Basic income is superior to the job guarantee
There are studies (such as the Gallup World Poll) which point to a correlation between the unemployment situation and a relative reduction in people’s happiness. At first glance, one might immediately conclude that what we need is to provide jobs for everyone — problem solved. However, a rushed conclusion like this under-evaluates the situation, ignores its alternatives and can even become counterproductive.
These studies conclude that, beyond the obvious issue of income, jobs seem to be a source of meaning and self worth for people. This apparently only reinforces the above results, and so it seems that a Job Guarantee (JG) is a policy for the future and that we must implement it as soon as possible.
But lets calm down.
First, let’s think awhile on why individuals with jobs show higher relative happiness levels, when compared with unemployed individuals.
Part of the answer lies in the stigma associated with being unemployed. The thing is, in a society so dependent on jobs like ours, being unemployed is, unquestionably, a source of stigma. According to many in society, people are unemployed because he/she is incapable of finding a job, because she has not tried enough, because she not got enough education, because she has deficient social capabilities, or due to a wide range of reasons, real or imagined. Turn it as you like, that person is to blame. If structural unemployment is on a systematic rise due to automation and other factors, if incomes drop so low that people simply give up, if precarity is a daily reality, or if working conditions may be physically or psychologically degrading…those are only considered circumstantial excuses from someone who is lazy, case closed. Everyone will have a different path in their lives that they want to go down. Maybe for some, this doesn’t include getting a job. But for those of us who actively look for a job in the hopes of being offered an interview, this can take some time. To make this process a lot easier, maybe you could check out Berke, who can give you an overview of what the hiring process entails for the employer. As the candidate, you don’t always have an idea as to what the interview process will include, but through companies like Berke, you’ll at least have an understanding of what methods companies put in place to hopefully find the right candidates for the job. You may be able to use this advice to ace your interview! It will all fall into place eventually.
However, if proof of this argument is needed, retired people are relatively less unhappy than unemployed people, although they do not have jobs (Clemens Hetschko et al., 2012). Why? Because retirement is socially acceptable; it is expected that, after decades of valid contributions to society, through a job, the person can finally rest and become free to spend the rest of his/her life just walking at the park (if so he/she wishes). They look forward to retiring as they know it’s something they can plan for using resources like Joslin Rhodes UK as well as other services that can help them be prepared for their retirement, giving them that time to get settled and be happy with the outcome.
And, of course, getting help from the state to ease the income situation does not solve the problem. The reason is because the stigma is still there: now the person has to prove that he/she is factually incapable of gaining his/her own income. Apparently, the unemployment stigma was not enough: on top of that now comes the stigma of receiving a handout in order to survive.
What’s really at stake here, and again beyond the mere income situation, is that we live in a culture based on jobs as a source of meaning and value, and so the lack of a job is seen as a problem. However, the income situation is a major one, since lacking income represents a great source of unhappiness for individuals. So, the unemployed’s relative unhappiness when compared to employed individuals is only clear when seen in the context of our present culture, and not necessarily outside it. Basic Income (BI) can – and hopefully will – create conditions under which that connection does not exist. To guarantee jobs for everyone, in this first sense, does not necessarily generate more happiness for individuals than BI, simply because the cultural environment around work gets totally transformed.
Secondly, it is wrong to assume that people want jobs, as traditionally defined. And, to be clear, that doesn’t mean in any way that people do not want to contribute to society through their work. As living proof we observe all those individuals who, despite working in jobs in order to survive, can still (sometimes with great effort and sacrifice) manage to surmount enough energy and time to do voluntary work. That means that, for all those who have trouble believing these people actually exist, jobs are not necessarily a source of meaning and self-worth in humans, which is shown in greater detail in an informal study by Robin Chase (as presented in an article by Kate McFarland).
Thirdly, I think it is not necessary to list the growing quantities of jobs seen as unattractive, monotonous, unchallenging and/or offering no carrier development perspectives, recently labelled as “bullshit jobs“. It’s hardly understandable the point in having people doing jobs that are not interesting to them, from which they do not get satisfaction, that do not allow them to explore their talents and that suck their precious lifetime, only to provide them with an income (which may not even be enough to cover basic expenses). If those jobs are not necessary, then let’s have them eliminated. If these are necessary, then let’s automate them. If that is not possible, then let’s pay more to whoever is willing to accept them.
The JG will only be beneficial to those searching for jobs – any job, we can assume in desperation – and cannot find them. For those currently and comfortably employed it would be innocuous, and for those who actually choose not to be employed (whether presently employed or not), in order to have time to pursue their passions and talents, it would only cause suffering and would be a waste of time.
