by Guest Contributor | Oct 24, 2016 | Opinion
The article is meant to challenge Canadians and others to consider what precisely a basic income is and what goals it can accomplish. For BIEN’s official definition of basic income, click here.
By: Reza Hajivandi
Both as a concept and policy, basic income (BI) has been around for some time, losing and re-gaining traction at different points in history. However, the vague manner in which the term is sometimes used, and the lack of effort in providing any clear demarcations, has led to its obscurity.
To give the term clarity, first the question must be asked: What is basic income? Asking the question is not intended to provide a concrete and singular definition, nor is it a good idea to do so. The purpose is clarity, which could be achieved by first, asking the question; What is basic income? And second, journeying through the process of finding answers. The journey therefore takes priority here, by helping to provide clarity.
How can we approach the question in a way that provides answers and clarity? One possibility could be researching academic articles or the worldwide web to see how basic income is defined. However, as aforementioned, if the purpose is clarity, then skipping past the ‘journey process’ and jumping straight to the finish line will not be helpful. A more in-depth approach involves asking the ‘why’ question: Why Basic Income in the first place? By asking this question we will be forcing ourselves to embark on a journey of discovery, through which we may encounter difficult questions and decisions.
Why basic income?
Immediately we can respond by suggesting that the goal is to advocate for a policy that will effectively tackle obstacles such as precarity and poverty, which are preventing people from living with freedom and dignity. Such a response, however, immediately yields a new question: Do we not already have existing social security policies with the same purpose? And don’t some of those policies already possess elements that closely resemble the idea of basic income?
First, we have a social assistance program that is offered by each province. This is known as Ontario Works (OW) in Ontario, and British Columbia Employment and Assistance (BCEA) in British Columbia. Yet these services are quite distinct from basic income in that they are neither universal nor guaranteed, but targeted, means-tested, and subject to heavy claw backs and other conditions. The rates that are provided are also insufficient in the face of rising and already staggering living costs (rent, food, and other basic needs). It is for all these reasons that social assistance tends to perpetuate existing poverty, rather than helping people escape it. In addition, targeted assistance programs are known to be shouldered by government taxes that primarily target the middle class. This squeezes both the government and a shrinking middle class for scant funding. It also leads to class divisions by creating the popular perception that the lazy poor/refugee/immigrant etc on welfare are responsible for societal and economic problems, while wealthier segments stay off the tax and social radar and continue with their unfair and extensive accumulation of wealth.
Coming closer to the idea of basic income are other existing social security measures such as Old Age Security (OAS) and Canada Child Benefit (CCB). OAS is guaranteed to recipients aged 65 years or older almost regardless of income and other conditions. This might move us a little closer to what we want: A basic income that is the opposite of existing income security programs like OW and BCEA and more like guaranteed income ones like OAS.
This is perhaps where basic income takes its own character. It has to be universal, because if it isn’t, then it’s going to closely resemble what we already have in place, and prone to falling victim to the same problems that have historically plagued the social security system. Therefore, unless we are after a simple re-branding or name change, basic income has to be radically different from (and perhaps the opposite) of existing social assistance. Even the term ‘basic income’ seems to orient itself towards something that’s universal and guaranteed, because that’s what income is, anyway – a form of earning that is guaranteed. And if something is universal it needs to be guaranteed and come with almost no conditions, otherwise it cannot really be called universal. Not to play with semantics, a responsible BI program must therefore be universal, and tax the rich in ways that sufficiently redistribute the wealth in society [1]. By doing so it will be able to effectively reduce poverty, and strengthen class solidarity and people’s position against austerity and neoliberalism.
Now that we have a clearer idea of what BI could be, we have to be mindful of a piece of the puzzle that is not quite making sense: the government, and in our case, the current provincial and federal governments. We have to ask ourselves why the government is suddenly so interested in providing people with a new form of welfare? Let’s be honest, governments are almost never excited about spending on social security and welfare services. Instead, it tends to be the case that persistent and consistent mobilization from grassroots are necessary to secure even minor social gains. Yet absent is precisely this strong push from below, while instead the government seems to have filled the vacuum by acting as both the ‘activist’ and ‘saint’[2]. This is indeed a strange development. But what’s even odder is its occurrence in an era of neoliberalism and austerity, where the pressure is to cut services and spend less, not more. The goal here is not to undermine the groups that have been courageously fighting the government to pass a good BI policy [3]. But there is no doubt that the government has played a significant leadership role in advocating for BI as well.
