Notice of correction to and retraction of the article “World Economic Forum recognizes Madhya Pradesh basic income pilot studies”
On September 9, Basic Income News published an article with the headline “World Economic Forum recognizes Madhya Pradesh basic income pilot studies”, which announced that the World Economic Forum (WEF) had bestowed a “best practice in governance award” to Sarath Davala and the India Network for Basic Income (INBI) for their submission of a case study of basic income in Madhya Pradesh, India.
The submission and award are part of WEF’s New Vision for Development competition, an international competition seeking new global approaches to inclusive growth.
This announcement was made in error. In actuality, the Madhya Pradesh case study was deemed eligible for an award in the “best practice in governance” category. However, the case study is one of multiple applications eligible for the award, and WEF has not yet selected the recipient of the award.
The original article has been retracted.
Additional updates, information and background:
The WEF invited Dr. Sarath Davala, an independent sociologist and coordinator of INBI, to join other applicants to the New Vision for Development competition at a Sustainable Development Impact Summit held in New York, New York, from September 18 to 19.
The case study on the Madhya Pradesh basic income pilot, of which Davala was the lead author, was also selected for inclusion on WEF’s Inclusive Growth and Development Platform, at interactive online platform to be launched publicly in early 2018.
Regarding the significance of the New Vision for Development competition, Davala states,
The point is not whether one case-study gets an award or one person gets it. The main point is that the idea of Unconditional and Universal Basic Income is being recognised and endorsed by the mainstream global institutions as an idea that can potentially answer some of the most troubling questions of our times, such as chronic poverty, future of employment, meaning of work, and so on. This is truly a big victory for the idea itself.
His submission detailed the pilot study of basic income conducted in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh from June 2011 to November 2012, co-sponsored by UNICEF and the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). During this 18 month experiment, 6,000 individuals in nine villages received monthly unconditional cash transfers equivalent to about one quarter of the median income in the state. The transfers were delivered to all adults in each village in the pilot, with smaller amounts for every child. Similar villages were used as controls. It was found that, relative to the residents of control villages, individuals receiving the cash transfers were seen to be significantly more likely to obtain adequate nutrition, receive regular medical treatment, invest in improved energy and sanitation, start new businesses, and send their children to school, among other improvements. (The study and its results are described at length inBasic Income: A Transformative Policy for India, authored by Davala, SEWA’s Renana Jhabvala SEWA, Soumya Kapoor of the World Bank, and BIEN cofounder Guy Standing.)
Davala and other researchers have recently completed a legacy study investigating the long-term impacts of the Madhya Pradesh pilot, and Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India consulted the experiment in preparing a chapter on universal basic income for the 2017 Economic Survey of India. In this document, Subramanian cites evidence from Madhya Pradesh to support a rebuttal of claim that unconditional cash transfers would lead to a reduction in the labor supply, stating that, on the contrary, “the study shows that people become more productive when they get a basic income”.
In itsInclusive Growth and Development Report (2017), the WEF states that basic income alone cannot adequately substitute for what it considers the “five crucial institutional underpinnings of a well-functioning labor market” (labor-market policies, equal access to quality education, gender parity, non-standard work benefits and protections, and effective school-to-work transition); however, its authors remark that the policy may “form part of an appropriate policy response” or “serve as a useful complement” to other strategies.
The World Economic Forum does not endorse basic income but encourages the sharing and discussion of a wide range of approaches to inclusive and sustainable growth.
Post reviewed for content by the World Economic Forum and copyedited by Heidi Karow
Photo: Valleys of Madhya Pradesh, India CC BY 2.0 Rajarshi MITRA
Congressional Quarterly (CQ) has published a research paper on basic income (BI) that explains its universal popularity due to automation growth estimates worldwide. The CQ Researcher covers everything from Scott Santens’ crowdfunded self-financing mechanism to U.S. ex-President Obama’s belief that the debate may last 10 to 20 years.
The 21-page research paper, written by London freelancer Sara Glazer, includes an explanation of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) – a basic income like payment to all residents – and revels in the prediction of automation worldwide. Predicted percentage of job losses are shown in charts for 8 countries, as well as for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (made up of 21 countries).
BI appeal to the political Left is explained as the continuation of a welfare state. Its appeal to the political Right is explained as a libertarian limit on government intrusion and cost. However, the research warns that many people believe the poor may be worse off: “Some anti-poverty advocates say a UBI would increase both poverty and inequality by using welfare funds now spent on the poorest two-fifths of the population to provide cash to people of all income levels“.
