by Tyler Prochazka | Jul 8, 2016 | News
This past month, United Kingdom’s Compass advocacy and publication website published an analysis of the basic income. The report discussed how the basic income could be introduced in the UK, and how it would interact with other social service programs.
One of the authors, Stewart Lansley, a Compass associate and visiting fellow in the School of Policy Studies at the University of Bristol, discussed how “income support is being weakened while secure work is becoming less available,” and how the basic income would address the impending “robotic revolution.”
The Compass report mentions the sanctions that have been introduced in UK’s entitlement system and how that was leading some to fall through the cracks. What do you think the biggest challenge of the UK’s current entitlement system is and how does the UBI address it?
Britain’s system of social security – complex and unpopular – needs a fundamental rethink. With much greater reliance on means-testing, and the erosion of the role of universal benefits, it has moved sharply away from the original Beveridge blueprint. Further, the level of conditionality has been raised, with governments exercising greater and greater control over the lives of claimants, making the system much more punitive and intrusive. Since 2013, more than one million claimants have been sanctioned, leading to a loss of benefits for between one month and three years for some of the most vulnerable of claimants.
Mass sanctioning has led to an increase in destitution and has been one of the principal drivers of the great surge in dependency on food banks. By guaranteeing a weekly income, even at a modest rate, a universal basic income (UBI) would boost the universal element of income support, reduce dependency on means-testing and bring an end to sanctioning.
What are the economic and societal risks that the UBI schemes outlined in the Compass report address?
A UBI would help tackle two key economic and social risks. First, the widespread insecurity and growing risk of poverty associated with work. Today, more than 60 percent of those in relative poverty in the UK are in work, a significant rise compared with the immediate post-war decades. By providing a guaranteed, if modest income, a UBI offers a more robust safety net in a much more insecure, low paid and fragile working environment and will help reduce the risk of poverty amongst those in work.
Secondly, whatever its ultimate impact, the impending technological and robotic revolution is set to bring further disruption and upheaval to jobs and pay. Crucially, a UBI offers an effective way of providing income protection from the wider repercussions of accelerated automation. Further, the robotic revolution may eventually bring significant productivity gains, though to what extent and when remains uncertain. Although these are yet to be realized, these could offer potentially new and significant social and economic opportunities. There is a very real risk, however, that the gains – if they are realized – will be colonized by a small powerful elite, leading to a further jump in inequality and a surge in joblessness. A UBI would play a key role in ensuring that such gains are more evenly shared.
Do you think the alignment between the left and the right over the UBI is sustainable once the specific policy details for implementation are worked out? For example, the report makes clear the UBI would not be revenue neutral nor would it eliminate all means-tested benefits, which might alienate some supporters on the right.
The right and left see a UBI from very different standpoints. The right favours a basic income as a way of achieving a smaller state, and would see its introduction as an opportunity to sweep away a range of other forms of social protection. This is undoubtedly the motive behind the support coming from some Silicon Valley enthusiasts.
The left, on the other hand, views such a scheme as part of a strong state, as a way of securing a robust income floor, of tackling poverty and as a means of promoting equal citizenship. For the left, it is a profoundly democratic and egalitarian concept that promotes both security and greater personal freedom, and a recognition that all citizens have the right to some minimal claim on national income.
These views are clearly incompatible and it is inconceivable that a scheme could be devised that satisfied both sides. Left supporters are clear that a UBI scheme must be seen as a supplement to the wider public provision of services and not as a substitute. A continuing and strengthened role for the public provision of key public services and other forms of state intervention including a generous living wage remain essential as a way of creating further platforms for a more equal and just society.
What other benefits might a UBI offer?
Integral to the concept of a UBI is the promotion of greater freedom and choice, progressive changes with transformative potential. By providing basic security, it would give people more time and more bargaining power in the labour market. With a growing debate about how to balance work-life commitments in an era of much more insecure work, a UBI would offer people greater flexibility between work, leisure and education, and over the type and length of employment while providing greater opportunity for caring and wider community responsibilities. Some might choose to work less or take longer breaks between jobs. Others would be incentivized to start businesses. Some might drop out of work entirely to care or retrain while others might devote more time to leisure, personal care or community support and less to paid work. But implicit to a UBI is that all lifestyle choices would be equally valued.
