by Patrick Hoare | Oct 6, 2017 | News
Jon Altman and Eva Cox. Credit to: Alfred Deakin Institute (Deakin University, Melbourne)
The Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, hosted a forum on the 17th and 18th August discussing the concept of a universal basic income.
Workshop co-convenor Jon Altman (Deakin University and ANU) suggested that part of the impetus for the workshop was the sense that discussion of UBI in Australia was not as advanced as it was in other countries. As evidence of this he cited the comment made by Chris Bowen (Shadow Treasurer for the Labor party), who said that UBI was “a terrible idea”. Tim Hollo – Executive Director of the Green Institute – also highlighted the fact that the Greens were the only major party in Australia currently in support of the concept.
Dr Tim Dunlop – author of Why the Future is Workless – gave context to the discussion by talking about the state of work, technology and automation. He said the “salient point” in labour market analysis is that many problems are current. Evidencing this, he summarized some figures from the International Labour Organization, including; global unemployment exceeding 200 million in 2017; stagnation of real wage growth; decline in proportion of wealth going to wages; 760 million men and women worldwide in “vulnerable work”, defined as work unable to bring them above the the world poverty threshold of AUD $3.10 per day; millions in refugee camps and jails; record levels of over and under-employment; and the creation of “increasingly precarious” work.
Looking at future technology, Dr Dunlop said that the consistent finding was that “around 40 to 50% of jobs are at high risk of automation in the next twenty years” (Oxford Martins School Report, 2015) under “currently existing technologies” (McKinzie Report) and that it would be “close to a form of denialism”, therefore, to state, as many do, that “concerns about technological unemployment are overstated”. Associate Professor Karl Widerquist agreed with this point, stating that “people are not interchangeable parts” and often find that their “learn[t] skills” are “not needed any more”. In this regard, he said a UBI could compensate for the continual disruption of technology, and the inherent inability of workers to adapt and provide themselves with income. Phillip Ablett (USC), summarising work by Mullally, added that neo-liberalism’s emphasis “on ‘individual responsibility’ for poverty” contributed to this persecution of workers, where we tend “to blame individuals for their ‘failure’ to succeed in the market economy rather than consider the structural impediments to achievement”.
Professor Widerquist said a shift away from labour prosperity to capital prosperity has led to an “incentive problem” where employers don’t have an incentive to treat their employees appropriately since employees don’t have any power to refuse their conditions. The universal nature of a UBI, as such, would allow for a “voluntary participation economy instead of a mandatory participation economy”. Dr Frances Flanagan agreed that “capital accumulation” was central to the problem of “acute inequality”, however she expressed concerns that discussions around UBI focused too heavily on wage leverage and monetary incentive. Citing “care work” as an example “utterly antithetical” to the taylorisms of tasking and efficiency, Dr Flanagan said we need a more positive definition of ‘work’ since there are always ‘jobs’ that “require empathy, judgement and relationships”. UBI, consequently, needs to be “supportive of the fight for better jobs” and “[be] supportive of the fight against marketisation”. Professor John Quiggin (UQ) echoed Dr Flanagan’s concerns that UBI risks the possibility of replacing social services with a single payment, though he did point out that an unconditional stipend could destigmatise the concept of welfare payments to individuals, undermining the concept of the “deserving and undeserving poor”. Professor Eva Cox (AO) was also critical of UBI as a means to empowering a “protestant, male, Anglo” market system, where humans are economically judged as being good or bad “consumers”. She reiterated the need to revisit the concept of ‘work’ through a lense where humans were considered “social”, “dependent” and “interdependent”, advocating a UBI that was used to redefine “the social contract between the nation state and the individual”, with “reciprocity built into it”.
On the subject of evidence to support a UBI’s practical plausibility, both Professor Widerquist and Professor Greg Marston (University of Queensland) said that trials investigating the effects could be strategically dangerous since the trial conditions are often neither unconditional nor universal. Marston pointed to climate change as an example of where the accumulation of data has brought about, in many cases, confirmation bias in support of inactivity rather than impetus to instigate change. It was generally agreed that the issues of design and implementation were not, therefore, easily separated. Professor Quiggin, Troy Henderson and Dr Ben Spies-Butcher advanced the idea of a staged introduction, a “stepping-stone” approach which would retain the “big idea” excitement for voters and simultaneously satisfy technocrats. Quiggin’s preferred model was to favour the “basic” over the “universal” through various mechanisms and adjustments to tax regimes, introducing a full UBI payment to selected, vulnerable populations, and then gradually increase the number of people covered. The cost of everyone in Australia receiving a full UBI was estimated to be around 5-10% of GDP. Henderson and Spies-Butcher offered modelling that began by universalising the age pension, and by also introducing an “unconditional Youth Basic Income paid to those aged 20-24 based on a negative income tax model.”