The report also mentions the current endorsement of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, as well as other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Chris Hughes. Moreover, references are made to the 1960s precedent of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson’s instituted War on Poverty as well as U.S. President Richard Nixon un-instituted 1970s negative income tax credit. This latter issue has been today resurrected by Congressman Ro Khanna, by his proposed bill for extending the earned income tax credit for the poor.
The Canadian 1970s experiment, called Mincome, is described as a positive pilot project, acting as a precedent for current basic income pilot projects in Finland, the U.S. (California ), Canada (Ontario ), Spain (Barcelona), Africa (Give Directly) and the Netherlands. In this report Karl Widerquist says that, with a BI, people will be allowed without fear to work the way they feel best. In an opposite viewpoint, Pavlina Tcherneva argues that a Job Guarantee program would be a better, less costly, way to make sure everyone had work they cared for.
I was recently listening to a talk show on public radio. The first segment was about President Trump’s tax proposals. It included a debate between a supporter of Trump’s plan and an opponent of it. The supporter is associated with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Her conclusion was that Trump’s proposed tax cuts would be great because they would lead to more economic growth and, therefore, more jobs. This is, of course, the supply-side/trickle-down economics reasoning, which could be a subject of debate itself.
A later segment on the talk show focused on New York City’s attempt to persuade Amazon to set up its headquarters in the city. For those who may not be aware, New York City’s mayor is widely considered to be politically progressive. If you are more familiar with European politics, you can think of him as something like a Social Democrat. He did not appear on the radio program, but one of his deputies did. The deputy said a primary reason the city wants to attract Amazon is that such a move would generate a lot of jobs.
Thus, there was a representative of a progressive mayor and a conservative, both of whom argued for two very different proposals on the same basis — jobs. This is not that unusual. The U.S. political Right and Left disagree on plenty: tax cuts, the proper role of the federal government, how best to improve U.S. schools, what the U.S. Constitution says about the right to own a gun, and a host of other issues. But both sides can always be counted on to agree that whether someone has a job or not is an issue of utmost importance.
Conservatives may argue that the best way to generate jobs is for the government to get out of the way and let businesses “do their thing.” Progressives may counter that the private sector will never create enough jobs for all those who desire one, and that the only way to assure people can find work is for the government to guarantee a right to work, even if it must do the hiring. But for both sides of the U.S. political spectrum, jobs are what matters.
It makes sense that both the Right and Left would be so focused on jobs. The main source of many, if not most, incomes in the U.S. is a wage or salary. For many people, if they lost their job, it would not be long before things became dire for them. For many of those currently without jobs, things are already quite dire. It is in the nature of capitalism for most of us to toil away as “wage slaves” as the Marxists define it. But it seems that over time, this economic necessity has developed into something many people call the work ethic, but which I have come to think might better be called the job ethic. The job ethic is the culture which develops when what we have to do to survive becomes not just a source of income but also one of social recognition.
In her book Justice and the Politics of Difference, the late philosopher Iris Marion Young has an essay on the definition of “oppression.” That essay is called The Five Faces of Oppression, and one of those “faces” is marginalization. Marginalization is what happens to the involuntarily unemployed. Obviously, those faced with this situation have a serious financial problem, given that they are living within a system which requires them to have money to meet their needs. But, according to Young, this is not the main reason involuntary unemployment is oppressive. The main reason is that those who are unemployed lack something which grants them access to being recognized and esteemed by their fellow citizens/residents — a job. It is this lack of a job which makes the unemployed feel cast aside and marginalized. The fact that someone is not willing to hire them results in their feeling socially worthless.
Being a philosopher/political theorist, Young does not support her argument with figures and statistics. But I think she may be onto something. A number of opponents of basic income seem to think so, too. Anyone who has followed the basic income debate has heard the argument that basic income is imprudent public policy because it would result in less work. Less work would mean people would be less inclined to engage in an activity which provides them not just with income, but also with meaning and social recognition. What these individuals are really saying is that basic income is bad social policy because it would result in fewer people having to obtain meaning and social recognition from what they have to do to “put food on the table.”
In the past, I have questioned whether basic income would have this effect. But I’m also inclined to wonder: So what if it does? As important as making a living is, humans do a lot of other things besides sell their labor. They spend time with children, spouses, and friends, they enjoy hobbies of various kinds, they engage in pursuits of higher learning, they become involved in civic pursuits to make the world a better place, and a host of other things. Can’t at least some of these things be sources of social recognition, as well? As long as capitalism and tasks that cannot be completed by machines exist, there will be a need for humans to sell their labor. But if a basic income freed some of us up to spend more time doing other things which provide us with social recognition, would that really be so bad?