Importantly, a UBI would both acknowledge and provide financial support for the mass of unpaid work, disproportionately undertaken by women, in childcare, care for the elderly and voluntary help in the wider community.
It would value but not over-value work. The solution to working age poverty has traditionally been through a mix of decently paid employment and state income support. But income support is being weakened while secure work is becoming less available. One of the great strengths of a basic income is that it separates survival from employment and production. Tackling poverty would become less dependent on the ‘work guarantee`.
In the various schemes outlined in the report, it is noted that some form of disability benefits and others would be preserved with the UBI. How would these benefits likely operate with a UBI and how would they change?
Because a flat rate payment makes no allowance for those with additional needs, some types of means-testing would need to stay, even as we moved over time to a fuller and more generous scheme. A feasible UBI system would, for example, need to be supplemented with, at least, the continuation of disability benefits and additional help to cope with high and variable essential living costs, especially housing and childcare.
To deal with the additional costs of disability, existing benefits for disabled people would remain and run alongside the UBI. In the simulations of different UBI schemes in the report, we have retained the Personal Independence Payment and Employment and Support Allowance.
What would be the benefits of creating a Social Wealth Fund to finance the UBI?
Creating a UBI-linked social wealth fund would be one way of securing an independent source of funding outside of the general tax pool. Social wealth funds are a potentially powerful tool in the progressive policy armoury. They are collectively held financial funds, publicly owned, and used for the wider social benefit of society. Such funds have been widely used across a range of countries and would ensure that a higher proportion of the national wealth is held in common and used for public benefit and not for the interests of the few. They are a way of ensuring that at least part of the benefits of some economic activity are pooled and shared amongst all citizens and across generations.
There is already one example of a fund dedicated to a citizen’s payment, one operating in Alaska since 1982. Here, the returns from a sovereign wealth fund, funded by oil revenue, are used to pay an annual citizen’s dividend. There is an important principle involved in such an arrangement: that citizens are the proper owners of the environment and have the right to share equally in its benefits. The benefits from a common asset should not be hived off to a small number of private owners.
Although the UK has already spent most of its oil revenue, there is no reason why such a social wealth fund could not be established using other sources of income. These could include the dividends from a range of other assets – including other natural resources – and the occasional one-off taxes on windfall profits. As in Alaska, such a fund could be allowed to grow over time, with part of the proceeds from its management paid back into the fund, and part used each year to partially fund a UBI scheme. Over time, such a fund could grow significantly, sufficient to help top up any shortfall necessary to pay for a workable UBI scheme.
An alternative, and more radical way of paying for a dedicated UBI fund would be by the dilution of the heavy concentration of capital ownership, achieved through a small annual charge on the owners of shares. Such a proposal was originally made by the distinguished economist and Nobel Laureate James Meade in the 1960s, as a direct way of tackling the risk of ever-growing inequality. Such an idea was widely debated and discussed in the UK, and in some European nations, in the 1970s and 1980s, while one version of such a scheme – the wage-earner fund – was introduced in Sweden in 1981 and lasted for 10 years, though it was not used to fund a UBI or citizen’s payment.
The report notes the growing support across Europe and the UK for the UBI. What are some steps UBI advocates can take to make it a reality?
The pilot schemes being planned for Canada, Finland, the Netherlands and France are having a profound effect on the wider debate about UBI. These forthcoming experiments are helping to build momentum in support of an idea that, until recently was confined mostly to a few think tanks, commentators and academics. Crucially, they will help provide some evidence of the dynamic effects – including on the incentive to work, employment patterns, changes in participants’ well-being and the reaction of employers.
The pilots have helped build interest in the UK, and it is now time to start building on that to promote a much wider national debate on the issue.