Perhaps then it is useful to ask what ‘BI’ means to the government. In some sense, BI can provide the government a convenient way to increase the efficiency of social security by streamlining all or most of its existing services into one. This could save the government money through reducing the resources required to administer social security programs, and even more by keeping assistance at its current (insufficient) rates. Another way a BI program could save the government dollars – one that has community groups and organizations worried – is the implementation of BI with the aim of gradually reducing funding for existing welfare services such as health, housing, and community development. Therefore, BI can be an opportunity for the government to cut back and save resources, and this makes sense in an age of austerity and accumulation by dispossession. But it is likely that if subsidized services such as housing and food banks are scrapped and replaced with BI, social security recipients are going to be worse off than they were before, or, at best, live under the same conditions as today. It is also the case that a uniform rate under a streamlined system could actually serve to increase inequality and poverty by providing the poorer recipients with a lower rate than before [4].
In this conjecture then, BI seems to be a valuable opportunity for two parties (people and government) with nearly distinct and opposing goals. Many see the grossly insufficient social assistance rates and rapidly rising living expenses as their critical juncture to push for a BI. On the other hand, the government sees this critical juncture in other terms: one in which it can continue to make good with neoliberalism by cutting, streamlining, and creating more ‘efficient’ services. To the rest of the population the government may present this as evidence that it’s listening, ‘seeing’, and coming up with the appropriate solutions, even though it is more likely that the solution is for the benefit of the government, than for those who need it most [5]. Perhaps a question that needs to be asked is who is more likely to prevail and close this critical juncture in their own terms? The push from below is certainly strengthening, but to ensure an effective universal BI, more organizing and capacity building may be necessary. The goal then should not be to abandon BI, but to realize the risks involved and work together to build and strengthen the movement.
[1] This can be done through progressive forms of taxation, and with taxes that do not affect low-income and the poor, such as varieties of luxury and large-estate taxes.
[2] Senator Art Eggleton is starting a tour to promote Basic Income across Ontario. Also see:
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/sen-art-eggleton/art-eggleton-basic-income_b_9331180.html
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/03/17/wynne-touts-basic-income-pilot-project-to-help-poor.html
https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2012/12/scrapping-welfare/
[3] The Kingston BI Group in Hamilton, and others.
[4] See Commentary: Universal Basic Income May Sound Attractive But, If It Occurred, Would Likelier Increase Poverty Than Reduce It by Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
[5] This is not to pit ‘government’ and ‘people’ as two antithetical forces; such a characterization would be both simplistic and inaccurate. Instead, the current conjecture and active promotion of BI from ‘above’ and weak push from ‘below’ serve to indicate that the government has a different purpose in promoting a BI model of social security, one that is at odds with the model imagined by BI advocates.
by Guest Contributor | Oct 17, 2016 | Opinion
By Jennifer Lawson
Per capita payments, or ‘per caps’, as they are known in Indian Country, function as a kind of basic income for tribal nations that have them. In this piece, I want to examine the distinct difference between the thinking about such a basic income in Indian Country and the United States in general.
The other day, I was talking to a small group of non-native Americans about basic income. One of them said to me, “Basic income seems like something like that would take a long time to gain ground.”
In the United States in general, the thinking about basic income is not as far along as it is in Indian Country, where per caps have been a staple for many tribes for several years.
One of the first questions, for tribes that gained discretionary income in the last decade, has been, “What do we do with this money?”
Many tribal nations have tribally owned businesses and, unlike the general thinking in the United States, no one worries that this may be a form of communism or socialism. It is simply, for many tribal nations, in keeping with their tribal values to have a collectively owned business.
The revenue from such businesses, as well as the revenue from natural resources and other ways tribes gain money, provide the discretionary income that tribal nations work with.
The answer to the question, “What do we do with this money?” is answered differently by different tribal nations. Some provide services to their citizens, such as childcare, early childhood education, hospitals, and so forth. Others provide per caps to their members.
I do not want anyone to come away thinking that tribal nations are flushed with cash or that Native people are, in general, rich from per caps. Rather, I want to look at the differences between the tribal way of thinking and the United States’ way of thinking
From the tribal point of view, when you have a collectively owned business, it makes sense that one option would be to divide the revenue up and disperse it among citizens of the tribe. In general, what to do with the money is voted upon and the decision about what to do with the money is decided that way.
For non-native people, we do not have collectively owned businesses to decide how to divide the revenue. A large portion of people in the United States would rebuke such a business as socialism or communism.