About the author:
Michael A. Lewis is a social worker and sociologist by training whose areas of interest are public policy and quantitative methods. He’s also a co-founder of USBIG and has written a number of articles, book chapters, and other pieces on the basic income, including the co-edited work The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee. Lewis is on the faculties of the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College and the Graduate and University Center of the City University of New York.
Jon Altman and Eva Cox. Credit to: Alfred Deakin Institute (Deakin University, Melbourne)
The Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, hosted a forum on the 17th and 18th August discussing the concept of a universal basic income.
Workshop co-convenor Jon Altman (Deakin University and ANU) suggested that part of the impetus for the workshop was the sense that discussion of UBI in Australia was not as advanced as it was in other countries. As evidence of this he cited the comment made by Chris Bowen (Shadow Treasurer for the Labor party), who said that UBI was “a terrible idea”. Tim Hollo – Executive Director of the Green Institute – also highlighted the fact that the Greens were the only major party in Australia currently in support of the concept.
Dr Tim Dunlop – author of Why the Future is Workless – gave context to the discussion by talking about the state of work, technology and automation. He said the “salient point” in labour market analysis is that many problems are current. Evidencing this, he summarized some figures from the International Labour Organization, including; global unemployment exceeding 200 million in 2017; stagnation of real wage growth; decline in proportion of wealth going to wages; 760 million men and women worldwide in “vulnerable work”, defined as work unable to bring them above the the world poverty threshold of AUD $3.10 per day; millions in refugee camps and jails; record levels of over and under-employment; and the creation of “increasingly precarious” work.
Looking at future technology, Dr Dunlop said that the consistent finding was that “around 40 to 50% of jobs are at high risk of automation in the next twenty years” (Oxford Martins School Report, 2015) under “currently existing technologies” (McKinzie Report) and that it would be “close to a form of denialism”, therefore, to state, as many do, that “concerns about technological unemployment are overstated”. Associate Professor Karl Widerquist agreed with this point, stating that “people are not interchangeable parts” and often find that their “learn[t] skills” are “not needed any more”. In this regard, he said a UBI could compensate for the continual disruption of technology, and the inherent inability of workers to adapt and provide themselves with income. Phillip Ablett (USC), summarising work by Mullally, added that neo-liberalism’s emphasis “on ‘individual responsibility’ for poverty” contributed to this persecution of workers, where we tend “to blame individuals for their ‘failure’ to succeed in the market economy rather than consider the structural impediments to achievement”.
Professor Widerquist said a shift away from labour prosperity to capital prosperity has led to an “incentive problem” where employers don’t have an incentive to treat their employees appropriately since employees don’t have any power to refuse their conditions. The universal nature of a UBI, as such, would allow for a “voluntary participation economy instead of a mandatory participation economy”. Dr Frances Flanagan agreed that “capital accumulation” was central to the problem of “acute inequality”, however she expressed concerns that discussions around UBI focused too heavily on wage leverage and monetary incentive. Citing “care work” as an example “utterly antithetical” to the taylorisms of tasking and efficiency, Dr Flanagan said we need a more positive definition of ‘work’ since there are always ‘jobs’ that “require empathy, judgement and relationships”. UBI, consequently, needs to be “supportive of the fight for better jobs” and “[be] supportive of the fight against marketisation”. Professor John Quiggin (UQ) echoed Dr Flanagan’s concerns that UBI risks the possibility of replacing social services with a single payment, though he did point out that an unconditional stipend could destigmatise the concept of welfare payments to individuals, undermining the concept of the “deserving and undeserving poor”. Professor Eva Cox (AO) was also critical of UBI as a means to empowering a “protestant, male, Anglo” market system, where humans are economically judged as being good or bad “consumers”. She reiterated the need to revisit the concept of ‘work’ through a lense where humans were considered “social”, “dependent” and “interdependent”, advocating a UBI that was used to redefine “the social contract between the nation state and the individual”, with “reciprocity built into it”.