Ultimately, a real test of how such a scheme would work depends on the application of a proper, lengthy and adequately sized pilot with a control group. To take advantage of these developments, the UK campaign should follow the lead taken by others and work to build to case for its own pilot scheme.
by Guest Contributor | Jul 7, 2016 | Opinion
Introduction: the minimum income
In Italy, the debate on basic income has lasted for almost 20 years. Back in August 1997, the ECN.org website published my pamphlet titled “Ten thesis on citizenship income”. This text, which saw a successful circulation, especially underground, was re-edited in the book “Tute Bianche” [1], presented an overview of the Italian debate regarding the introduction of a basic income, a proposal that had begun to circulate in the neo-worker environments in the previous 2 years [2].
Twenty years later, it should be acknowledged that the definition of “citizenship income” has created more negative effect than positive. At that time, the phenomenon of migration had not yet assumed today’s proportions, although it had started to see an uptick. So, guiltily, the term “citizenship” was used without thinking that the concept of “citizenship” is terribly ambiguous. In fact, it can be used in an ethical and philosophical framework for designating that every human being is born as a “world citizen”, regardless of his or her nationality of origin. But today, the concept of citizenship is increasingly tied to the legal-national sphere within a grid of limited rights ius soli, not be extended to all those who were born elsewhere. From this point of view, the idea of a “citizen’s income” can only be misunderstood as a limited proposal to whomever has that specific nationality, in contradiction with what is our idea of an individual “right to income”. The term “basic income” appears therefore more appropriate and inclusive.
There are now numerous proposed pieces of legislation in Italy and abroad, as well as policy initiatives and declarations in favour of the introduction in Italy of some form of income support independent of employment status.
There are also numerous different interpretations of such a measure. In the cultural political debate promoted by Bin-Italy [3], which for years has promoted a cultural and socio-political campaign aimed to introduce a guaranteed minimum income (basic income), it is necessary to define certain parameters, to reduce the interpretive confusion that has now reached a critical level, making it unclear what a “citizen’s income”, “minimum income” or “a dignity income” actually is (to use the most common names).
To actually talk about “basic minimum income” (we use this term in a broad and provisional sense), we believe that at least 5 criteria have to be verified:
- Individuality criterion: the minimum income must be paid at the individual level and not filtered through family members. From this we can discuss if children under 18 years enjoy this right or not.
- Criterion of residence: the minimum wage must be paid to all individuals who, residing in a given territory, live, rejoice, suffer and participate in the production and social cooperation regardless of their marital status, gender, ethnicity, religious belief, etc.
- Criterion of the maximum extension of unconditionality: the minimum income must be provided by minimizing any form of compensation and/or obligation, maximizing free individual choice.
- Access criteria: the minimum wage is paid in its initial phase of experimentation to all individuals who have an income below a certain threshold. This threshold may, however, be greater than the relative poverty line and converge toward the median level of the personal distribution of existing income. Moreover, this level of income must be expressed in relative terms, not absolutely, so that increasing the minimum threshold (as a result of the initial introduction of the measure) the range of beneficiaries will increase continuously until it reaches universality.
- Criteria for funding and transparency: the modalities of financing of minimum income must always be set out on the basis of economic viability studies, detailing where resources are obtained based on an estimate of the necessary costs. These resources have to fall on general taxation and not on other assets of origin (such as, for example, social security contributions, sale of public assets, privatization proceeds, etc.)
The criteria 1, 2, 5 should not be amendable, while criteria 3 and 4, are expressed in relative terms, may be subject to additional definitions depending on the context of reference, but within the principle directives we have just outlined.
The basic income as a primary income and therefore unconditional
The basic income today is a good and just idea. The reasons for this claim are inspired by the forms of the social composition of labor and the modalities of accumulation and exploitation which are today dominant.