In conclusion, the consistent theme of the two days was that UBI cannot be offered as a silver-bullet solution to issues around inequality, welfare, social security and the potential growing precarity of work. So while there is a tendency amongst advocates (worldwide) to present UBI as a single policy response for addressing many of the problems societies have with these issues, the very strong feeling of the workshop was that this could be a dangerous over-reach.
You can view some of the contributors speaking here.
More information at:
Kate McFarland, ‘NEW BOOK: Why the Future is Workless’, Basic Income News, November 5th 2016
Hilde Latour, ‘KARL WIDERQUIST: About Universal Basic Income and Freedom’, Basic Income News, July 31st 2017
Homepage of the International Labour Organization
James Manyika, Michael Chui, Brad Brown, Jacques Bughin, Richard Dobbs, Charles Roxburgh, Angela Hung Byers, ‘Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity’, McKinsey Global Institute, May 2011
Karl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, ‘Technology at Work: The Future of Innovation and Employment’, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, February 2015
Oxford University Press, ‘The New Structural Social Work: Ideology, Theory, Practice 3rd Edition’, Bob Mullaly
by Sandro Gobetti | Jun 22, 2017 | News
Basic Income Network – Italy has just released a new book: “Guaranteed income and technological innovation, between algorithms and robotics“, which will be available in bookstores on the 22nd of June, 2017. In addition, the book is available online through publisher Asterios Editore.
The book opens up a global topic of interest: the links between the fourth industrial revolution, robotics and artificial intelligence, platform capitalism, and basic income rights – to the Italian populus. The publication documents a debate that involved a large group of academics, scholars, researchers and activists who were ready to make a say in favor of basic income as a social guarantee. This is particularly important at the time of technological innovation, which requires new mental and cultural paradigms, even before political and institutional ones.
Within the book fifteen authors reveal variant perspectives, beliefs, and views on basic income. The contributors agree that social protections and its mechanisms need rethinking, in order to bring forth a guaranteed basic income.
A fil rouge runs through the words and ideas of the books essays: in the digital age, look at the present and toward the future in order to recognize a collective right that allows each individual to participate in the redistribution of wealth produced by social networking, among other rights. The political and social pushor a basic income is thus understood to challenge social injustice and enable an individual and collective self-determination within a new type of society.
Because, most probably, as is quoted by Philippe Van Parijs in this book: “One day we will wonder how we could live without a basic income…”
Authors / articles in the book:
Gianmarco Mecozzi, Mutanti senza reddito garantito (Mutants without guaranteed income)
Giuseppe Allegri, Re UBI per una nuova società. Reddito di base, innovazione, tempi di vita (King UBI for a new society. Basic income, innovation, time of life)
Franco Berardi Bifo, Come attualizzare il possibile, ovvero: per l’autonomia progettuale della Silicon Valley Globale (How to update the possible: for the autonomy of the Global Silicon Valley)
Luigi Corvo, BIM – Basic Income Matters. Reddito di base e innovazione sociale (Basic Income Matters. Basic income and social innovation)
Giuseppe Bronzini, Reddito di base, lavoro, automazione: appunti per un nuovo garantismo sociale (Basic income, work, automation: notes for a new social security)
Francesca Bria, Reddito di cittadinanza nell’economia dei robot per dire no alla precarietà (Basic income in the robot economy to say no to precariousness)
Benedetto Vecchi, Il reddito di base oltre l’algoritmo digitale (Basic income beyond the digital algorithm)
Sandro Gobetti, Google al governo e reddito per tutti? (Google to the government and income for everyone?)
