wielechowski has appealed the decision to the Alaska Supreme Court.
With the Supreme Court hearing likely not to take place until April or May, a group of 12 lawmakers and activists have launched the nonpartisan grassroots group Permanent Fund Defenders, which advocates for the restoration of the full amount of the PFD. The group currently operates primarily through social media, and has created animated videos describing the history of the PFD (see below).
On its Facebook page, the Permanent Fund Defenders demonstrate solidarity with the Goenchi Mati Movement in the Indian state of Goa (previously profiled in Basic Income News), which promotes the establishment of a permanent fund and citizen’s dividend based on money from the sale of minerals.
More information:
Liz Raines, “Former lawmakers, political activists launch group to block PFD restructure,” KTVA, January 3, 2017.
Previous Basic Income News reports on the recent PFD controversy:
Kate McFarland (September 22, 2016) “ALASKA, US: Senator files suit against Governor’s veto of half of Permanent Fund Dividend”
Kate McFarland (September 29, 2016) “ALASKA, US: Amount of 2016 Permanent Fund Dividend to be $1022”
Kate McFarland (December 3, 2016) “ALASKA, US: Judge Upholds Governor’s Veto of Part of State’s Social Dividend”
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: Shell Oil drilling rig, CC BY 2.0 Day Donaldson
by BIEN | Dec 30, 2016 | Bios & background Info, Opinion, Testimonies
Michael Howard (Coordinator of US Basic Income Guarantee Network)
I can remember the moment when I first took a keen interest in basic income. I was familiar with the idea, having spent a research leave at the European University Institute in Fiesole, when Philippe Van Parijs was there writing Real Freedom for All. We had some casual conversations, but I failed to appreciate the radical implications of basic income, until some months later, when I happened to read one of Philippe’s essays, in a collection on social class edited by E.O. Wright.
My work up to that point was focused on market socialism and worker self-management, and, more generally, just and feasible alternatives to capitalism. I thought that the way to address the democratic deficits and inequalities of capitalism, without abandoning its efficiencies, was to convert capitalist enterprises into worker-managed firms operating in a market economy, and also to democratize investment decisions through a system of public banks.
When I read Philippe’s essay, I realized that the model of work I was presupposing, where workers work full-time over many years for a single enterprise, was disappearing. Philippe observed that many in our generation were finding themselves in and out of paid employment, working part-time, or in temporary positions, relying on fellowships, increasingly finding themselves in a precarious position regarding income and work. I invited Philippe to my campus for a series of talks, and to discuss my work.
I attended my first BIEN congress in Amsterdam. In some ways it was my favorite. While I would not wish BIEN to return to an attendance level where everyone meets for the whole conference in the same room, it was great to be able to have one continuous conversation with everyone, and enough break time for serious one-on-one conversations on the side.
In the book I subsequently published, Self-Management and the Crisis of Socialism, I incorporated a basic income into the model of socialism I was defending. After the book, my focus shifted from market socialism and cooperatives to basic income, and I became a regular contributor to conferences on basic income.
I had the good fortune to spend a semester as a Hoover Fellow at the Catholic University in Louvain-la-Neuve. I worked with Karl Widerquist to edit two books on Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend. When the US Basic Income Guarantee Network needed a coordinator to take over from Karl in 2008, I was willing, and have been doing the job ever since.
It has been a pleasure and inspiration to work with the dedicated scholars and activists in USBIG and BIEN. During these roughly 25 years, I have seen basic income move from a novel idea, under discussion by academics and a few visionary activists in response to unprecedented changes in our world, to a policy idea being tested in South Africa, Brazil, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, India, and Canada, and on the radar of mainstream policy makers in the US like Robert Reich and even President Obama. The growth of interest threatens to outpace the capacity of our organizations. USBIG, for example, is just now becoming incorporated, has relied on voluntary labor, and has operated without a budget since its beginning.
But BIEN, USBIG, and other organizations are gearing up to meet the rising interest and the important and difficult policy challenges and decisions that lie ahead. Despite recent turns toward the right in politics, I am confident that our best times lie ahead. Xenophobia and neoliberal austerity cannot solve the climate crisis, the disruptions created by the current wave of automation, persistent global poverty, and stagnating economies. Once the false promises of right wing populism are exposed, there will be an opening for new solutions, and basic income is likely to be an essential part of the mix. I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and working with my comrades in BIEN during these very interesting times.
At the end of 2016, the year in which BIEN celebrated the 30th anniversary of its birth, all Life Members were invited to reflect on their own personal journeys with the organization. See other contributions to the feature edition here.
