by Kate McFarland | Jul 13, 2016 | Opinion
A recent article in The New York Times, entitled “Universal Basic Income is Poor Tool to Fight Poverty,” spawned a debate on the desirability of implementing a UBI in the United States. This Basic Income News feature analyzes the NYT column’s argument against UBI, and looks at the counterarguments posed in several response pieces.
On May 31st, the New York Times published an article that launched a debate about the cost and effectiveness of implementing a universal basic income in the United States.
The column’s author, Eduardo Porter, argues that “universal basic income is a poor tool to fight poverty” (to cite the article’s title). He makes two main arguments against UBI:
First, on his assessment, a UBI would be either insufficiently low to end poverty, or require too many cuts to existing programs, or it would be prohibitively expensive to administer:
It amounts to nearly all the tax revenue collected by the federal government. Nothing in the history of this country suggests Americans are ready to add that kind of burden to their current taxes.
Second, even if a UBI could be afforded, Porter believes that it would have “many undesirable features” due to its unconditionality. These include a “non-negligible disincentive to work” — work, in his view, “remains an important social, psychological and economic anchor” — and a lack of social control. (Porter brings up housing vouchers as an example of the latter: “Say we know the choice of neighborhood makes a difference to the development of poor children. Housing vouchers might lead them to move into a better one. A monthly check would probably not.”)
Additionally, Porter dismisses one popular argument in favor of basic income: he denies that technological unemployment is a pressing concern.
While Porter admits that poverty and precarity are problems in dire need of better solutions, he believes that there are better policy options than a universal basic income. In particular, he is fond of the idea of subsidized employment, suggesting that “The government could subsidize jobs as varied as school repairs and fixing potholes.”
Is a basic income too expensive?
Before the end of the day, responses to Porter’s argument appeared across the Internet, defending both the feasibility and desirability of a universal basic income.
Three notable replies include those of Vox columnist Matthew Yglesias, former BIEN secretary Almaz Zelleke, and popular basic income activist Scott Santens. All three of these authors respond to the cost objection, although they employ slightly different strategies in doing so.
While Zelleke remains focused on matters of principle, largely bypassing the attempt to numerically “prove” that a basic income would be affordable, Yglesias and Santens both crunch a few numbers. Yglesias calculates the cost of a basic income of $10,000 per adult (which is, admittedly, below the poverty line) and $6,000 per child. Santens considers an amount of $12,000 per adult (topped-up for seniors and people with disabilities) and $4,000 per child. They conclude that, although expensive, a UBI is not prohibitively costly.
Yglesias points out that the level of spending required, as a percentage of GDP, would not be out of line with the amount of government spending in social democracies like France and Sweden. Thus, while a UBI would “take federal spending to a level never before seen” in the United States, this level would not seem farfetched when compared to other developed nations.
But, of course, the question that worries critics of the UBI is not just “Could America afford a UBI?” but, more to the point, “Where would the money needed to fund a UBI come from?” On this point, all three of Porter’s opponents seem to agree, nodding to an answer that some Americans might not want to hear: funding a UBI will require some tax increases and redistribution.
Zelleke cuts to the chase here: the question of financing a UBI is not really a matter of affordability at all, but of political will:
It’s true that basic income is expensive, but calling it unaffordable short-circuits the discussion we should be having about the costs and benefits of a basic income. Raising taxes is never an easy sell, but might it be worth it if the additional revenues were spent on a program guaranteed to eliminate poverty?
And Santens puts matters even more bluntly, asserting that the money needed to fund a UBI “comes from the raises no one has gotten since productivity decoupled from wages and salaries back around 1973. Basic income belongs to us because it’s been effectively stolen from us for decades.” On Santens’ view, a UBI is not merely an affordable option to eliminate poverty; basic principles of fairness and justice make it mandatory.
At base, the disagreement between Porter and his opponents is not a dispute about the mathematics. It’s a question of value: it is more important abolish poverty, or to give individuals the shares of collectively-generated wealth that they deserve, or is it more important to avoid raising taxes and federal spending?