Silvano Cacciari, Potere deflattivo, tecnologia, (de-)globalizzazione e reddito di cittadinanza (Deflating Power, Technology, (de-) Globalization and Citizenship Income)
Franco Carlucci, Soft Machine 2.0. L’operaio sociale e l’uso capitalistico delle macchine (Soft Machine 2.0. The social worker and the capitalist use of machines)
Roberto Ciccarelli, Nel capitalismo digitale il reddito di base non si trova sugli alberi (In digital capitalism basic income doesn’t grow on trees)
Fabrizio Fassio e Giuseppe Nicolosi, L’aumento del tempo di lavoro nell’epoca della sua riducibilità técnica (The increase in working time in the era of its technical reducibility)
Mariano Di Palma, Robot n. 18, senza articolo. L’urgenza di un reddito minimo dentro la quarta rivoluzione industriale (Robot n. 18, without the article. The urgency of a minimum income in the fourth industrial revolution)
Andrea Fumagalli, Umani, macchine e reddito di base (Humans, machines and basic income)
More information at:
[In Italian]
“Guaranteed income and technological innovation, between algorithms and robotics”, Basic Income Network – Italy, Asterios, June 2017
by Guest Contributor | Apr 10, 2017 | News
People’s Potato as an example of alternative work organization in the world of Unconditional Basic Income (UBI)
This is the second part of a series proposing a reform of public services to be included in the UBI reform package (first part here). This article presents a model of organizing production based on spontaneous work contribution to the commons so that citizens’ participation is facilitated. Re-organizing work in such a way so that people want to contribute, but without being forced by the necessity to earn a living, should become part of the UBI movement’s agenda.
Certainly, citizens living solely from UBI would need to contribute somehow to sustain support for UBI among working populations that may resent those not working. So far, no viable solutions have been proposed. An “approved” citizen contribution1 or rewarding of such contributions2 implies wasting resources on monitoring, control3 or operating a system of remuneration, which would undermine the entire project and philosophy behind UBI. I propose an alternative to generating such unsatisfying administrative jobs (also known as “Bullshit Jobs” – a term coined by David Graeber) and intruding citizens. The state (“Partner State” – a concept developed by Michel Bauwens) should allocate instead resources and liberate spaces where commons are produced and work is a source of fulfillment.
In this article, I will elaborate on the elements of work organization that would turn making contribution attractive to citizens. A new logic of work organization, which could be generalized for the domain of services of public interest, will be exemplified with the case of a cooking collective, People’s Potato, distributing lunch meals for free at the Concordia University in Montréal. One can define the mode of operation in this collective as a peer production project. Access to the service is not conditional based on involvement as a volunteer. The production is financed by fee levies, but the meals are distributed for free and broadly accessible. One does not need to be a student at the Concordia or have paid the levy to receive a meal. The Annual General Meetings are accessible to the stakeholders and the public.4
In September 2014, I volunteered in the kitchen and interviewed several other volunteers, as well as a coordinator, to learn more about work organization at People’s Potato.
Contributing work without barriers
Members-employees of the worker cooperative that manages People’s Potato coordinate volunteers’ work. Since economic survival does not depend on the volunteers, this removes the pressure typically found in commercial gastronomy or other traditional employment systems. Volunteers join the work process spontaneously and are assigned a task. It is possible to join or leave at any moment. Preparing food is organized in a modular way so that coordinators can easily find something to do for a volunteer. Inclusion is also fostered by the fact that each participant can decide their degree of involvement. For example, one can choose whether to contribute to governance decisions or not.
This very flexible way of organizing work at People’s Potato generates more inclusion in work participation, opening it up to those who might not be able to work as an employee, nor find their place in worker cooperatives. Among volunteers, there are people with physical and mental handicaps. Part of People’s Potato’s anti-oppression policy is to create an environment of tolerance so that everyone can work at one’s own pace. Many volunteers appreciated the flexibility that is possible in the involvement. For example, one volunteer – a busy student – enjoyed the fact that the project can go on without her if she does not show up. She does not need to take on additional responsibility.
Organizational framework for p2p production in the physical world
Coordination is a crucial factor in sustaining spontaneous work. Cooking (and other services of general interest) requires time management, as well as obeying safety and hygiene regulations. In Montréal, past non-professional cooking collectives, which managed to peer produce food, were short-lived (see the article by Silvestro5). However, some chapters of the international movement Food Not Bombs are quite successful. Certainly, these non-professional initiatives help advancing the practice and attitude of non-conditionality, both as a principle for redistribution and as a way to organize work contribution.
A worker cooperative runs people’s Potato. The cooperative takes care of administration, logistics, and financial tasks. Coordinators who are members of a worker cooperative provide a framework for spontaneous work contribution. They decide what meals to prepare and guide the process of food preparation. They are also responsible for volunteers’ training, information events, and celebration parties.