However, we do have other ways of gaining access to a basic income without having collectively owned businesses. Some have suggested taxing pollution, for example.
For tribal nations, some of the arguments that are familiar to people in basic income have been espoused, both for and against. One worry, for example, is that people will not attend college because the thinking What’s the use? is in effect. That is, if you don’t need to attend college for future employment, why go? This thinking saddens many tribal people, who have a pre-colonial history of being interested in education, contrary to stereotypes.
But the biggest issue for tribes, which has become a real problem, is that of disenrollment. Disenrollment is, in effect, making people ineligible to be tribal citizens. While many tribal nations are growing as of late, some tribal nations with per caps have closed and/or tightened up their citizenship requirements to make per caps go further, and to allow each individual to have as much money from per caps as possible. If a tribal nation is doing pretty well economically, it does even better when the tribe is small.
With the large population of the United States, as well as our open citizenship requirements, where people may become citizens after completing various acts and learning about our government and founding documents, what we can afford to give our citizens depends on how we collect that money.
Because the issue of having collectively owned businesses seems to be less compatible with the values of the United States than of tribal nations, we of the United States have to be creative in how we decide to fund a basic income.
No matter the problems that tribal nations have experienced due to per caps, what is clear is that tribes that have the ability, and vote accordingly, can provide a basic income for their citizens. This should make us wonder why the United States, which has more wealth, opportunity, and so forth, cannot.
Looking over the state of per caps in Indian Country has made me, at least, realize that it can be done, and that we should do it. After all, if we had a basic income, I might be able to be in Standing Rock right now, standing with my Native brothers and sisters against the Dakota Access Pipeline—or engaging in other activist or cultural activities.
There is much that Indian Country can teach us. The issue of basic income is one we should look into further.
by Kate McFarland | Oct 1, 2016 | News
Gleb Tsipursky, a history professor and expert on charitable giving, used to be skeptical of the effectiveness of “no strings attached” cash transfers to the help the poor. Now he is an advocate of basic income, speaking at local events to promote the efforts of the charity GiveDirectly.
Gleb Tsipursky is an Assistant Professor of History at the Ohio State University as well as the president and cofounder of Intentional Insights, a nonprofit organization that provides “research-based content to help improve thinking, feeling, and behavior patterns” in order to help individuals reach their goals.
He is also a recent “convert” to basic income, as he describes in an article written for Salon. Tsipursky used to be skeptical of the idea of unconditional cash transfers, worrying that recipients would waste the money and have no motivation to be productive members of society. He reconsidered, however, as he began to read studies that appeared to demonstrate the effectiveness of unconditional cash transfers. Finally, he describes the “clincher” — meeting a woman who had ended up homeless simply because she once couldn’t afford for $110 to replace a tire.
The article was widely shared on social media, and republished on the major secular website Patheos.
According to Tsipursky (personal correspondence), his recent endorsement of basic income has influenced the direction of his organization Intentional Insights, which uses a science-based approach to advise individuals on how to donate to charitable causes in an effective manner. Tsipursky has said that Intentional Insights will now be doing more work to the promote acceptance of basic income as a way to improve social policy.
Recently, Tsipursky has been attending “Giving Games” events to talk about the effectiveness of the charity GiveDirectly, which is known for its “no strings attached” cash donations poor individuals in Kenya and Uganda. In a Giving Game, participants receive a set sum of money to donate to charities decided upon as a group. Prior to this decision, they hear speakers describe their personal reasons for charitable donation and discuss appropriate metrics for evaluating charities. Tsipursky has participated in Giving Games at the Humanist Community of Central Ohio and, on October 18, will participate in a similar event coordinated by The Ohio State University’s Center for Ethics and Human Values (CEHV) [1].
Read the article here:
Gleb Tsipursky, “Free money is not so funny anymore: Confessions of a (former) skeptic of basic income“, Salon; August 21, 2016.
[1] For more information about CEHV, see the forthcoming edition of Logos, a.k.a. “the newsletter that Kate McFarland writes for pay”.
Reviewed by Daniel Bell
Photo CC BY-NC 2.0 Michael Kappel
by Kate McFarland | Sep 28, 2016 | News
A Constituent Assembly of Mexico City is currently developing the city’s first constitution. A proposal for the constitution, currently under deliberation, includes an article specifying a right to a basic income to secure a dignified life.
Miguel Ángel Mancera CC-BY-SA 4.0 ProtoplasmaKid (Wikimedia Commons)
On September 15, Mexico City Chief of Government Miguel Angel Mancera delivered a proposal for the city’s constitution, and a constituent assembly was formed to analyze, debate, modify, and ultimately vote on and approve a constitution.