Interestingly, Porter himself seems to tacitly agree with opponents like Yglesias that, technically, the United States could afford a universal basic income. In an article published just a week later, he complains that paying for a sufficiently high basic income would require “raising taxes to Scandinavian levels.” Similarly, U.S. News and World Reports contributor Chad Stone — in an article echoing Porter’s — says of Yglesias: “he assumes that the goal of ending poverty would make conservatives and GOP politicians comfortable with raising federal spending to European levels…”
Even its adversaries, then, seem to admit that a UBI could be financed if the United States was willing to raise taxes to a level that already has a precedent in countries that rank among the happiest in the world. Where money alone is concerned, the United States can pay for a UBI.
As Santens puts it, “The money is there, it’s just massively maldistributed after decades of upward redistribution.”
A June 6th article in Quartz — written in part as a response to Porter’s New York Times piece — makes a similar point: the debate over the cost of basic income “isn’t really about welfare spending: It’s about tax policy.”
The remaining disagreement, I submit, is twofold:
- Is it fair to raise taxes on the highest earners in order to redistribute money to all?
- Even if it is, could this be a viable sell in American politics?
These are the debates that must be had. I believe that, where matters of justice and fairness are concerned, UBI proponents can easily mount the more compelling normative argument. Political feasibility, to be sure, might require a tough and prolonged fight — but the advantages of UBI are enough to warrant it.
(For more background on these normative arguments and practical advantages of UBI, I recommend further exploration of the BIEN website.)
Would a basic income harm society?
So, then, a universal basic income is affordable in the United States — as long as the country can summon the political will to implement it. But would it harm society?
Porter gives two reasons to think that it could: a UBI would disincentivize work, and it would deprive the state of valuable and productive control over how individuals spend money. While Yglesias and Zelleke do not focus on this portion of Porter’s article, Santens addresses both in some detail.
Porter’s first worry is a common objection to UBI: if people can get money for free, they might stop working (specifically, they might abandon or reduce time spent in paid employment [1]).
Note that, in general, there are two ways to respond to this objection:
- Don’t contest the implicit evaluative presupposition that it’s bad if people stop working (in paid jobs), but deny that this is likely to happen under a UBI.
- Don’t contest the prediction itself, but deny that it would be a bad thing if people spent less time in paid employment; that is, deny the evaluative presupposition that more paid work is better for individuals or society.
Of course, one could employ both tacks in tandem — which is, roughly, what Santens does in replying to Porter.
For the most part, Santens takes the first approach, countering Porter’s empirical claim that a UBI would disincentivize (paid) work. In doing so, he cites multiple studies of cash transfers and basic income pilots — notably drawing upon an article written last fall by none other than Eduardo Porter — that show that unconditional cash transfers have not, in fact, had this effect.
There is a danger, though, in relying too heavily on this first tack: it can tend to reinforce the assumption that, all else equal, more time spent in paid work is better than less. It reinforces the view that the issue is an empirical one (“Will people spend less time at jobs or not?”), when the bigger issue is a normative one (“Is it bad or good if people spend less time at jobs?”).
Ezra Klein’s contemporaneous piece in Vox, which was also inspired by Porter’s article, partially exemplifies this danger. Klein takes for granted that some people would leave the workforce if provided with a basic income — and that this would indeed be an unwanted result “in a world where a job with a steady paycheck is the only path to self-respect.”
In fact, he goes so far as to say,
If that’s the reality of the situation, then, yes, a UBI is a bad idea — it’s better to push people to work by supplementing incomes or using the government as an employer of last resort. Sure, that’s more paternalistic, and it means we’ll waste people’s time in unpleasant or useless jobs and consign others to unemployment.
Although Klein is willing to admit that a UBI could be a good idea if Americans change the way that they view work, he believes that Americans have not yet reached this point.
I submit, however, that it is precisely the job of the UBI advocate to challenge Americans to change the way that they view work — assuming that Klein is correct about the status quo.
This brings us to the second of line of response to Porter’s “a UBI would disincentivize work” objection — which, in fact, Santens also touches upon (although he does not develop it in his response to Porter to the extent that he has elsewhere):
[B]asic income is not at all an idea about paying people to do nothing, but instead about paying people to do anything. There is so much work being done right now that is not seen or recognized as work, but is. And there is so much work people want to be doing on their own volition that they are prevented from doing in a system that requires they spend their hours working for someone else just to survive.
Again, if Klein is right about how Americans view work, then Americans must change the way they view work. She might, though, simply be wrong about the current state of affairs in American culture: plausibly, Americans can see the value of unpaid work — or, in Santens’ words, “work that is not recognized as work” — even if it’s not always obvious that they can.