On the subject of evidence to support a UBI’s practical plausibility, both Professor Widerquist and Professor Greg Marston (University of Queensland) said that trials investigating the effects could be strategically dangerous since the trial conditions are often neither unconditional nor universal. Marston pointed to climate change as an example of where the accumulation of data has brought about, in many cases, confirmation bias in support of inactivity rather than impetus to instigate change. It was generally agreed that the issues of design and implementation were not, therefore, easily separated. Professor Quiggin, Troy Henderson and Dr Ben Spies-Butcher advanced the idea of a staged introduction, a “stepping-stone” approach which would retain the “big idea” excitement for voters and simultaneously satisfy technocrats. Quiggin’s preferred model was to favour the “basic” over the “universal” through various mechanisms and adjustments to tax regimes, introducing a full UBI payment to selected, vulnerable populations, and then gradually increase the number of people covered. The cost of everyone in Australia receiving a full UBI was estimated to be around 5-10% of GDP. Henderson and Spies-Butcher offered modelling that began by universalising the age pension, and by also introducing an “unconditional Youth Basic Income paid to those aged 20-24 based on a negative income tax model.”
In conclusion, the consistent theme of the two days was that UBI cannot be offered as a silver-bullet solution to issues around inequality, welfare, social security and the potential growing precarity of work. So while there is a tendency amongst advocates (worldwide) to present UBI as a single policy response for addressing many of the problems societies have with these issues, the very strong feeling of the workshop was that this could be a dangerous over-reach.
You can view some of the contributors speaking here.
The 17th BIEN Congress took place in Lisbon, Portugal from the 25th to the 27th of September. The focus of the congress was on “Implementing Basic Income.” The 150 presenters represented 33 countries, with more countries represented in the additional 380 audience members. According to Karl Widerquist, Vice-Chair of BIEN, this may have been the largest BIEN Congress since Brazil in 2010. The Congress included keynote presentations by BIEN co-founders Guy Standing and Philippe Van Parijs, in addition to keynote presentations about several Basic Income pilot programs, reflecting the congress’s focus on implementation, and from several political figures who are advocating for Basic Income in their respective countries.
The first day of the congress took place at the Portuguese Parliament (Assembleia da República), and as Standing said: “I am sure I speak for many of the co-founders, and many of them are here, that when we set up BIEN 31 years ago we never anticipated that we would be in a place like this in 2017.” The second and third days were held at ISEG, Lisbon School of Economics and Management, a beautiful venue that used to be a convent (Convento das Inglesinhas, restored by architect Gonçalo Byrne) that has kept many of its original architectural features and now hosts the university’s post-graduate programs.
Starting the keynote session on Basic Income pilot programs, Evelyn Forget’s presentation was about the differences between the narratives attached to several Basic Income experiments. She underlined that different narratives will create different criteria of success. For example, Finland’s narrative is about long-term unemployment and incentivising return to work. In this case, the experiment will be successful if people return to work. Ontario’s narrative is about social justice and a gap in benefits for adults because of the new reality of precarious work and poverty issues. Their goal is to expand the welfare state. Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator’s narrative started out as an utopia put forward by private individuals who wondered what would happen once automation freed people to do what they want. Forget stressed that “context matters” in pilot programs, and she suggested that when we bring together all these shared experiences, we can create newer and richer narratives.
After Forget’s insights, there were several presentations about specific pilot programs being developed. Karen Glass, from the experiment in Ontario, Canada, described the pilot program as a type of Negative Income Tax program, since the payments decrease as the recipients start working. The Ontario project applies to households and encompasses individuals aged 18 through 64, who have been residents of the region for one year. The pilot provides a guaranteed annual income of $17,000 dollars per individual and $24,000 per couple, which is 75% of the low income measure. The success criteria are not focused primarily on work incentives, but on recipients’ improved health, reduction in anxiety and the ability to make ends meet. Elizabeth Rhodes from Y Combinator, a seed investment company, talked about the contours of what this private experiment wants to achieve. Y Combinator has already financed a feasibility study in Oakland. and now plans to select 3000 participants who will receive 1000 dollars per month, some for three years and others for five. There is an income cap in the selection and they will be undersampling higher incomes. Presently the program is considering selecting subjects 21 to 40 years in age. The pilot intends to evaluate well being, mental and physical health, social and civic engagement and social networks effects as well as effects in the children of the participants. The research team has been piloting and testing their methods with a smaller group of participants.