In this regard, it is necessary to propose a cultural leap before we take the political leap and affirm that Basic Income is a primary distribution variable: the basic income must intervene, in fact, directly in the income distribution of productive factors, such as salary (which remunerates certified work hours), profit (which rewards the business entity), or rent (which derives from a property right). Primary distribution variable means that it is not a re-distributive variable: it directly occurs at the level of the balance of power and social relations within a certain process of accumulation. Despite it, a redistribution of income, which occurs at a later stage, is the outcome of a second level of indirect distribution, an extra market level, thanks to appropriate discretionary economic policies.
If basic income is remuneration, the question is what is the level of pay. To answer this it is necessary first to analyze what the main sources of exploitation are in contemporary capitalism. More and more studies confirm that today life itself, in every daily event, is the productive factor par excellence [4]. If we take into account the acts of daily life that characterize our existence, they can be categorized into four types: labor, work, leisure, entertainment/games. Today it is not only labor that is the basis of added value, but also the time of creation (opus/work), the otium/leisure time, entertainment time. These are all included in a growing and continuous enhancement mechanism.
The classic dichotomy of the Fordist paradigm between labor and non-labor time, between production and consumption, between production and reproduction are now partially obsolete. It is the result of a historic process of structural changes in manufacturing processes and labor organization, which marked the transition from a material Fordist capitalism to a bio-cognitive and financialized capitalism. Today, wealth production derives, at the same time, from absolute surplus value and relative surplus value extraction, where for absolute surplus value we intend the existence of a sort of primitive accumulation in capitalist organization based on capital employment and on private property. The result is the change of the relationship between productive and unproductive labor. What in the material Fordist capitalism was considered unproductive (i.e. no production of surplus value and therefore not remunerable), has now become productive, while the remuneration remained anchored to the one of the Fordist era (the salarization crisis). As a result, we are facing new ways of valorization such as “dispossesion” (Harvey [5]) and “extraction”, to whom no remuneration is applied, according to the dominant rules (legal, industrial relations, uses and so on).
It is no coincidence that unpaid labor is sharply increasing from those sectors in which more has been invested by the transformations of the enhancement methods and the adoption of the new linguistic-communicative technological paradigm (cognitve-relational activities).
Against this background, one proposal that could be advanced to counter this phenomenon of unpaid labour (i.e., basically “slavery” with another name, even though for most it is not perceived as such) is to proceed with its salarization. But we ask yourselves: is it possible? If the answer is yes, then the basic income should be not necessary
The vagueness of labor time
This question opens up a second theoretical problem – both political and methodological. When technological and organizational transformations favor the spread of increasingly intangible productions with a high degree of non-measurability, when value is created by a whole range of life activities, from learning processes, to social reproduction [6] and networks of relationships, then arises the problem of “measure.”
The theme of the measure is linked to the calculation/quantification of labor productivity. Unlike in the past, where this calculation was possible because employee labor activity could be measured in hours and by an equally measurable amount of production on an individual basis, productivity today has changed shape: it depends on the increasing use of new forms of scale economies: learning and network economies. These are scale economies no longer static but dynamic, because it is the flow (continuously) of time to allow for growth and learning of social skills as well as social reproduction and thus increase productivity, whose effects can be seen no more on individual basis but on social one. Both learning and networking, in fact, need a social context and a social cooperation. The productivity in bio-cognitive capitalism is therefore primarily social productivity or, with reference to the role of knowledge, general intellect.
Learning economies are based on the generation and dissemination of knowledge. Knowledge is not a scarce resource, such as material goods, but abundant: the more you swap, the more it spreads, the more it grows, with a highly productive cumulative mechanism: cumulativeness requires relationships and social networks. Learning and network are two sides of the same coin: if knowledge is not spread through relational over individual processes, it is not economically productive. Only if you develop social cooperation and general intellect does it become productive.
We are not talking in the traditional sense of the term co-operation, that is, “join forces” but co-operation, namely the interaction of individual operations that only achieve synergy in the common processes of accumulation and thus of surplus value creation. These relational activities often hide forms of hierarchy and exploitation, whose value is difficult to measure, not only on individual basis but collectively as well. If traditional factory productivity was based on precise technical mechanisms that allow you to measure individual productivity in the labor places today, then the productivity of social cooperation cannot be measured in terms of individual productivity.
