Two University of Oxford researchers, Max Harris and Alexander E. Kentikelenis, have written a short piece on some of the possible social effects of basic income for The Conversation. Specifically, they consider the question of how a basic income would affect “people’s sense of community and togetherness” — describing ways in which the policy could increase either solidarity or erode it.
On the one hand, a basic income could decrease social connection for certain individuals, if they use the financial freedom and security to pursue individual projects rather than collective ones, while also losing social ties in the workplace. On the other hand, the freedom provided by basic income could allow individuals to become more socially connected — permitting more time away from jobs that might isolate them from family, friends, and potential collaborators on shared projects.
In the end, Harris and Kentikelenis contend, “Ultimately, whether we think basic income will be solidarity-eroding or solidarity-enhancing depends on how deeply embedded we think individualism is in society.”
Kentikelenis is a research fellow in politics and sociology at Oxford, whose interests include political economy, organization studies, public health, and international development.
Harris is an Examination Fellow in Law at Oxford’s All Souls College. He has coauthored (with Victoria University postgraduate student Sebastiaan Bierema) a discussion paper on the possibility of a universal basic income in New Zealand for the New Zealand Labour Party’s Future of Work Commission. His new book The New Zealand Project, published by Bridget Williams Books in April 2017, considers UBI among other policy solutions for the nation.
Updates from Vereniging Basisinkomen (BIEN-Netherlands), Spring 2017
On 15 March 2017 elections were held for the second chamber in the Netherlands. Many watched in fear that there would be move towards “the wrong populism” as the prime minister called it. This outcome was avoided.
There was less attention to the development with respect to Basic Income. Supporters tended to be disappointed by the fact that none of the parties that were strongly in favour of the policy wouldget a representative in the chamber in the coming years. Several parties in favour of Basic Income were in the race to be elected and secure a representative in the chamber, but all were ultimately unsuccessful, including Vrijzinnige Partij (VP, Liberal Party), De Burger Beweging (DBB, The Citizens Movement), Piraten (Pirate Party), Lokale partij (LidK, Local Parties together), BIP/PvdK/V&R (Basic Income Party, Party for the interest of Children and the Party for Freedom and Right, respectively, who operated in a joint venture), and the Greens (not to be confused with Green Left).
However, Alexander de Roo, the current chairman of the Vereniging Basisinkomen, BIEN’s affiliate in the Netherlands, takes it with a smile and proposes to look at the overall figures:
Let’s see when we put together all parties that are left and/or progressive (in a broad sense), i.e. Left: Green Left (GL, 14), Socialist Party (SP, 14), the Labour Party (PvdA, 9).Progressive: Democrats 66 (D66, 19), Party for the Animals (PvdD, 5). In total 61 seats in the chamber from now on. (With a little bit of wishful thinking we could count the Christian Party (CU, 5) and Denk (3) to it and reach a total of 69 seats.)
To the right: The Liberals (VVD, 33), Christian Democrats (CDA, 19), the populist Parties (Wilders, 20), Forum for Democrats (2), 50+ Party (4). In total 81 seats.
Given these figures, he proposes to cooperate with the PvdD, GL, and D66 in an effort to keep the Basic Income on the political agenda.
In the meantime, there have been several developments in the Netherlands since the beginning of 2017.
1. In January, Terneuzen – a community of around 54,770 inhabitants in the Province Zeeland – reached the news headlines because of an initiative of a City Council Member for an experiment to remove conditions on public assistance. The experiment would involve the removal of some rules and regulations for a group of recipients of it in a Terneuzen neighbourhood. This initiative was quickly swept from the table by the government, however, based on the stipulations in the Participation Law (see: https://daskapital.nl/2017/01/ministerie_schiet_plan_basisin.html).
2. In preparation for the elections of the 15 March, Vereniging Basisinkomen made a videoclip to attract more public attention to Basic Income:
3. In February, the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) published its report about the internalization of costs of the election programmes. Amongst them, the election programme of the VP (a new and very small liberal party) contains a proposal for a Basic Income in the amount of € 800 per month. The report presents Basic Income as a very high expense, which would result in insufficient funding for social security and high tax increases. The VP replied in detail in its publication “Comments on CPB report”. Unfortunately, the VP did not get enough votes to be represented in the chamber.
4. In an effort to design a better scheme for realising an UBI, a “mini symposium” was organized for 10 March 2017. The decision was made to work towards a colloquium on the feasibility of a UBI with experts from different political backgrounds and representatives of the press.
On March 29-30th 2017, the India Network for Basic Income (INBI) and Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA Bharat) held the first national conference on universal basic income (UBI) in India. During the conference a series of panel discussions and lectures were held, debating and exploring a range of issues concerning basic income in India. The two-day conference was held at the India International Center in New Delhi.
The conference comes as basic income proposals in India have increased in popularity. For example, this year India’s annual Economic Survey included an entire chapter on the prospects of a universal basic income in India. India’s finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, presented the survey which describes the state of the economy from the previous year, and its prospects for the future. The chapter on basic income was authored by Arvind Subramanian, the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. To read more about the economic survey, see Basic Income News coverage here.
Below are a few of the lectures and discussions from the conference that were presented in English. To see the full range of lectures at the conference, see INBI’s YouTube channel here.
Subramanian is the Chief Economic Advisor at the Ministry of Finance. In this recorded speech, he delivered the inaugural address for the conference, in which he outlined the three most attractive features on UBI in his eyes: 1) Universality, 2) Unconditionality, and 3) Agency. He also argued that UBI in India could only be made affordable if it were to replace at least some existing welfare measures.