“Frustrated man at a desk” CC LaurMG
This leaves Porter’s contention that, as Santens puts it, a UBI “would not be paternalistic enough.” Santens’ response here is to argue that the lack of paternalism is for the best: allowing individuals more discretion over how they spend money, and with fewer restrictions and qualifications on who receives it, has been shown to produce the better outcomes.
He takes up Porter’s own example — housing vouchers — to create a compelling case study, combining anecdotal and statistical evidence in favor of the effectiveness of cash transfers and against that of means-tested programs. According to the research he cites, over three out of four people who qualify for housing assistance in the US don’t receive it. Meanwhile, studies of cash-transfer programs show that many beneficiaries do, in fact, use their cash to move into better houses or neighborhoods.
As Santens repeatedly complains, Porter’s attack on UBI rests on little in the way of empirical evidence. Now, perhaps Santens himself has cherry-picked studies in favor of his pro-UBI conclusion. Even if that were the case, however, he at least does provide some hard-and-fast data. Minimally, this shifts the burden of proof back to Porter to demonstrate — with evidence — why paternalistic welfare programs would provide a greater benefit to individuals and society.
Finally, in addition to arguing that direct cash transfers are more effective in producing certain results, one might directly object to the normative presuppositions of means-tested welfare programs — as Santens does here:
I’m fed up with people with positions “up on high” looking down at everyone else and telling them they know better who needs assistance and who doesn’t, and how that assistance should be provided and when that assistance should be taken away. I’m fed up with the idea that anyone must prove their right to live to anyone at all.
I will close with this passage. We do need to consider the evidence; sometimes, though, we need just to step back and ask “What does this policy imply about basic human dignity?”
[1] When critics like Porter complain that a basic income might cause people to “stop working”, they often conflate “working” with working for money — ignoring the many types of unpaid activities that add value to society (if not to the GDP), and that are even colloquially regarded as “work” (e.g., volunteer work, care-work, and housework).
Continuing to use the word ‘work’ in this narrow sense, they paint a false dichotomy between working for money and idleness. The important category of “unpaid work” is ignored — even though it might well that, given a basic income, many individuals would choose to engage in more unpaid work rather than either paid work or “idleness”.
In the interest of clarity, I’ve disambiguated ‘work’ as ‘paid employment’ in my treatment of the argument — but it should be noted that, quite misleadingly, Porter does not.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Original article:
Eduardo Porter, “Universal Basic Income Is a Poor Tool to Fight Poverty,” The New York Times, May 31, 2016.
Critical responses:
Scott Santens, “Universal Basic Income Is the Best Tool to Fight Poverty,” The Huffington Post, June 2, 2016.
Matthew Yglesias, “A universal basic income could absolutely solve poverty,” Vox, May 31, 2016.
Almaz Zelleke, “Actually, a Universal Basic Income Will Solve Poverty,” May 31, 2016.
Sympathetic responses:
Chad Stone, “A Universal Basic Income Is No Solution,” U.S News & World Reports, June 3, 2016.
Related:
Alexander Holt, “Critics of Universal Basic Income just don’t understand how the policy would actually work,” Quartz, June 6, 2016.
Ezra Klein, “A universal basic income only makes sense if Americans change how they think about work,” Vox, June 1, 2016.
Thanks to Asha Pond, Tyler Prochazka, and André Coelho for reviewing a draft of this article — and, as always, to my supporters on Patreon (click the link to join ’em!).
Featured image CC Luis Felipe Salas.
by Dave Clegg | Jul 10, 2016 | News
Charles Alan Murray, “A Guaranteed Income for Every American”
A column in the Wall Street Journal on June 3, 2016 by Charles Alan Murray an American libertarian political scientist, author, columnist, and pundit suggests that “replacing the welfare state with an annual grant is the best way to cope with a radically changing U.S. jobs market—and to revitalize America’s civic culture”.
See the full story here: Charles Alan Murray, “A Guaranteed Income for Every American” Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2016.
by Jason Burke Murphy | Jun 10, 2016 | Opinion
I have been part of Basic Income Earth Network’s and US Basic Income Guarantee Network’s social media team for a while and I want to clarify something for as many readers as possible. There are three ways of looking at the basic income movement: Basic Income can be endorsed as a (1) proposal or (2) a project or (3) an idea. A lot of communication causes people to evaluate each other more harshly than they need to because they mistake where the speaker or writer is coming from.