Mancera’s proposal draws much inspiration from the Mexico City Charter for the Right to the City, developed in 2007 by a coalition of organizations associated with Mexico City’s urban popular movement. The “Right to the City” charter includes a demand for the “right to sufficient income to guarantee a dignified life” (3.4.1). Additionally, another article in the charter’s section on ensuring a “productive city” states, “To democratize productive employment opportunities in the city, it is necessary to … promote the establishment of a universal citizen income” (3.4.3).
A more recent precedent was a seminar on basic income and wealth redistribution organized in April 2016 by the Senate of the Republic of Mexico and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) of the United Nations. In its position document released in the following month, ECLAC further encouraged its member states to investigate a basic income guarantee.
Meanwhile, there has been growing political interest in basic income in Mexico. For one example (amongst others), the young left-wing political party Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena) has expressed interest in advancing the policy.
These precedents lay in the background of the September 15 meeting to move forward the development of Mexico City’s constitution.
A major purpose of the constitution is to formally specify rights of all residents of the city. The stated objectives of the document include the following (emphasis added):
To include new rights such as those of families, non-salaried workers, the right to the city, to public space, to democracy, to proper administration, to a progressive basic income, to memory, to care, to the protection of animals and cultural rights, among others …
The specific article where basic income is proposed reads as follows:
Right to a dignified life
Every person is entitled to a standard of living that is adequate for him or herself and their family, as well as to the continuous improvement of their living conditions. The right to a basic income will be guaranteed giving priority to the persons in situations of poverty, and those that can’t fulfill their material needs by their own means, as well as priority assistance groups. The rules for accessing basic income will be established in this article’s common dispositions.
Note that, despite the potentially confusing wording of second sentence, the proposal here is not for a targeted or mean-tested benefit; instead, the constitution is recognizing a need to establish some priorities for accessing the basic income grants.
One model of the basic income under consideration is Mexico City’s pension program for individuals aged 68 and older. The pension is universal (among seniors), unconditional, distributed to individuals, and mandated by law. Among its proponents, the basic income is seen as an extension of the pension from the elderly to all.
Describing the proposed constitution, Pablo Yanes of BIEN Mexico states, “Without a doubt, we are at the outset of an intense debate around basic income, and unprecedented moment in the history of Mexico City.”
Yanes says that while “the specific wording [in the constitution] can be improved and made more precise”, the recognition of a basic income as a right is “an immense step forward”:
In addition to the federal constitution reform initiatives presented before Congress by Congresswomen Araceli Damián and Xóchitl Hernández and the one introduced before the Senate by the Senator Luis Sánchez, the inclusion to the right to basic income in the Mexico City Constitution project constitutes, without a doubt, a turning point for basic income’s recognition in Mexico.
A new starting point has been set. This is Mexico City’s contribution to the growing international movement for basic income.
The Mexico City Constitution ultimately approved by the constituent assembly will go into force in February 2017.
Debates will take place ensuing months, including on the topic of basic income.
Information from Pablo Yanes (personal communication).
Reviewed by Pablo Yanes and Cameron McLeod.
Featured image: Mexico City CC BY 2.0 Blok 70.
Special thanks to Kate’s supporters on Patreon.
by Kate McFarland | Sep 27, 2016 | News
The Canadian Initiative for Basic Income has created an online petition asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and members of the Canadian Parliament to “implement a basic income program for eligible Canadians in a timely manner”. As of Monday, September 26, the petition has gathered nearly 22,000 signatures.
The petition was developed last spring by a group of participants in the Leadership and Community Engagement training of North York Community House (NYCH). To conclude the training, participants were asked to select one important practicum issue and to develop an action plan to generate change within the community. As one member ofCanadian Initiative for Basic Income described in a blog of the NYCH, the idea originated in a class exercise that required attendees to use one of several tools to determine the priority of issues. The group selected a two-by-two matrix that measured importance against urgency:
Out of all, we deemed basic income to be the one with both the highest urgency and most importance. This was due to our belief that our existing income security system in place has become ineffective when it comes to helping people afford life’s basic necessities – food, housing, and other general expenses (“NYCH Participants Lead Basic Income Petition”; September 12, 2016)
Although originally designed just to fulfill a class exercise, the petition gained over 15,000 signatures in the first week alone–with signatories coming from across the nation. In light of the petition’s success, the Canadian Initiative for Basic Income decided to continue the project, developing a more detailed proposal to submit to the government of Canada (which the group eventually hopes to have translated into French).