Fulfilling a coordinator’s job at People’s Potato requires a higher level of social skill than in traditional employment settings. One of the most important factors attracting volunteers is the kindness of coordinators and the perception that contributing at People’s Potato is different from traditional employment. This is reflected in the way volunteers are addressed. Staff always asks whether one “feels like doing” a certain task. Volunteer contribution is not taken for granted. However, one of the long-term volunteers that I interviewed said they felt unappreciated, and another one wished for more warmth. The former said that People’s Potato’s staff tends to forget that the volunteers are not paid for their contribution.
Space and work process organization to accommodate volunteers
Because of the flexibility of volunteer involvement, the number of volunteers fluctuates during the day. Just to illustrate with an observation of one Monday: at 11 am there were 8 volunteers in the kitchen, at the noon – 14, at 12:40 – 29, at 13:30 – 13, and at 14 – three volunteers were working. Altogether, the kitchen space can accommodate up to 40 volunteers.
The only perk for volunteers is the opportunity to eat in the kitchen rather than wait in the line outside. Many interviewees complained that there is not much space for the volunteers to eat lunch together. However, some contribute very little and eat in the kitchen. Coordinators must find a balance between disciplining and building an atmosphere that does not feel like a workplace. Too many rules may deter people from volunteering, and too little may frustrate committed volunteers.
Since volunteers associate People’s Potato with having fun and meeting people, some volunteers may forget that it is a space for work. One of the coordinators complained that people were kissing each other in the kitchen. The staff is also worried about too many people coming to the kitchen during lunch distribution. Working as a coordinator has distinct challenges, due to the number and fluctuation of people involved in cooking. They manage stress by rotating tasks between the kitchen and the office.
Anti-Oppression work at People’s Potato
People’s Potato defines itself as a hate-free space to bring people together without judgment or discrimination. For one interviewee who belongs to a racial and gender identification minority, this aspect of People’s Potato was crucial in choosing involvement. This person trusts that coordinators would react in cases of oppressive behavior in the kitchen. This person has experienced harassment in similar jobs as an employee in commercial gastronomy.
As I reported in another article, coordinators have a role to play in sustaining a positive atmosphere:
“The involvement of a high number of volunteers may be a challenge at times. There are situations when staff need to intervene because of an oppressive behavior among volunteers: instances of verbal aggression, offences, discriminatory comments, etc. Some volunteers, when asked to stop oppressive behaviour, may become frustrated or become quiet. Sometimes this results in volunteers getting upset and leaving the kitchen, though there is an attempt to establish the anti-oppressive politics without rejecting community members who don’t understand it fully.”6
Creating spaces for a new paradigm in work organization
Sustaining work organization based on spontaneous contribution requires infrastructure, employment for coordinators, and developing skills for running this kind of project. The example of People’s Potato’s work organization helps us imagine how production of the commons could be organized. My interviewees suggested further measures that would make an involvement in spontaneous work more attractive:
– A board with the list of tasks to be done, so that one can easily find one’s project
– Concerts accompanying work
– A place to relax and lay down close to the working space (suggested by an older person suffering from back pain).
UBI may become a reality in the future, but the goal of creating a new vision of work and using human potential can already be pursued now.
The ideas expressed do not necessarily represent those of Basic Income Earth Network or Basic Income News.
About the author:
Katarzyna Gajewska is an independent scholar and a writer. She has a PhD in Political Science and has published on alternative economy and innovating the work organization since 2013. You can find her non-academic writing on such platforms as Occupy.com, P2P Foundation Blog, Basic Income UK, Bronislaw Magazine and LeftEast. For updates on her publications, you can check her Facebook page or send her an email: k.gajewska_commATzoho.com. If you would like to support her independent writing, please make a donation to the PayPal account at the same address!
More information on People’s Potato
David Bernans on the Founding of The People’s Potato : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZXfTRVdGAU
Jamiey Kelly on The History of The People’s Potato : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXFI2w6LOLA
The People’s Potato and the Concordia Administration : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGO236oiZow
Gajewska, Katarzyna (2014): Peer production and prosummerism as a model for the future organization of general interest services provision in developed countries: examples of food services collectives. World Future Review 6(1): 29-39.