I will say what I mean and show how this distinction helps me.
(1) Basic Income as Proposal: When I describe basic income as a proposal, I am referring to any bill or law that implements an unconditional grant. Here we are looking at the policy. Here are some US-based examples:
Alaska invests a small amount of the land rent it charges and puts out the dividend to every citizen. They give about $2,000 to every individual and $8,000 for a family of four.
The Healthy Climate and Family Security Act would put a cap on carbon, charge fees, and distribute the revenue to everyone. This would amount to about $1,000 per person and $4,000 for a family of four. (Ref. www.climateandprosperity.org)
The Fair Tax act gets rid of the income tax and replaces it with a national sales tax. They acknowledge that this move would hurt low-income people so they include a dividend for all. They list around $7,200. (https://fairtax.org/)
An interesting common feature of these three examples is that basic income was an afterthought for many supporters. These proposals are not parts of projects that seek to abolish poverty or secure independence for all.
The Alaskan Governor at the time the dividend was implemented, Jay Hammond, was following the basic income movement and he sought a more substantial amount. Alaska, however, has never had a basic income movement. There has never been an attempt to push the grant all the way to a poverty-ending amount. That said, at $2,000 a year for all family members, the Alaskan Permanent Fund raises the incomes of low-income families more than most other proposals out there. The dividends were largely an accidental product of the State’s Constitution, which gave un-owned land to the State. If power-brokers in Alaska had known that this land included some of the most lucrative oil reserves in the world, this would not have happened. Hammond’s commitment combined with these fortunate circumstances produced the Alaska Permanent Fund.
Supporters of the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act are mainly trying to develop an answer to the threat of climate change. They understand that a cap on carbon would raise prices on fuel and other things that many low and moderate income people need. Some supporters are enthused about the dividend to be sure, but it is very seldom sold as a stepping stone for a dividend high enough to foster independence. Again, with that said, there are very few proposals that would result in an increase in average income of $1,000 in low-income communities.
Fair Tax supporters are primarily focused on getting rid of the income tax. The dividend is seldom emphasized in their literature. When it comes to the impact on poverty, the math is more complex for this proposal, because the new sales tax would be high. Proponents do cite economists who stress that the Fair Tax would have a progressive impact.
When Basic Income Earth Network or US Basic Income Guarantee Network links to an article describing a project like this, we get a lot of comments that evaluate them as if they were the entire basic income project. The proposal is treated like a project. We are informed that you cannot live on $2,000 a year. We know that. Many respondents “project” projects onto proposals. They don’t evaluate the proposal but an imagined series of other proposals that would stem from an imputed project. When Silicon Valley investors start a basic income pilot, we are told that they want to cut this and that. But they have not said so, and we will not know their project until they start making concrete demands.
Lots of media presume that a basic income replaces all other social provisions, which is a view that I have only rarely encountered in my time with engaged members of USBIG and BIEN. We hear a lot of false news that Holland or Finland is replacing everything with BI. Projects are being foisted onto proposals and policies.
Keep in mind that a basic income may well be implemented as an afterthought or as a part of a project that most anti-poverty activists oppose. Charles Murray’s proposal would consist of $10,000 per person and a $3,000 health care voucher. This would replace everything that currently promotes social protection. When he emphasizes the amount of money this would save, that includes bureaucratic expenses, but that also entails a huge withdrawal of other expenses, such as social provisions that many anti-poverty activities would rather keep .
While we should not endorse a bill that implemented Murray’s proposal, we can acknowledge the grant is a good idea if it is not accompanied with harmful cuts. If such a basic income were to be implemented (and Paul Ryan has expressed an interest in consolidating anti-poverty provisions), those who support BI as part of an anti-poverty project will have to fight to keep the grant and raise it. We have to talk about basic income now so that anti-poverty activists do not oppose it.
(2) Basic Income as Project: Once a basic income is part of a project, we have to look at what the whole project seeks to do. Many of the supporters of basic income pilots in Finland also support austerity as the right response to the European financial crisis. Almost everyone involved with Basic Income Earth Network and its affiliates are opposed to austerity. They see basic income as a way to combat poverty directly, with less bureaucracy and more security for most citizens. Many supporters of basic income in Finland are working to make sure the pilots are an opportunity to push basic income as emancipatory .
How it is funded, what is cut, what is not cut—all of these factors turn a policy item (an unconditional cash grant) into a project. We have to learn how to assess whole projects.