The full text of the letter (sans footnotes) reads as follows:
Dear Prime Minister Trudeau and Members of Parliament,
As Canadians in poverty, we are calling for strengthening the income security system with the adoption of a Basic Income policy. Our petition for Basic Income has generated over 20,000 signatures from across Canada.
The sharp surge in basic living expenses, added to a large wealth and income gap, precarious work, stagnant wages, and diminishing social services is forcing Canadians to live with ever poorer access to basic necessities and the mental and physical deprivation that accompany this way of life. Currently, over 4.9 million Canadians are living in poverty. A report by Statistics Canada lists Canada as having one of the highest percentages of low-paid workers among industrialized nations.
Existing federal and provincial income security programs have not achieved their intended goals, as evidenced by their failure to provide vulnerable recipients with the ability to afford basic living needs such as adequate housing and food. These needs are basic human rights, as set out in The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ratified by Canada on May 19, 1976. Yes, that was four decades ago and we refer to; Part 3, Article 11.
We believe that a basic income policy in tandem with the existing income security system will be the most effective way of providing Canadians living with poverty the ability to afford basic living expenses. There is a rich history behind Canada’s existing income security system, and though some reform may be necessary for a basic income policy to be adopted, dismantling the existing welfare system would be dangerous and may leave those that already live in poverty in a similar or worse state.
A basic income program will cost Canada just over 1% of its GDP. This level of spending is within Canada’s means. We strongly believe that Canadians can afford this relatively modest expenditure, given the scope of the proposed policy and the significant benefits it will provide. Basic income will pay for itself in numerous ways; by decreasing healthcare costs, reducing social problems, boosting the economy, and providing low income Canadians with secure and productive job opportunities.
Basic income experiments are already being carried out in various European countries – but such experiments are not unique to Europe. The Croll Report, published under the Trudeau government in the 1970s put basic income policy in a favorable light, and the corresponding pilot program implemented in Dauphine, Manitoba yielded successful results. We are calling on your government to reintroduce Basic Income and move forward with its adoption. A basic income policy will not just mean upholding Canada’s human rights values and obligations, it will reduce poverty and create a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable society that will benefit every Canadian.
Sincerely,
Canadian Initiative for Basic Income
Feroza Mohammed is the lead coordinator for planning and organizing the group’s activities to move the petition forward. She comments on the inspiration and values behind this work:
We do believe that the existing income security system in place has become ineffective, by way of providing assistance that is unsustainable. People are struggling to meet their basic daily living expenses for food, housing, accessible services, transit, and good jobs, as recommended by residents through local community consultations, across the City of Toronto. I believe that a Basic Income is necessary to improve the living standards for the most vulnerable population within our society. Currently there are about twenty percent, or approximately five million people in Canada living in poverty. To quote from comments on the petition, “Poverty should not exist in Canada”. This resonates with my belief, and I hope the government will act to implement a strong Basic Income policy that will improve lives for all Canadians. A basic income will provide people with the ability to afford life’s basic necessities.
Reza Hajivandi, the lead policy research and analyst behind the petition, adds:
We believe that the time for the reform of income security is overdue. Current programs are not providing people with the basic resources to survive, let alone live in dignity. In this light, a Basic Income policy could be the right step to take. A BI would not only provide people with resources to live a dignified life, but it can also reduce the discriminatory surveillance mechanisms and other conditions that are prohibiting recipients from achieving their aspirations and goals in life. A BI would also act to create and extend solidarity amongst people. However, with all the positive impact of BI, we need to be very careful about how or what we dismantle from the existing system. This system is the culmination of many years of thinking and history, and without first having a thorough understanding and discussion of its history and design, notions of wiping out certain components or wiping the whole slate clean can be counterproductive and unhelpful to the basic income and larger social justice movement.
Created on the Change.org platform, the Canadian Initiative for Basic Income petition is not an official e-petition of the Canadian government. Thus, the petition is not en route to be presented in the House of Commons, and the government has no formal requirement to take any action in response. However, as Change.org points out in describing its function, “When hundreds or even thousands of people raise their voices about an issue they care about, the message is very hard to ignore.”
Read–and sign–the petition here.
Thanks to Feroza Mohammed and Reza Hajivandi for contributions to this article.
Photograph: Canadian Initiative for Basic Income.
Thanks, as always, to Kate’s supporters on Patreon.