Not just individual productivity but also the same product of social cooperation is not measurable. When you are producing symbols, languages, ideas, forms of communication, social control, what kind of measurement can we take? Every relationship between output value, its production time (measured in hours) and its remuneration (measured in wages) becomes almost impossible or very difficult and subjective.
The crisis of the labor theory of value derives from the fact that the individual contribution today is not measurable and the output tends to escape a unit of measurement, as production tends to become immaterial. And this takes place in a context in which the measure of value is no longer constrained by a scarcity factor. As was pointed out earlier, learning (knowledge) and network (space) are abundant inputs, theoretically unlimited (especially if we consider the virtual space), as the human nature. A theory of value based on the principle of scarcity, such as the one implicit in the theory of free market founded on the law of supply and demand, no longer has any economic and social relevance. It is only artificially perpetuated in market dynamics which have continuously defined power relationships. Paradoxically, the only theory of value that appears adequate to contemporary bio-cognitive capitalism, the labor theory of value, is not able to provide one measure.
How to give a measure to social cooperation and general intellect?
It is a question that can only surmise some answers. One possible aspect to consider has to do with the sphere of financialization. The pervasive and central role of financial markets, such as investment financing tools, privatization of social welfare and the form of partial compensation of the high content of knowledge labor, has affected not only the sphere of realization but also that of production. In capital gains, the speculative activity partially derives from the value produced by the cognitive-relational living labor. It is in financial markets that we can roughly see the implementation of the process of expropriation of social cooperation and of general intellect.
This process is not immediate and direct. It is often handled by the dominant bio-power management and the hierarchical relationships that continually redefine the property structure and market structure.
From this point of view, basic income, as a primary income, becomes even more a tool of direct re-appropriation of the wealth that is generated by the common life time put to labor.
The inadequacy of wages form at the time of the body-mind
The order of discourse leads us to say that the traditional salary structure is no longer adequate, it does not fully capture the transformations in the valorization process. The classic wage structure can still be useful in those parts of the overall production cycle in which there is a measure of the value of labor in term of time. But it cannot be generalized. From a theoretical point of view, this issue leads to the need to review, rethink and redefine the Marxian labor theory of value.
The inadequacy of the wage form as remuneration of all the productive life, leads us to say that we need another way of remuneration (in addition to the wage forms where these are measurable). From this point of view, basic income is something structurally different from salary (though potentially, in the future, convergent); it cannot simply be understood as an extension of the wage form, because it is necessary to take into account the quantitative and qualitative change that new technologies have generated.
In particular, I would like to stress the relationship between human and machine.
In the sixties, the relationship between human beings (with his body, his nerves, his muscles, his brain, his heart, his eros) and the machine was a relationship between separate domains: on the one hand, the human being, living labor, on the other hand, the machine, the dead labor. The relationship between life and death was clear, physically traceable. From the point of view of human inner, the machine was something external and tangible, separate from himself.
From the nineties to the present, such a separation is no longer as clear. The machine becomes mechanic and loses some of its materiality: the old Tayloristic machine becomes increasingly linguistic and relational. In presence of linguistic-communication technologies (ICT), only the support is material (hardware) but the core depends more and more on cognitive-relational human faculties processes. The use of language as the main tool of the mechanic operation changes the relationship of interdependence between human and machine typical of Taylorist technologies. In digital technologies, the despotism of the machine is less prevalent.
But is this hybrid between man and machine that takes direction? And is it the machine that is humanized or rather the human becoming mechanical? That is the challenge of bio-robotic.
Consider the web 2.0 and the recent spread of social media. “The profit of advertising agencies, just like the profit of all firms in web 2.0, depend almost entirely on the ability to develop control technologies. Social control is then presented as the only way to innovate and develop in the future. But what is checked, exactly, today? Our identities and how they change. “The profiling algorithms of digital technologies feed on human biodiversity that it is itself channelled and integrated “in a Panopticon space, completely transparent, where we are called to act publicly”. See Google Pagerank, for instance.