On the other hand, BI is beneficial for all those who prefer not to be formally employed, are currently unhappily employed, or are indifferent, such as those individuals who are satisfied with their job at the moment. Moreover, BI will benefit the presently unemployed, offering them the chance to informally contribute to society and/or develop their capacities in order to be fit for jobs they see as more adequate to their profiles and preferences.
On a finer assessment, it seems that BI can be the strategy that will enhance people’s happiness, in respect to their relation to work. It’s also worth noting the potentially more complex and policing nature of the EG structure. To guarantee employment, the state will have to create it first, since apparently the marketplace is destroying it; To do that, these jobs must first be invented, and then distributed to people who will, supposedly, be willing to take them. There will have to be an effort to categorize each person’s abilities in order to establish a match between them and the jobs being created. It seems to be an enormous task, and a potentially highly bureaucratic one (more than we already have in our present welfare states). Even on the assumption that the state would be able to create all these jobs and to get people on them, it would still be necessary to have some system that would guarantee that the latter would stick to the former. Or at least have a way to generate new jobs for all those who want one or for some other reason had to change jobs. But maybe all this is unnecessary.
Alternatively, because basic income allows everyone to work creates conditions for each person to initiate his/her activity. If, for any reason, that person cannot do it (or does not want to do it that way), BI gives him/her the possibility to pursue education and/or skills to apply for the job he/she really craves. In time, BI will effectively put everyone to work. That’s because, one way or another, everyone wants to contribute to society, given the chance. Unfortunately, our current system prevents many people from working, precisely (and ironically) due to the coercive effect of needing a job – any job, even if the person gets actually sick from doing it – in order to survive.
To work in something meaningful and aligned with one’s values will render a completely different social environment than what we have today. To trust people to do what they think is best for their lives will completely change work, for the better. Unlike the JG, which will only mean more coercion and entrenchment of the present day job culture.
This article draws upon the articles by Kate McFarland:
Kate McFarland, “Basic Income, Job Guarantees and the Non-Monetary Value of Jobs: Response to Davenport and Kirby“, Basic Income News, September 5th 2016
Kate McFarland, “The Greater Happiness for the More Workers: Basic Income vs Job Guarantee Pt 2“, Basic Income News, October 21th 2016
More information at: “The UBI Bait and Switch” by Bruenig, Jauhiainen, and Mäkinen: A Critical Response By Otto Lehto, political economist, King’s College London; former chairman of BIEN Finland (2015-2016). A recent article in Jacobin Magazine on the Finnish UBI experiment is mostly an accurate and well-researched piece of journalism. I was especially impressed by its fastidious attention to detail in its account of the timeline of events leading up to the experiment. However, as someone well-acquainted with Finnish UBI experiment, allow me to bring another perspective on the matter. Jacobin Magazine has all the right to be as firebrand leftist as it wants to be. No question, the rhetoric of the commentary is in line with its socialist ethos. But I would just like to point out a few things that are inaccurate or misleading. I, too, have written about the government’s proposal in harsh and unforgiving tones in the past, so I really can’t fault them for that. The experiment, let us not mince words, is badly mangled, expert advice is ignored or distorted, and the government coalition’s commitment to any form of basic income is half-hearted, with the gracious exception of a few MP’s. The narrow focus on reducing unemployment and increasing workforce incentives is unfortunate. It becomes tragic when one realises that this ideological agenda drowns out the human rights perspective. But this is where it gets tricky to fully agree with the Jacobin article’s apocalyptic spin. It describes the current experiment as a “UBI-as-workhouse nightmare”. Now hold on a minute. A workhouse is a place where you must work in exchange for basic amenities. This is a preposterous description of the UBI proposals and experiments underway today. Even under the most critical lens, the (partial) UBI model under experimentation in Finland, while obviously targeted too narrowly and with too many exclusions, significantly reduces the “workhouse nightmare” nature of the benefit system. What are we to make of the conundrum? It would be useful to separate the general political ambitions of the Sipilä government and the UBI experiment itself. The Sipilä government has an admittedly “schizophrenic” attitude towards basic income. While, on the one hand, it is committed to seeing through the UBI experiment, it is simultaneously, via other channels, pushing for stringent workfare conditionality. These draconian practices – nonsense baked in the tears of unemployed people – are truly deplorable, even from the point of view of austerity itself, i.e. even if one believes the anti-Keynesian line that one must balance the budget when national output is down. The proposed and enacted cuts are disproportionately hurting poor people, relative to the cuts affecting the mid income and high income sectors. The richest people have even been given delicious tax cuts, while students, pensioners, sick people, disabled people and others have suffered. All that is worth criticising. Some other enactments of the government, like drastically deregulating the opening hours of stores, or shaking the stiff and moribund government monopoly on alcohol sales, I personally find most welcome developments. But all things considered, the