Drabu is the Finance Minister of Jammu and Kashmir regions in India. In this speech, he explored the ‘fundamental’ question: can India pool all of its social spending to create a basic income for people below the poverty line?
Standing is a Research Professor at SOAS, University at London and Co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). According to him, these are the three major justifications for UBI:1) Social justice (reduction of inequality), 2) Enhancing republican freedom and 3) Increasing the economic security of recipients.
Cherian is the CEO of HelpAge India. He made a case in favor of UBI for senior citizens, by addressing the question of whether senior citizens should be the first to receive a basic income.
Gokarn is the Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund. Although he did not openly advocate a UBI, he did argue against categorically rejecting UBI.
Virmani is the former Chief Economic Advisor to the government of India. He argued that poverty alleviation has failed and what is needed is poverty elimination. He called for a UBI to replace the hundreds of poverty alleviation schemes at work in India.
Photo Credit: (AP Photo/Channi Anand)
I have some ambivalence about the attempt to rebrand May Day as “Basic Income Day”. I have some ambivalence also, however, about the “modernization” of May Day as a time to demand higher wages for workers but give no attention to another historically important demand: the demand for reduced working hours. It was the latter, after all, that was at issue in the fateful demonstrations at Haymarket Square in May 1886.
That specific demand, of course, was the eight-hour workday. Over 130 years ago, it was widely accepted that society would not cease to function if workers clocked only eight hours per day. In light of such astronomical increases in productivity over the past 130 years, why, pray tell, is the eight-hour workday still considered standard? Why have demands for reduced work hours been all but absent from the US labor movement for over 80 years? Why has technological advancement not translated to increased leisure? Where is the 15-hour week prophesied by John Maynard Keynes? Where is this “fight for 15” campaign? It seems that a 40-hour work week has become all we can envision; we have lost our imagination.
I used to support a renewal of the demand for reduced work hours–and I still do. But I now recognize that it is insufficient, and insufficiently radical. Given the increasing prevalence of alternative job structures–short-term contract work, freelancing, self-employment–a mandatory reduction in work hours would have little or no effect on a large portion of the economy. And precarious employment, I believe, is something that we should not merely accept as inevitable but indeed welcome and embrace. Although not everyone’s cup of tea, perhaps, the freedom, flexibility, and variety is ideal for many of us–and might well be ideal for many more, if only they had a safety net sufficient to eliminate the constant financial anxiety that too often accompanies the lifestyle.
Rather than merely spending less time in traditional jobs (if they happen to be traditionally employed), individuals could–and should–have the option and opportunity to piece together a livelihood out of part-time and short-term work. Doing so with equanimity, however, requires the reliable financial floor that a basic income could provide. Moreover, a basic income could be considered a subsidy that effectively allows individuals to reduce work hours on their own terms.
Of course, a reduction in work hours is still desirable–and perhaps necessary–for traditional full-time jobs which, after all, still predominate in our society (and this might be joined to other reforms, such as legislation mandating that employers allow job-sharing or permit employees to trade income for time). However, with the rise of the “gig” or “1099” economy, an increasing number of individuals find their time not evenly and consistently distributed between work hours and non-work hours but, instead, erratically and inconsistently divided between times of employment (sometimes at multiple “gigs” at once) and times of underemployment or unemployment. For those of us in precariat, the most suitable analogue to work-hour reduction is the provision of an economic safety net that is not contingent on employment, such as a stakeholder grant or basic income, allowing us to seek fewer part-time jobs or short-term contracts.
In the end, then, insofar as May Day recognizes and commemorates not only the demonstrators at Haymarket Square but also the validity of their demand, it might just be that advocating a basic income is the best way to honor the spirit of the day.
The basic income is known for cutting across ideological lines. Libertarians, who have had a long history supporting the basic income, are also giving the idea a fresh look as a way to replace the current welfare system.
Many libertarians, though, remain skeptical of whether a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is in line with libertarian ethics, and other libertarians believe it would cause economic damage.
Daniel Eth, a PhD student at UCLA studying computational nanotechnology, argued in Thinking of Utils that strict libertarianism, particularly without UBI, “enables oppressive systems to emerge, even when no one is acting in bad faith and all agreements are consensual.”
Eth joined the UBI Podcast to discuss the problems of libertarianism that does not endorse basic income.
One of the primary issues with strict libertarianism, Eth argued, is that without a social safety net, workers are not truly volunteering for work, because they are agreeing to work simply to survive.
“There is an uneven power dynamic and that contracts are almost inherently exploitative, at least for those that are living hand to mouth,” Eth said.
At least with a basic income system in place, Eth said, the workers could decide to walk away from unreasonable working conditions.
“if a basic income is large enough to satisfy people’s basic needs, it goes a long way to correcting for that (power dynamic),” he said.
One area of agreement between Eth and libertarians is that market-based solutions “tend to be much more effective than the alternative of central planning.”
That is to say, without appropriate taxes to account for things like pollution, then the market outcome will not reflect these costs to society and the environment.
From this framework, Eth said something like a carbon tax would be a “great way to pay” for a basic income because it would account for pollution, but also allow the market to solve.
“The market is almost like an algorithm, like what a computer might use to solve a problem and I think it tends to be better at finding solutions than central planning. But you have to ask it the right question. You have to make sure you are solving the problem you want to solve,” Eth said.