Left-wing organizations should make a basic income part of their left-wing project. Left-wingers that denounce basic income as “neo-liberal” are refusing to de-link the policy from a rival project. They should write out what sorts of basic income they would support and condemn the powers-that-be for not securing economic independence for all.
Free-market enthusiasts (I am not calling them “right-wing”) should make a basic income part of their free-market project. Those that denounce a basic income as “socialist” or “communist” are refusing to de-link the policy from a rival project. They need basic income if they care about extending the benefits of markets to everyone.
In the US, there are no left-wing or free-market organizations (or magazines or parties) that have stated clearly whether or not basic income is part of their project. My hypothetical left-wingers and free-marketers are based on reading a few thousand Facebook comments and individual columnists.
De-linking the proposal from the project can be difficult. Would an otherwise free-market-oriented economist with a basic income in the mix still be “left-wing”? Is basic income such a good policy that we should support someone who supports a rival project? Some people are suspect of an Alaska-style dividend just because they know the state usually votes Republican.
These are the sort of choices we will face. If a supporter of a rival project embraces basic income, one has to decide whether or not to jump ship. Some basic income supporters will want to work within other projects. Some will work within the Greens or within Socialist or Labor or Environmental organizations. Others might name a particular bill and lobby for it.
Basic Income Action in the US has stated that they seek any unconditional grant that leaves the least-well-off and the majority with more income than before. They have lobbied for the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act and hope to get a bill sponsored that has a full-fledged basic income in mind. BIA argues that this project improves any other project. Whether they are the left or the right, whether they have a good tax plan or a bad one in mind, they would be that much better with a basic income in the mix. See them at www.basicincomeaction.org.
(3) Basic Income as Idea: There is another way to think about basic income. This is an idea that gets in your head. Once you realize that it is mostly a question of political will, you start to think about how different the world would be if everyone had a share. You start to wonder how different schools would be. How different political life would be. How different the art world and the sport world would be.
When I first heard about basic income, I was excited because I saw it getting to people who need it. I had seen the manipulation of money and power deny the invisible and the powerless the resources they need. Too many times I saw “jobs programs” pretend to hire “everyone who sought work.” Sports arenas and lectures were sold as anti-poverty programs. A basic income gets around all that. Now, I think more about how much more powerful low-income communities will be. And I see better the work they are already doing.
Sarath Davala, Renana Jhabvala, Soumya Kapoor Mehta, and Guy Standing organized a pilot program in India and wrote a book that testifies to its emancipatory effects. A video they made provides a nice synopsis. One sees here an image of strong people made more powerful.
I see the same impact in low-income parts of the US. Basic income gets around the pretending so many people do when they approach poverty. I wrote a piece on how a basic income could work in the Saint Louis/Ferguson area that has this sort of emancipation in mind. One of my main goals was to get readers to just see what a difference more income would make. We should spare them the hectoring about each and every choice they make and issue a share.
The Swiss Basic Income Movement mostly sought to push basic income as an idea in Switzerland but also all over the world. History’s largest poster posed the question: What Would You Do If Your Income Were Taken Care Of? They posed it in English and reassembled the poster in Berlin . A picture of the poster was shown in Times Square. They are posing a question to the world.
The movement has pushed people to think about what makes a life and a society good. Long before basic income becomes a policy, it does great work as an idea.
Another example is the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres. Their shelters talk with residents about basic income. They have a copy of the Pictou Statement they wrote in which they proclaim their support for basic income.
The statement calls on some of the most vulnerable people in the world to think about how different things would be if everyone had a share:
“We refuse to accept market measures of wealth. They make invisible the important caring work of women in every society. They ignore the well-being of people and the planet, deny the value of women’s work, and define the collective wealth of our social programs and public institutions as “costs” which cannot be borne. They undermine social connections and capacities (social currency).”
Publicly endorsing basic income offers a chance for different relationships between people. When a shelter tells someone fleeing assault that they want a different allocation of resources, this breaks the long chain of bureaucrats, landlords, advisors, and hustlers. When I tell someone that I think they deserve a share, I have a chance to show that I recognize them as valuable. That is a powerful idea.
I have also found that people who are not sure they believe basic income is feasible politically end up pointing to other social provisions that they consider more efficient or politically feasible. They start to talk about education and health and public employment. This is a far better conversation than one that argues between some provisions and no provisions, which is the one we are hearing far too often. That is a powerful idea.