Control of the body-mind becomes today (in agreement with the unpaid labor) the new enhancement border. Even if such activities were salarized or simply paid otherwise (which is not), our freedom of choice would be conditioned.
An unconditional basic income is a tool not only to recognize that our life is an active part (though often not aware) of contemporary exploitation but also able to exercise the right to choice, that is towards an individual and social self-determination: the right to choose our destiny as far as social participation is concerned, and also the right to refuse bad and indecent labor conditions. And this cannot be allowed, otherwise there is the risk to break the fragile balance between social control and the supine condition of subordination. From this point of view an unconditional income is subversive and that is the political struggle.
Author: Andrea Fumagalli (Università di Pavia – BIN Italia)
Andrea Fumagalli note for the conference: “Future of Work” Zurich 4 May 2016
[1] A. Fumagalli, M. Lazzarato (eds), Tute Bianche, Derive-Approdi, Roma, 1999
[2] M. Bascetta, G. Bronzini (eds), La democrazia del reddito universale, Manifestolibri, 1997. Il tema di un reddito sganciato dal lavoro, etichettato con il termine salario sociale era già stato patrimonio del dibattito degli anni Settanta a parte dalla formulazione del rifiuto del lavoro (salariato).
[3] See www.bin-italy.org
[4] A. Fumagalli, C. Morini, “Life put to work: towards a theory of life-value”, in Ephemera, vol. 10, 2011, p. 234-252
[5] D. Harvey, “The new imperialism. The accumulation by dispossession”, in Socialist Register, 2004
[6] C. Morini, “Riproduzione sociale” in C. Morini, P. Vignola (eds), Piccola Enciclopedia Precaria, Milano X, Milano, 2015
by Tyler Prochazka | Jun 4, 2016 | Opinion
One of the masterminds behind the upcoming Swiss referendum on the basic income Enno Schmidt said that no matter the outcome on June 5, he will still have achieved his goal of starting a widespread discussion about the issue.
Schmidt started his basic income advocacy back in 2006 and has been pushing the idea through films, lectures and articles ever since. In 2013, he and others collected over 120,000 signatures in order to get the basic income up for a referendum in Switzerland, which he said was not an easy task.
In anticipation of the upcoming referendum, Schmidt answered some questions about the past, present and future of the basic income in Switzerland and beyond. Some of the quotations have been edited for clarity.
Why did you found the initiative basic income? What was your intention for the initiative in 2006? Have your goal’s changed?
The reason was to make the people more free in their decisions about their life and in their personal responsibility to live according to their own intentions.
The right to political initiatives for everyone in Switzerland and the Direct Democracy made it possible to come up with this proposal to create a general discussion throughout the entire population and to finally achieve a referendum.
The intention was to give all people a basic income unconditional in order to create a society with more variety, less fear, and more productivity in a much broader sense. Also part of the goal was to bring the idea of unconditionality to our otherwise purely functional conceptions of living. Ultimately it represents the question about what it means to be human. The goal did not change but has been enriched with more and more significance. Aspects such as the upcoming data economy, the need to strengthen civil society, the necessary power shift towards the citizens all contributed to this conception.
How did you happen upon the concept of the basic income? Why do you think you were drawn to the idea?
Because the basic income refers to the individual, not to a specific circumstances. It does not determine people, it enables everyone to come into play in society. It does not judge what people do. It’s a base of human kindness and a protection of privacy. It’s about respect and appreciation towards the other and it’s about self-determination. Thus new the new and unforeseen can happen and develop. Today there is no more lack of material goods. The productiveness in the old sense increases with ever less human labor. We need a space for the new productivity as we face our current challenges. We have to rethink the income supply and examine our values. Separating income and work reveals the value of work. No one should be blackmailed with his livelihood. The right to work is the right to do what you really want to do. This right needs a right to income. The unconditional basic income is a democratically coordinated income, not negotiated economically. The logic and beauty of the idea has drawn me.
