by Karl Widerquist | Nov 19, 2012 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
My new book, Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory Of Freedom as the Power to Say No, now has a release date of February 28, 2013. Although I have edited or coauthored six other books, this is the first book I’ve written all by myself. It is also the first published book in which I begin to outline—however tentatively—my theory of justice. The basic income guarantee is intimately tied up with this theory of justice, and so I would like to take this opportunity to explain some of the background that led me to write it.
I don’t know exactly when I began thinking about the ideas that made their way into this book. The general philosophical outlook is something that has been bouncing around in my head for a long time. The outlook didn’t appear as a whole at any one point; it gradually developed. My interest in social justice began when I was a kid. My parents were politically interested, liberal Christians (a rarity these days). They, my brother, my sister, and I regularly discussed politics around the dinner table. Growing up in that context in the 1970s, I was optimistic about the progress the United States had made against racism, and I began to believe that the biggest problem remaining in most democratic countries is the horrible way we treat the poor.
The television series “Free to Choose,” by Milton Friedman, first introduced me to the idea of a guaranteed income, which is now more commonly known as the basic income guarantee. He presented it mostly as a way to simplify the welfare system, but having thought about it over the years, I began to see it as the centerpiece of a just society and a serious challenge to the Left: If we really care about other people in society, we should care about them unconditionally. The effort that has so far resulted in this book is a self-exploration of why I think this perspective is so important.
As I see it, from the hanging gardens of Babylon to the modern sweatshop, one social problem occurs over and over again in different ways: advantaged people force disadvantaged people to serve them. Can this be justified? I find the social contract answer extremely dissatisfying: it’s OK to force people to do things as long as you can imagine conditions under which they would have signed a contract subjecting themselves to force.
For some time I thought I was a libertarian, but I eventually came to see the Right-libertarians, who call themselves “libertarians” in the United States, in a similar light as social contract theorists. I find their answer even more dissatisfying: it’s OK for owners to force the propertyless to do things, because someone did something before we were all born to give owners special rights over the Earth and its resources, so that the propertyless have no right to refuse the duty to serve owners. Right-libertarians talk about freedom from force, but they invite everyone to ignore the tremendous amount of freedom-threatening force involved in the establishment and maintenance of property rights to the earth and all its products. Without rectifying this issue, “libertarianism” becomes the defense of privilege at the expense of liberty.
Although these issues were important to me, I didn’t do much direct work on social justice until the mid-1990s, when Michael Lewis, Pam Donovan, and I decided to have weekly breakfasts to talk about the progress we were making on our theses. These discussions usually turned to politics, and one day we found the one thing we could all agree on was an unconditional basic income guarantee. So, Michael Lewis and I wrote a paper on it that was eventually published (about ten years later and in heavily revised form) as “An Efficiency Argument for the Basic Income Guarantee,” in International Journal of Environment, Workplace and Employment.
One paper on the basic income guarantee led to another as well as to involvement with the Basic Income Earth Network and to writing the Newsletter for the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network. I read a lot of impressive literature on basic income, but none of it quite seemed to articulate the reasons I thought it was so important. So, I had to explore my ideas further.
In 2001, I held a half-year fellowship at the Chaire Hoover at the Catholic University of Lovain in Belgium. By this time I had realized that my interest in economics was secondary to my interest in social justice, and I decided that the best way to work full-time on social justice was to go back to graduate school and get a doctorate in political theory. Getting a second doctorate still feels like a crazy idea, but in hindsight, it was the right thing for me. I started at Oxford in October 2002, and by April 2006 I completed a doctoral thesis entitled “Property and the Power to Say No: A Freedom-Based Argument for Basic Income,” which is my initial statement of the theory of justice as the pursuit of accord. Many of the ideas in this book appeared first in that thesis—often in a slightly different form.
I have discussed these ideas with so many friends, colleagues, students, and mentors that I can’t possibly name everyone who has influenced this book. If I’ve discussed politics or philosophy with you in my lifetime, you might have influenced this book in some way. So, thanks.
Since leaving Oxford, I have continued to rework and extend the ideas from my thesis on and off while working on other projects. Not long after Laurie Harting of Palgrave Macmillan approached me about becoming series editor for their new book series Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee, I thought about turning my thesis into a book. In the spring of 2012, I set out to do that, but as I revised it, I found that the chapters in the first half were growing and splitting into more chapters.