A lot of people have seen police violence, corruption, and the privileged position of the wealthy, and they just can’t imagine a government that macro-manages and micro-manages a just economy. However, they have seen Social Security issue a check to everyone and they have seen the IRS tax forms issue an exemption. They know that this proposal is simple enough for even a bureaucratic government to implement. That makes this a powerful idea.
Lots of people are saying that they think basic income is great, and then they get challenged to produce a proposal or to spell out their project. I want to see more basic income policy proposals out there. I want to see more people make basic income part of their projects. But we also need to see people saying “The world be better if we did this.” We need to get as many people as we can to say “That’s a powerful idea.”
by Philippe van Parijs | Jun 6, 2016 | Opinion
Despite being factually defeated in the ballots, the Swiss initiative for basic income should be regarded as a giant step in the now unstoppable march towards basic income, says BIEN Founder Philippe Van Parijs.
Philippe Van Parijs is Professor at UCLouvain, Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics. Chair of BIEN’s International Board
June 5th, 2016 will be remembered as an important landmark in the worldwide march towards the implementation of unconditional basic income schemes. On that day, all Swiss citizens were asked to express their approval of or opposition to the following proposal:
- The Confederation introduces an unconditional basic income.
2. The basic income must enable the whole population to live a dignified life and to participate in public life.
3. The law will determine the funding and level of the basic income.
The proposal was rejected, with 76.9% of the voters against, 23.1% in favor. Why was this rejection predictable? And why is it such an important step forward?[1]
From 0 to 23%
To answer these questions, a brief historical overview is in order. In 2008, the German film maker Enno Schmidt and the Swiss entrepreneur Daniel Häni, both based in Basel, produced Grundeinkommen: ein Kulturimpuls, a “film essay” that gave a simple and attractive picture of basic income. The dissemination of this film through the internet helped prepare the ground for a popular initiative in favor of the proposal quoted above, which was launched in April 2012. Another popular initiative, which proposed an unconditional basic income funded specifically by a tax on non-renewable energy, had been launched in May 2010, but it failed to gather the required number of signatures. The initiators of the 2012 initiative first thought of specifying that the basic income should be funded by the Value Added Tax, as was suggested in the film, but they dropped the idea for fear of reducing support for the proposal. They also chose not to stipulate a precise amount of the basic income in the text itself. But their website did mention a monthly amount of 2500 Swiss Francs per adult and 625 Swiss Francs per child as the best interpretation of what was required, in Switzerland, “to live a dignified life and to participate in public life”. If an initiative gathers over 100.000 validated signatures in 18 months, the Federal Council, Switzerland’s national government, has the obligation to organize a country-wide referendum within three years either on the exact text of the initiative or on a counter-proposal to be negotiated with the initiators.
On the 4th of October 2013, the initiators handed in spectacularly 126.406 valid signatures to the federal chancellery. On the 27th of August 2014, after validation of the signatures and examination of the arguments, the Federal Council rejected the initiative without making a counter-proposal. In its view, “an unconditional basic income would have negative consequences on the economy, the social security system and the cohesion of Swiss society. In particular, the funding of such an income would imply a considerable increase of the fiscal burden”. The proposal was subsequently submitted to both Chambers of the Swiss Parliament. On the 29th of May 2015, the Commission of Social Affairs of the National Council (Switzerland’s federal house of representatives) recommended by 19 votes against 1, with 5 abstentions, that the proposal for an unconditional basic income should be rejected. After a thorough discussion at a plenary session on the 23rd of September 2015, the National Council proceeded to a preliminary vote and endorsed this negative recommendation by 146 votes against 14 and 12 abstentions.
On the 18th of December 2015, the Council of States (the Swiss Senate, made up of representatives of the cantons) considered the initiative in turn and rejected it by 40 votes against, 1 in favor and 3 abstentions. On the same day, the proposal was the object of a second and final vote in the National Council: 157 voted against, 19 in favor and 16 abstained. In all cases, all the representatives from the far right, center right and center parties voted against the proposal. All pro votes and abstentions came from the socialist party and the green party, both of which were sharply divided. At the final vote in the National Council, 15 socialists voted in favor, 13 against and 13 abstained, while 4 greens voted in favor, 5 against and 3 abstained. The degree of support thus oscillated between 0% in the Federal Council, 2% in the Council of States and 4, 8 and 10% in the National Council (commission, preliminary and final vote).