Gajewska, Katarzyna (30 June 2014): There is such a thing as a free lunch: Montréal Students Commoning and Peering food services. P2P Foundation Blog, https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/there-is-such-a-thing-as-a-free-lunch-montreal-students-commoning-and-peering-food-services/2014/06/30
Endnotes
1 Anthony B. Atkinson, “The Case for a Participation Income,” Political Quarterly 27 (1 1996), 67-70; Anthony B. Atkinson, Poverty in Europe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998); Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work, (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995).
2 Colin C. Williams and Sara Nadin, “Beyond the market: The case for a citizen’s income,” Re-public: re-imagining democracy, November 23, 2010, URL to article: https://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=3070.
3 Brian Barry, “UBI and the Work Ethic,” in What’s Wrong with a Free Lunch? Ed. Philippe van Parijs (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001). Bill Jordan, The New Politics of Welfare: social justice in a global context (London: Sage, 1998); Bill Jordan, “Efficiency, Justice and the Obligations of Citizenship,” in Social Policy in Transition: Anglo-German Perspectives in the New European Community, (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1994, pp. 109-113); Jurgen DeWispelaere and Lindsay Stirton, “The Public Administration Case Against Participation Income,” Social Service Review 81 (3 2007): 523-549; Jurgen DeWispelaere and Lindsay Stirton, “A Disarmingly Simple Idea? Practical Bottlenecks in Implementing a Universal Basic Income,” International Social Security Review 65 (April-June 2012): 103–121.
4Gajewska, Katarzyna (2014): Peer production and prosummerism as a model for the future organization of general interest services provision in developed countries: examples of food services collectives. World Future Review 6(1): 29-39. Gajewska, Katarzyna (30 June 2014): There is such a thing as a free lunch: Montréal Students Commoning and Peering food services. P2P Foundation Blog, https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/there-is-such-a-thing-as-a-free-lunch-montreal-students-commoning-and-peering-food-services/2014/06/30
5Silvestro, Marco (2007): Politisation du quotidien et récupération alimentaire a l’ère de la bouffe-minute, Possibles 32(1-2).
6Gajewska, Katarzyna (30 June 2014): There is such a thing as a free lunch: Montréal Students Commoning and Peering food services. P2P Foundation Blog, https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/there-is-such-a-thing-as-a-free-lunch-montreal-students-commoning-and-peering-food-services/2014/06/30
by Kate McFarland | Mar 11, 2017 | Research
Daiga KamerÄde (Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Research Methods at the University of Salford) and Matthew R. Bennett (Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Birmingham) have written a paper for the journal Work, Employment and Society in which they examine changes in the structure of the labor market and their impact on mental health and well-being. Indeed, it is known that there is a link between these two areas, which is why many will use private label capsules of CBD oils to help manage their own mental health, but a formal study is still important.
KamerÄde and Bennett use data from the European Quality of Life Survey to analyze differences in mental health status between unemployed individuals in different nations, as well as between those who engaged in volunteer work and those who did not. (The dataset consisted of 2,440 individuals, all unemployed, from 29 European countries.) While it is known that unemployment is associated with lower mental health, KamerÄde and Bennett investigate whether receipt of government support and participation in voluntary work can improve mental health and well-being. This can lead to other opportunities if seen as viable, such as gaining an online yoga certification yoga alliance qualification to those who want to contribute to ongoing mental wellness and health systems.
One of their most important findings is that, in countries with less generous unemployment benefits, volunteer work is associated with worse mental health outcomes — even though volunteer work shows beneficial effects on mental health in countries with more generous benefits. Based on this result, the authors conclude that “financial support for the unemployed” – possibly through (as they mention) a guaranteed basic income or citizen’s income scheme – “should occupy a central position in theoretical perspectives focusing on reducing the negative effects of unemployment”:
Unemployment could lead to negative psychological and physiological health effects such as depression, lower self-esteem, eating disorders, cardiovascular diseases, etc. Aged care courses Melbourne, or similar accreditations could, therefore, prove beneficial to the unemployed youths. This would help benefit the people in terms of their mental health, and in turn, they could also be of service to the government and society by their volunteering work. Financial and psychological support in trying times can be of tremendous comfort to the people who are signing up for voluntary services.
The findings indicate that financial support during periods of unemployment remains crucial for well-being and mental health. Although individuals can boost one dimension of their own well-being (feeling that their life is worthwhile) by exercising their agency through engaging in work that is an alternative to paid work, such engagement without any financial support can also damage their mental health. These findings suggest that financial support for the unemployed – through unemployment benefits, guaranteed basic income (Gorz, 1989), citizens income (Standing, 2011), etc. – should occupy a central position in theoretical perspectives focusing on reducing the negative effects of unemployment.