I finally realized that the book would be an extension of the first half of my thesis—concentrating on an exploration of the theory of freedom I call “effective control self-ownership” or “personal independence” and leaving the development of most of the rest of justice as the pursuit of accord for later works. Effective Control Self-Ownership is a theory of freedom that makes the freedom from directly or indirectly forced service central to an individual’s standing as a free person. The book defines, derives, and defends this theory of freedom in the context of the contemporary literature on freedom and justice. It examines the implications of the theory and argues that a basic income guarantee is an important tool to maintain personal independence in a modern society.
Now that the book is almost ready to be released, I still feel that it is tentative in many ways. I could spend years revising it, but it is best to get it out. Although tentative, it is a sincere expression of my beliefs on the issues discussed at this point. I hope to explore these ideas much more in the future.
-Karl Widerquist, Mojo’s Coffee House, New Orleans, Louisiana, August 2012; revised onboard a flight from Dallas to London, November 2012
by Guest Contributor | Jul 9, 2012 | Opinion
D.R. Thompson
I have watched with quiet fascination the evolution/resurgence of alternative politics since the financial meltdown of 2008. In my opinion, we have (at least) two broad camps developing: a Ron Paul brand of libertarianism that seeks to return to a prior vision of capitalism lost, and a new brand of Economic Democrat (often reflected in the Occupy Movement and/or Green Party or the ‘New Economy’ movement) that seeks a balance between capitalism as we know it and the people at large, who are more often than not suffering the brunt of capitalism run amok.
Both factions are reacting to an increasing corrupt two-party system that sees Big Business allied with Big Government. The result is an alliance that destroys the middle class, promotes elitist globalism devoid of democratic oversight, increases the power of the security state, enriches the upper one percent of society with corporate welfare, and engenders corporate socialism through unsustainable monetary policies. The result sections society into an increasingly enriched, globally based upper echelon that guts the wealth of whole nations and peoples.
How this has happened we may disagree on, but both factions are in firm unity that we have arrived at this situation and it has been slowly developing the past 30 to 40 years.
The question is, of course, what do to about it. This essay seeks to dissect some of the ideas behind Economic Democracy, and then to suggest how libertarians and other de-centralists actually might see benefit in them.
In my mind, libertarians in general need to grasp the fundamental contradiction that a Ron Paul style of political shift — specifically one that is devoid of actions to directly break up monopolistic, duopolistic or cartel-like aspects of Big Business — could devolve into a neo-feudalistic scenario where large corporations essentially create corporate fiefdoms through which transnational factions evolve and compete. This could mean less, not more, liberty. In other words, some aspects of libertarian policies could have the exact opposite impact than what is intended and actually just hand power over to the big corporate interests they so often rail against. This new level of corporate power would likely not make us any more free and continue — even expand — the cycle of abuse seen today.
On the other side of the equation, the alternative of centrally planned, top down governance, if taken to the extreme, would create a kind of global fascism that stifles innovation, punishes individualism, guts individual wealth and undermines democratic sovereignty. We don’t want that either.
My argument here is that we can avoid these extremes by recognizing that each political pole must understand the logical limits of its own zeitgeist and determine at what level of society a particular philosophy or approach will work best for the overall benefit of people. This often comes down to understanding what is best centralized and/or cooperative in nature, and what is best left to individual choice and freedom.
In my mind, a centrally planned, cooperatively managed government enterprise is best used to develop the infrastructure upon which a free, democratic, innovative and entrepreneurial society flourishes. Examples of how this can work are numerous: the Interstate Highway System, National Airspace System, the Internet (based on the government’s DARPAnet), and the standardized Electric Grid.
We should translate the same thinking to a rethought national financial infrastructure that provides a basic income guarantee (BIG) and sufficient monies to develop new energy technologies and ensure they are put widely into use. All of this could be done through a Cooperative Central Bank that is government sanctioned but subject to democratic input from its citizen members. Ideally, bank policies and programs would be managed by a board that is in turn subject to democratic approval.