For the popular vote on the 5th of June 2016, the national leaderships of nearly all parties, including the socialist party, recommended a “no” vote. The only exceptions were the green party and the (politically insignificant) pirate party, which recommended the “yes”, joined by a number of cantonal sections of the socialist party from all three linguistic areas. Against this background, it was entirely predictable that the no vote would win. The actual results of nearly one vote out of four for “yes” — with peaks at 35% in the canton of Geneva, 36% in the canton of Basel-Stadt, 40% in the city of Bern and 54% in the central districts of Zürich — is far above what the voting record in the Swiss parliament would have led one to expect. We must, moreover, bear in mind that Switzerland is perhaps the country in Europe in which support for an unconditional income should be considered least likely, not only because of the deeper penetration, in Calvin’s homeland, of a Calvinist work ethic, but above all because of the comparatively low levels of unemployment and poverty it currently experiences.
In Switzerland and beyond: broader and more mature
Everyone now realizes, however, that even if the initiative had not managed to gather the votes of more than the 2.5% of the Swiss citizens who had given their signatures at the initial stage, it would have been, thanks to the initiators’ stamina and their impressive communication skills, a stunning success. There is now no population in the world or in history that has given more thought to the advantages and disadvantages of the proposal than the Swiss have done over the last four years. And the effect was by no means confined to Switzerland. Just in the few days preceding the popular vote, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Guardian, and countless other newspapers around the world felt forced to publish substantive articles in order to explain at length — sometimes quite well, sometimes not so well — what a basic income is and what it is about. There is certainly no week in the history of the world in which the media have allocated so much time and space to a discussion of basic income.
Apart from giving a big boost to the spreading of the idea, the Swiss initiative has also greatly contributed to the maturing of the debate about it. For one lesson to be drawn from the experience is that a proposal that stipulates a high amount for a basic income, but no precise way of funding it, can easily gather the required number of signatures for a vote – while still being a long way from convincing a majority among the voters who bother to turn up on voting day (about 46% of the electorate in this case). A shining star that indicates the direction is enough for the former, but visible signposts on the ground marking a safe path in its direction are essential to achieve the latter. Whenever I was invited to join the Swiss debate, I argued that introducing in one go an individual basic income of CHF 2500 (38% of Switzerland’s GDP per capita) would be politically irresponsible. True, no one can prove that such a level of unconditional basic income is not economically sustainable. But nor can anyone prove that it is. Nor will any local experiment performed or planned in Switzerland or elsewhere prove that it is. Moreover, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the economic sustainability of an unconditional basic income at that level will require a number of preconditions currently unmet, including the introduction of new forms of taxation — for example the micro-tax on electronic payments that played an interesting role in the Swiss debate — and effective international cooperation against tax evasion — not exactly Switzerland’s strongest point.
In the immediate future, however, it should now be clear that more modest but significant steps forward can and must be worked out and debated. They must involve an individual unconditional basic income at a lower level (say, 15 or 20% of GDP per capita) that would still need to be topped up by means-tested social assistance benefits or housing grants, certainly for urban single-adult households. It is not because in many cases the unconditional basic income would not suffice, on its own, to “enable the whole population to live a dignified life”, that it would not make a big difference to the security, bargaining power ad freedom of choice of many of the most vulnerable among us. Even in the short run, introducing such an unconditional basic income is definitely sustainable economically. It is up to us to make it politically achievable.
The totally unprecedented Swiss initiative has not only made many people, in Switzerland and far beyond, far more aware of the nature and size of the challenges we face in the twenty first century and of how a basic income might help us address them; by triggering countless objections, some naive and some spot on, it has also helped the advocates of basic income to sharpen their arguments and to better see the need for realistic next steps. For both of these reasons, the Swiss citizens who devoted a tremendous amount of time, energy and imagination to the “yes” campaign deserve the warm gratitude not only of the basic income movement worldwide, but of all those fighting for a free society and a sane economy.
[1] Many thanks to Nenad Stojanovic (Zurich and Princeton) for reliable information and insightful comments.
by Kate McFarland | Jun 5, 2016 | News
On Sunday, June 5, the Swiss people voted down the following referendum:
The initiative proposes to insert the following article in the federal constitution:
1. The government will provide a basic income.
2. The basic income will allow the people to live in a dignified manner and participate in public life.
3. Legislation will determine the funding for the system and the actual amount of the basic income.
Although the referendum met defeat, June 5, 2016 will be remembered as a watershed date in the history of the basic income movement — marking the first time that basic income has been submitted to direct democracy.