Joe Huston spoke about the experience of GiveDirectly in Kenya. GiveDirectly has raised funds privately and has been distributing them to around 100 people, but once the project is fully launched there will be up to 26,000 people receiving some type of cash transfer. The pilot is divided into three groups, one group will receive a monthly payment for 12 years, another for 2 years and yet another will receive a one time cash grant of the same amount. The 100 people who are receiving a monthly Basic Income already have reported on their experiences, and, as Huston says,many have reported they did not reduce their work efforts; instead, many have several projects that need to be completed (such as paying for school and building a house), so they need to work. Others have pulled their Basic Income payments together in something called “table banking” and give a larger sum to each member at a time so that more can be achieved. Giving to individuals as opposed to households has had the emancipatory effects that are often theorized: because each person receives an equal amount of money, it is easier to solve household disputes. Regarding how the money is spent, Huston says that Basic Income debates seem to oscillate between saying that people will become lazy bums or startup engineers; however, both extremes are inaccurate and do not apply to what is happening in the village so far. Huston explains that when walking from house to house in Kenya one can see a diversity of life choices: “Irene spent some in purchasing a goat for about $12 and kept some of the money as savings. Eric spent most of his money in a fishing net, saved some of the money and bought small fish like anchovies for a snack. Frederick spent most of the money in school fees.” So far, each person used the money as is more adequate in their particular circumstances.
On the political arena there were several important participants. From Germany, Cosima Kern spoke about the new Basic Income single issue party, and explained that since Germany has no direct democracy (in contrast to Switzerland) this is a way to force Basic Income into the political arena. The Basic Income party had almost 100,000 votes in the election that took place on day before the Congress, which Kern said is a good result for a new party. Enno Schmidt talked about the referendum in Switzerland and also underlined that the 23% vote for Basic Income was a great first result, reminding everyone how it took 17 years of discussion in Switzerland for women to have the right to vote. Lena Stark spoke about the new political party in Sweden in the same vein as the German party; they plan to run for elections in September 2018. Ping Xu presented the situation in Taiwan with the help of Tyler Prochazka. Taiwan has the highest housing costs and the lowest birth rates, and would be an ideal site for a full implementation of Basic Income. From Japan, the ex-Minister of Agriculture, Masahiko Yamada, spoke about the importance of Basic Income in his country, which is facing new economic challenges that urgently need to be addressed.
Finally, the Scottish MP Ronnie Cowan inspired the audience with his privileged viewpoint regarding how politicians tend to operate and the heartfelt way that Scotland is pursuing their Basic Income pilot programs. Mr. Cowan said that politicians rely on experts, but experts and academic often disagree, and politicians need facts and figures, which is why experiments are so important. With pilot schemes, we can monitor outcomes; they can be used to tell if “people are happier, more socially engaged, eating healthier, if kids are doing better at school, we can measure the benefits against the cost.” Mr. Cowan concluded: “Basic Income really comes alive for me when we consider it’s for everyone. It is not means tested. It is not subject to the disability test. It removes stigma. It creates choice and it’s absolutely dripping in humanity.”
The two main keynote speakers, Guy Standing and Philippe Van Parijs, also captured the audience’s interest with their presentations. Standing celebrated the 800 year anniversary of The Charter of the Forest, a piece of legislation that was valid for 754 years, only repealed in 1971. Standing argued that the commons defended in The Charter of The Forest have been plundered upon for hundreds of years, and Basic Income is a way to bring back the commons. He defended the position that Basic Income should be seen as a social dividend based in the commons and land tax, not something that will send income tax through the roof. Van Parijs spoke of the right to work and the duty to work. He argued that even though many see Basic Income as an attack on these, it actually facilitates both. Basic Income can organically encourage part-time work and therefore job sharing, thus promoting the right to work. Basic Income can also allow for the duty to work to be expressed in a meaningful way that includes paid and unpaid jobs. According to Van Parijs, the duty to work cannot mean simply doing something for a salary; it should be viewed more widely as a duty to participate in society in a meaningful way. Basic Income can liberate people to participate in such a way by either allowing them to chose paid work that is more meaningful, or by choosing other unpaid useful work. If we eliminate the idea that people have to work in whatever they can to survive, the morality of what one chooses to do will come to the forefront, allowing the duty to work in a more meaningful way to become center stage as far as human activity is concerned.
The keynote presentations wrapped up with Eduardo Suplicy from Brazil, ex-Senator and long time defender of Basic Income, and Francisco Louçã, member of the left wing party Bloco de Esquerda in Portugal. There were also many other local Portuguese participants, as well as a slew of media attention related to the congress (which will be discussed in a future Basic Income Newspiece). The congress also included 37 parallel sessions, among others, Malcolm Torry’s presentation on Defining Basic Income, sessions on Degrowth, Digital Economy, Communicating about Basic Income, and many other topics, as well as two films, Christian Todd’sFree Lunch Society and Rena Masuyama’s Film Project, the first fiction film about Basic Income produced in Japan. Summaries of all the sessions provided by the chairs should be available in about one month at the Portuguese Basic Income Site, for now there are papers and presentations and videos of the event available of the site.