Basic Income Guarantee
A universal basic income that provides a simplified social safety net and replaces Social Security, welfare and unemployment benefits, would ideally be provided to all adults with no required means test, even while the upper tier income brackets are still taxed. In point of fact basic income programs exist to a certain degree already with our large-scale pool of veterans (with their benefits), the earned income tax credit, Social Security and ever-extended unemployment benefits. It is a well-known fact that over 50% of Americans already pay no income tax. Templates for a BIG already exist in the Alaska Permanent Fund and the recently enacted basic income guarantee in Brazil. In this country, Social Security is the model we can build on; we could move toward a basic income by expanding that program, or implementing, as suggested by Robert Reich, a reverse income tax.
If you believe the idea of a basic income has no support, I urge you to do a quick Internet search and you will be astounded by the array of individuals that has supported a BIG throughout history, including Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Paine, Milton Friedman, Daniel Moynihan, and John Kenneth Galbraith, just to name a few.
Rather than perennially watch the upper 1% obtain high earnings in ever more unjust, cynical and/or demeaning ways, it’s time to fight for a BIG and higher minimum wages for everyone. The reason: Americans earned almost 57% more per hour 40 years ago when accounting for inflation, even as productivity has continually increased. The situation continues to deteriorate and must be turned around.
We all agree that the reason for wage stagnation is not that people are lazy. It is that trade and labor policies of the last 40 years have allowed it to occur even as overall productivity has increased substantially, based primarily on automation. A BIG simply recognizes these productivity gains are at least in part an overriding social benefit rather than solely a corporate benefit channeled toward investors.
Put another way, a BIG allows us to simplify what we have and admit that we need a universal requirement that will provide a sound foundation for social stability and income equity within an efficient, technologically based society. We need to fully grasp that while a modern society should always offer the opportunity to work, automation makes it possible — even desirable — that all do not need to work (in the traditional sense), even among those groups we have historically felt should work. Simply put, we need to redefine the term ‘productive.’ ‘Productive’ can mean doing something that one loves and has a passion for, rather than working for an employer. A basic income can allow this to happen on a wide scale. As robotics and software continue to evolve and eliminate a plethora of even more jobs, the end result need not need to be chronic unemployment; with a BIG we can empower people to choose to work or not, thus leveling the playing field in the relationship between labor and capital.
While some would argue this is a statist utopia at its worst, as such a program would be run by the Federal Government, I beg to differ. My first question is: why does it need to be a Federal Program? Is the Federal Reserve ‘federal’? Most understand it isn’t: it is privately owned.
What we can do therefore is to turn the Fed on its head by creating a completely transparent, citizen-owned, Internet-ran, Cooperative Central Bank that is separate from (although approved by) the Federal Government and can print money into existence for two primary reasons: a BIG, and infrastructure (discussed below). All adult citizens could be a member of the cooperative. What can back such money? The physical infrastructure itself, including public lands and assets. In other words, we either have or can build the assets and provide liquidity as we go. This new form of debt-free money would be an alternative to Federal Reserve Notes and could complement other forms of new currency (i.e., Treasury Notes) that would be backed by other forms of assets (i.e. Gold). While some would argue that Cooperative Banking should remain only at the local community, the Internet has re-shaped our concept of what ‘community’ is. In short, globalization and technology has made ‘national’ the new local.
The template for a Cooperative Central Bank already exists in the National Cooperative Bank established in 1978 under President Carter. Perhaps that bank’s mission just needs to be rethought and expanded. Also, while different in their mandate, some states have already implemented Cooperative Central Banks that become the ‘bank of banks’ to cooperative banks throughout that state. Countries that have implemented Cooperative Central Banking can also be looked to as models. Moreover, some writers, such as Richard Cook, even lobby for an international bank with a similar mandate as stipulated in this essay, based on a reformed International Monetary Fund.
A key mandate of Central Banks during the economic crisis has been to provide ‘liquidity.’ But rather than provide liquidity through quantitative easing (where the Federal Reserve purchases Government Debt directly, often from ‘too big to fail’ banks), that inevitably channels any wealth to the top while driving inflation at the bottom, non-debt money generated through a new Cooperative Central Bank could provide another flavor of liquidity in a way that benefits the general population instead of primarily channeling those gains toward the elites.