The Swiss popular initiative deserves accolades not only for making basic income a point of serious discussion in Switzerland but also for propelling the idea into the global spotlight.
This article looks back at highlights of the campaign previously featured in Basic Income News.
The Swiss popular initiative for an unconditional basic income was launched in March 2012. By October 2013, the campaign had collected 125,000 signatures — more than enough to guarantee that a national referendum would be held on the issue.
The Swiss Parliament voted on the initiative in September 2015, rejecting it 146 to 14 (with 12 abstentions). After this, a popular vote was scheduled.
Since its beginning, Switzerland’s basic income movement has employed novel and creative tactics to garner publicity. In October 2013, after the successful collection of signatures, campaigners flooded the ground outside of the Federal Palace in Bern eight million coins — one for every person in Switzerland.
Money flowed outside of the Federal Palace in Bern
The months leading up to the popular vote brought a string of new clever demonstrations.
Basic income advocates dressed as robots danced at Davos in January, during the World Economy Forum, and marched through the streets of Zurich in April.
In May, supporters of the referendum created the world’s largest poster, officially recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, which was broadcast in Times Square in New York City and later taken on tour to Berlin.
Biggest question in the world
Finally, less than two weeks before the vote, a pro-UBI group gave away Switzerland’s first crowdfunded basic income to a randomly selected participant, and is currently raising money on its website for another basic income raffle.
However, the basic income movement comprised far more than flashy demonstrations and publicity stunts. It also ushered in much serious discussion of basic income, bringing internationally-known scholars, researchers, and political figures into the fold.
For instance, in the month prior to the vote, major conferences on basic income convened in Switzerland. The Future of Work Conference, held on May 4 in Zurich, featured keynote addresses by such noted individuals as Yanis Varoufakis (former Greek Minister of Finance), Robert Reich (former US Secretary of Labor), Erik Brynjolfsson (MIT economist), among others, as well as a series of panel discussions with equally impressive lists of participants (e.g., the Experiments Panel, Labor Panel, and Entrepreneurs Panel).
Additionally, on May 13, a UN-sponsored panel discussion on basic income was held at the Palace of Nations in Geneva. Thomas Vollmer from the Swiss Federal Social Insurance Office presented the government’s anti-UBI position, while BIEN members like Guy Standing and Ralph Kundig laid out the case in favor. (Click through the previous links for videos from the respective conferences, previously unpublished on Basic Income News.)
Switzerland’s basic income campaign — and the thoughts and questions behind it — also became the subject a new book, Voting for Freedom: The 2016 Swiss Referendum on Basic Income: A Milestone in the Advancement of Democracy.
In the book’s forward, venture capitalist Albert Wenger emphasizes the historical and global significance of the Swiss movement: “This vote represents a historic opportunity for social and economic progress. By embracing basic income in a peaceful vote, Switzerland could lead the way for others to follow.
Despite the ultimate failure of the referendum, the campaign has surely been a success for global basic income movement — where it will continue to inspire advocates and activists in other countries. Indeed, the campaign has already been the direct source of inspiration for a similar movement in Germany as well as one in Portugal.
In fact, despite the rejection of basic income on a federal level, the Swiss city of Lausanne might still proceed with its own basic income pilot.
Lausanne, Switzerland might still test BI (Credit: Alice)
One thing, for sure, is clear: thanks in large part to Switzerland, the world is now debating the merits of a basic income.
Glancing back at the few weeks prior to Sunday’s vote, we can quickly assemble an impressive list of international media outlets that published articles about the referendum: The BBC, Reuters, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Independent, USA Today, Channel NewsAsia, CNN Money, Yahoo Finance, The Economic Times, CNBC, The Inquisitr, Tech Insider, Fortune, Express Tribune, Bloomberg, and AskMen, among many others.
No doubt the international conversation will continue and grow after the announcement of the results – and, although these results are negative, the campaign can surely count this a major success, and we basic income advocates throughout the world owe immense gratitude to the Swiss popular initiative.
Thanks to my supporters on Patreon. (To see how you too can support my work for Basic Income News, click the link.)