How would you compare the public’s interest in the basic income in 2006 to the interest/support right now?
Ten years ago, we moved across the country, organized events and let others come up for discussion. We still do. But now the media has come from all over to us and spread the idea worldwide. We started from a little point with nearly no knowledge in society about the idea. And still we are far from a majority convinced of the basic income. But attention and acceptance has greatly increased. Not only in Switzerland. But Switzerland has the benefit of direct democracy. With our campaign for the vote we managed to even get some of the opponents of the basic income to acclaim the concept as the new idea for Europe. The interest grew rapidly after the World Economic Forum in Davos discussed the unconditional basic income as the most innovative and intelligent solution for the upcoming digitalization era, and once again grew rapidly due to the upcoming vote.
How do you feel about your chances with the upcoming vote?
With this vote, we will have established the subject firmly in society. If one in five votes is yes, then that is incredible progress. So much has moved in the minds, in fixed opinions, and new eyes have appeared. It’s the first time in history that this issue is discussed in an entire population with the serious background of a referendum to vote on and decide.
By this vote the majority may vote no, but the vote itself is an opportunity to introduce an unconditional basic income to society. But maybe in ten years the next referendum will result in a majority voting yes. Therefore, it is not so much a question about how we feel about our chances, but we already have taken the chance to create a public and broad debate about the basic income unlike anything seen before. This vote is a milestone on a path on which the debate is getting stronger at home and abroad.
Can you describe the process of getting the initiative on the ballot? How did you feel when the initiative was successfully scheduled for a public vote?
I felt as if the gate was opened for a heavenly reality and a really human approach, for an big event and great chance. When the Federal Chancellery had approved the people’s initiative, we had 18 months’ time to gather at least 100,000 valid signatures of Swiss citizens. This is not online. You have to go on the street in all types of weather. That is not easy. While doing so a new dynamic developed. “Generation basic income” converted the severe toil into a sporting competition. We turned the large number into achievable goals, with each individual collecting visible results, and over the long run a series of successes.
When we submitted 126,000 signatures on October 4, 2013 in the Federal Chancellery, I had the feeling of having made gotten the essentials, that the way was now open for a general major debate in society. The referendum itself is already a point of arrival. We offer the proposal: The citizens vote.
How has your outlook changed for the prospect of the basic income over the last ten years?
I realized early on that a basic income will come. The idea is as strong as the idea of democracy or human rights. It is of the same kind. It is even the same idea. The question is not whether it comes, but how it comes and by whom, by what interests. This prospect has been confirmed over the time. Already in the design of the meaning of an unconditional basic income is its way of being introduced. An unconditional basic income not only allows more flexibility, it also requires more. It comes through the people who are affected or it comes out wrong. It may not come automatically as a result of automation. It may not come from the rich to the poor and not as an economy measure. It should not be a new feudalism, no philanthropic colonialism and not to plug old holes. If the unconditional does not affect everybody, it is for no one. The comprehensive and greatness of this idea became even clearer for me and thus also the possibilities to use it quite differently.
What would the implications be if the Swiss vote yes on the referendum? What would the implications be if they vote no — including for you and your advocacy?
With a majority yes the introduction will be prepared and probably start with pilot projects such as in Finland. This will take some years. About the amount of a basic income and the type of finance it probably will come to next public votes. Also other points of the basic income can lead to new referendums. Overall, I think, it will need 20 years. With a majority no the discussion also will go on. This referendum has given such a strong thrust to the debate. The development will go along as well, just not within the authorities. Also pilot projects can arise in some cities and cantons. And the development in other countries continues. We see things not isolated in Switzerland. We see it in conjunction with the other areas experimenting with the basic income. Another referendum in Switzerland is possible and the introduction will go more quickly. Time does not stand still and an unconditional basic income becomes more and more inevitable.