A Wider Net of Social Security
If we are honest, most Americans, even staunch conservatives, appreciate the modest guarantees of Social Security for elderly Americans and would grow to appreciate a BIG that would empower the individual and, ironically to some, create more independence in the same way that Social Security allows for many seniors today to be more independent. While we may idealize some agrarian form of the independent ‘gentleman farmer’ as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson or a survivalist as envisioned by Thoreau, in our modern age any lack of income (whether urban or rural) simply generates suffering, ill-health, malnutrition, and a variety of other socially negative outcomes. A basic income, particularly when complemented by a well-thought out Healthcare system and other incentives toward positive outcomes, could alleviate such problems. If we steer education intelligently, and human inventiveness and entrepreneurship are promoted, bottom up endeavors can be nurtured in a variety of altruistic and productive ways, using a BIG as the foundation.
For the nostalgic among us who wish to return to some ideal world of very limited government and no intrusive Powers that Be, we need to remember something about the history of life prior to the advent of our current (albeit admittedly corrupted) modern societies. Life was short, and it was brutish. To the extent human beings can cooperate together to alleviate overall suffering, they should. And technology makes that possible. Why shouldn’t we use the benefits of that technology for the overall good? What is the alternative? An atomized society of iPad-toting survivalists dodging the bullets of those that choose to organize, probably via transnational large-scale businesses? I don’t believe such a neo-feudal world is desirable. We joke today that Apple is as large as a country. If we move down a libertarian path it won’t be a joke: Apple will make internal laws and provide security for its people if nation states cannot.
Green Energy Infrastructure
Another potential use of non-debt money generated through a Cooperative Central Bank is to create a green energy infrastructure, where the Central Bank could work with local cooperative banks to fund a multitude of sustainable energy projects. Regardless of where you stand on ‘climate change,’ a sustainable, clean, long-term energy infrastructure is a good thing. And again, the idea would be to ‘back’ the money with the asset created, i.e., the green infrastructure that creates the sustainable energy environment that could be the foundation on which long-term prosperity and entrepreneurial activity are built. The infrastructure would be publicly owned (perhaps by State) and corporations charged fees to use it. These use fees could then be channeled back into maintenance and any ‘profits’ toward a basic income in the form of a citizen’s dividend, just as in Alaska oil revenues are channeled back into the Permanent Fund.
Some of you are probably laughing that all of this is absolutely unaffordable and inflationary. But if we significantly downsized the military (something both Economic Democrats and Libertarians certainly agree on) and aggressively sought ways to create global treaties to outlaw open aggression, the energy and resources expended on maintaining the security state and Global US empire could be effectively channeled into more productive long-term objectives through a Cooperative Central Bank and a green infrastructure initiative geared toward fully integrating efficient, non-polluting energy technologies into our economies. Moreover, the Bank could be managed soundly through a systems approach so that expenditures would be monitored carefully and inflation kept in check. Certain levels of income could still be taxed, and fees for corporate resource utilization could be expanded.
We can look back to the New Deal infrastructure projects of the WPA, many of which are still used today by millions of people, as examples of intelligently channeled social energy into long-term infrastructure.
Simplification and Common Ground
The proposals above, including a new Cooperative Central Bank, Basic Income Guarantee, and Green Infrastructure development could be done in tandem with simplifying Federal Government as we know it. Agencies could be eliminated or downsized. Regulations that stifle innovation could be thrown out or rethought.
As a rule, the overriding mission statement of promoting the general welfare of the people should be revisited and integrated into every facet of government.
But can Economic Democrats find common ground with libertarians?
I believe Libertarians and Economic Democrats can agree to the following:
- Empower entrepreneurs
- Simplify government and make it more effective
- Downsize the military, repeal the Patriot Act and roll back Homeland Security
- Allow for alternative currencies to Federal Reserve Notes that are backed by Gold and/or Infrastructure
- Rethink the role of the Federal Reserve in monetary policy
- Simplify, not eliminate, the social safety net
- Support infrastructure with an eye toward sustainable business growth and prosperity, using resources such as https://m247.com/ to achieve this
- Support BIGness when it’s Goodness
By focusing proposals for Economic Democracy on the level of financial and energy infrastructure, we reconcile the two camps by allowing on one hand a cooperative, aggressive and activist stance that allows for a fair and sustainable economic system that promotes the general welfare, but on the other hand maintains a free and entrepreneurial business environment that can make use of that infrastructure in a fashion that is relatively unencumbered and free.