general direction of the austerity program, and the government’s attitude towards poor people, leaves a lot to be desired. But I would argue that one shouldn’t judge the UBI experiment on this basis. I will concede that the general ethos of the Sipilä government certainly permeates the parameters of the experiment. The limits of the experiment were decided after the 2015 elections. The result is a predictable beast built upon the sorrowful soil of a Protestant work ethic that fetishises work incentives and bemoans the metaphysical sinfulness of laziness. It involves the misguided and conscious exclusion of people who are either too old or too young, or who are not currently recipients of the mainline unemployment benefit. This distorts the experiment from the start. But here’s something to consider. The only people for whom the current UBI experiment is a significant welfare-reduction are people who fulfill all of the following criteria: 1) they happen to be long-term unemployed, 2) they happen to be taking part in the UBI lottery and 3) they happen to have received a slightly higher level of benefit from the state in the past. The diversity of benefits in Finland translates to a diversity of levels of income security, with some people relatively well-off while others receiving pennies (if anything at all). The universal UBI level of approximately €560 can be a reduction to people who have received approximately €650 in the past. The UBI is topped off with housing benefits and other types of discretionary benefits. But a few will obviously be net losers in any equalizing scheme. This is understandable. But this hardly qualifies as a “workhouse nightmare.” In fact, the reduction in quantity comes with many obvious upsides that may or may not compensate for the marginal reduction in the absolute level of welfare income for some people. Even with net-losers mixed in with net-gainers (in a yet-to-be-determined proportion), the proposed UBI model is an improvement over the current system in almost every respect: 1) it is given automatically and without hassle (for the duration of the experiment), 2) it provides a long-term safety net (a steady shower rather than a drizzle of sporadic benefits) and 3) it is not withheld from people who take up part-time or full-time work (thus improving work incentives). I will surely not need to enumerate for my audience the other well-known benefits of a non-utopian UBI system. In fact, since the tax system hasn’t (yet) been reformed to account for the UBI system, those lucky participants in the experiment who find employment, full-time or part-time, will also gain significantly in terms of post-tax income. To this extent the experiment is arguably too generous. The tax system obviously needs to be reformed as well, since money doesn’t just grow on trees. But there’s another thing. Some of the aims of the utopian left, as evinced by this piece, are just contradictory or confused. One cannot simultaneously call for more legal power to the unions, in the style of the old corporatist model of the Nordic welfare state, and to call for a truly universal basic income guarantee. This, however, is the paradoxical cry of the Jacobin piece, whose logic I simply cannot comprehend. The power of the unions has been traditionally very strong in Finland. This has meant, e.g., the legally protected collective bargaining of wages and benefits. For all the good this has brought to industry-insiders, this has meant very little for people outside the framework. It has created a natural opposition between “inside” and “outside” groups: the “insiders” being the members of the protection racket of the unions and the employer’s associations, who receive good and generous benefits, while the “outsiders” being all the other people that fall outside the “standard” model of employment. The insiders have received semi-automatic and hassle-free benefits for a long time, while outsiders have suffered from the “workhouse nightmare” of the discretionary welfare bureaucracy. The guarantee of a non-union-based unemployment and sick leave benefit scheme in the form of a UBI naturally chips away at the monopolistic power of unions to determine who deserves what, when and under what conditions. This is a good thing. Out of the four demons conjured by the authors of the Jacobin article in the concluding paragraph – “forcing unemployed workers into bad jobs while undermining organized labor, earnings equality, and the welfare state” – the first one, about forcing people into bad jobs, is simply false (nobody is forced under the UBI system to accept any bad jobs, either de jure or de facto); the second one, about undermining organized labor, is actually a mixed blessing (since it actually helps “outsiders” gain benefits at a cost to “insiders”); the third one, about earnings equality, is something that the authors give no reason to think is threatened by the experiment (and indeed, it seems like a complete throwaway line); and the fourth point, about undermining the welfare state, is a tad question-begging. The real question is, which structures should be reformed and which not. The existing welfare state has obviously failed in many ways to provide effective welfare for all people, and it is impossible to reform the system (for the better) without breaking a few eggs. If the accusation is levelled at the other stuff the Sipilä government is doing, or the broken moral compass of the austerity crowd, the accusation sticks much better. But I have tried to show these should be kept separate. The UBI experiment is, indeed, severely compromised as a result of a confluence of factors. It survives, barely, within narrow ideological bounds. But the important thing is that the experiment tests the waters for a paradigm shift – slowly, ineluctably. Even a compromised UBI marks a steady improvement over the status quo in almost all conceivable dimensions. And those are just the conceivable dimensions. Reviewed by Kate McFarland Photo: Finland’s “frozen waves”, CC BY-ND 2.0 Marjaana Pato
Clemens Hetschko, Andreas Knabe, Ronnie Schöb, “
Comments on Jacobin’s “The UBI Bait and Switch”