All of these shared stances I believe could be the basis for common ground where Economic Democrats and Libertarians come to agreement regarding a future America we can all feel good about.
About the author: D.R. Thompson is an award-winning film producer, playwright and essayist. He has also ‘done time’ on Wall Street. A compilation of his essays, A WORLD WITHOUT WAR, is available from Del Sol Press.
by Citizens' Income Trust | May 29, 2012 | Opinion
Tony Fitzpatrick, Welfare Theory: An introduction to the theoretical debates in social policy, 2nd edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, xvi + 241 pp, pbk 0 230 27202 6, £19.99
The map with which political philosophers and social theorists are concerned overlaps, to a considerable extent, with the particular territory occupied by social policy. This book starts from the premise that you cannot properly understand the one unless you understand the other. (p.xiv)
This accessible and thoroughly researched book is also a vindication of Fitzpatrick’s conviction that ‘welfare theory’ – the philosophy of social policy – is a discipline in its own right. Welfare theory draws on both ‘social theory (the philosophy of sociology and social science) and political theory (the philosophy of politics and government)’ (p.xv), but it orders things in its own way and develops its own emphases. It is not insignificant that the first chapter is entitled ‘wellbeing’, now a focal concept for welfare theorists and social policy makers.
The book is structured around a number of concepts: equality, liberty, citizenship, community, state, power, poverty, society, and class. Fitzpatrick explores the histories of these ideas, the different ways in which they have been understood, and ‘recent developments’. Throughout, there is reference to social policy. For instance: the National Health Service’s achievements are judged against a variety of definitions of equality (p.39), the distribution and redistribution of income is the field on which a discussion of the relationship between equality and liberty is constructed (ch.3), new forms of ‘deliberative democracy’ are related to the idea of ‘democracy’ (p.79), and the chapter on ‘state, power and poverty’ is largely driven by the history and current state of the UK’s welfare state, the detail of current social policy, and measured outcomes (ch.5). The first three of these relationships fit the three types of relationship which Fitzpatrick lists in his introduction: ‘assessment’ (of practice by theory), ‘explanation’ (of practice by theory), and ‘reform’ (of practice by theory). But we can see that there is also a fourth relationship: practical policy’s influence on welfare and its concepts. To take a particular example: Beveridge’s ‘contributory’ and ‘social assistance’ welfare state was largely driven by previous government-supported co-operative insurance provision and by the Elizabethan Poor Law. The real-world relationship between welfare theory and social policy is a circular one, with each affecting the other. Fitzpatrick’s book is a text-book for students ( – the first edition was written for that purpose, and this second edition has benefited from the first edition’s use for that purpose), so we would expect it to concentrate on the ‘welfare theory forms social policy’ side of the relationship; but in his ‘concluding remarks’ Fitzpatrick suggests that
it is often necessary to take social policy themes and issues into account when discussing social and political theory. Social policy students do not simply debate how to translate principles into practical reality. Instead, they ask distinctive questions that enhance the method and assumptions of social philosophy. To explore social and political thought without substantial reference to the battles fought over social policies is to miss a key feature in the development of modern societies. (p.211).
Following the chapters on particular concepts, chapter 7 is entitled ‘ideologies’. Here Fitzpatrick describes the Radical Right, Conservatism, Social Democracy, Marxism, and Feminism. (Descriptions of the first two and of Marxism are followed by ‘criticisms’; descriptions of social democracy and of feminism are not.)
Chapter 8 is on ‘identities’: a recognition that social policy is often driven by the ‘recognition’ of an ‘identity’ (for instance, disability). Chapter 9 is on ‘globalization’, and shows how a global economy constrains national social policy; and this chapter in particular shows how economic policy has influenced both the idea of globalization and changes in social policy. The final chapter, on ‘global justice and environmentalism’, is new to this edition, and contains a useful taxonomy of types of global justice.
Finally, Fitzpatrick suggests that the utopian and the pragmatist need each other. The truth of this in relation to our tax and benefits system is obvious. Maybe it’s time for a second edition of his Freedom and Security, his book about a Citizen’s Income: a book which exemplifies the complex relationship between welfare theory and social policy which the book under review is all about.