Full article available at the following link:
Daiga Kamerade-Hanta and Matthew R. Bennett (December 2016) “Rewarding work: cross-national differences in benefits, volunteering during unemployment, well-being and mental health,” Work, Employment and Society.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: CC BY 2.0 Virginia State Parks
by Kate McFarland | Feb 21, 2017 | News
VIDEO: “Basic income – real social security”
Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland (CBINS), BIEN’s Scottish affiliate, was launched in Glasgow in November 2016. It held its second public event in Kelty, Fife, on January 28, 2017.
Videos of all presentations and Q&A sessions are available online.
Background
Public officials in Fife are currently working to establish a pilot study of basic income in the region, which is likely to be designed as a saturation study in a town (in which all residents of the chosen site are eligible to receive the basic income for the duration of the pilot). In November 2015, the Fairer Fife Commission (an independent commission created by the Fife Council) released a report that called for a basic income pilot as one of 40 recommendations to achieve a “fairer Fife”. Specifically, the commission encouraged the community planning board, the Fife Partnership, to select a town in Fife in which to run a pilot informed by “leading practice around the world” (with the planned study in Utrecht cited as an example of global leading practice at the time). In November 2016, the Fife Council voted to convene a group to carry out an initial feasibility study in early 2017.
The potential Fife pilot is still being designed. When asked about its details at the Kelty event, Paul Vaughn, Head of Community and Corporate Development at the Fife Council, relayed that the Council wishes to select a town of 2,000 to 5,000 people for the study, and that the pilot would run for at least two years. Otherwise, the details of the study’s design (including the amount of the basic income) are still “up for grabs”.
Meeting in Kelty
At CBINS’s Kelty meeting (titled “Basic income – real social security”), participants addressed broad issues concerning the motivation to pursue a basic income in Fife, the promises and potential pitfalls of pilot studies, and political support for a basic income in Fife and Scotland.
After introductory remarks by CBINS’s Willie Sullivan and Maddy Halliday, guest speaker Karl Widerquist (BIEN co-chair and associate professor of philosophy at University of Georgetown-Qatar) presented a justification of basic income as compensation for individuals’ deprivation of access to natural resources due the institution of private property. Widerquist argued no person should be forced to work for others out of necessity, and that a basic income would provide an incentive for employers to provide better wages.
After Widerquist spoke on the general question of “why basic income”, Vaughn turned to the question of “why Fife”. Vaughn provided an overview of the challenges currently faced by the council area, especially with respect to poverty and deprivation, noting that Fife tends to be representative of Scotland as a whole on measures such as health, employment, community safety, and other indicators used by government and community planners. Further, Vaughn presented the work of the Fairer Fife Commission that instigated the investigation into the pilot. Although the commission report made dozens of recommendations, the suggestion of a basic income pilot has generated the most interest among local authorities, according to Vaughn. However, as Vaughn described, a great deal remains to be completed, from awareness raising to gaining political and financial support to working out the implementation details and other preparatory work.
During the afternoon CBINS’s Annie Miller chaired a session in which Mike Danson (CBINS trustee and Professor of Enterprise Policy at Heriot-Watt University) and Widerquist offered two different perspectives on basic income experiments. Danson encouraged the audience to begin thinking through the myriad challenges related to implementing a basic income and even a pilot study thereof — raising many examples himself. Should students receive the benefit? Who counts as a “citizen” for the purpose of the basic income? Will the databases used to track recipients miss some of the most vulnerable (e.g. the homeless)? Given that a pilot would ideally be conducted at the national level (since the central government exerts control over taxation and other welfare benefits), how can local and regional pilots be useful?
Widerquist then spoke about limitations and potential dangers of pilot studies. For example, any pilot study, even a saturation study, cannot discern all impacts of a basic income on the labor market, given that the labor market is national (even global). Moreover, he cautioned that those who conduct pilot studies have a tendency to focus on whatever outcomes are easiest to record and measure (the “streetlight effect”), such as effects on work hours, rather than thinking broadly about the possible effects of a basic income. And he warned that policymakers are others are likely to try to spin results of any study to their advantage; for example, policymakers are likely to portray any decrease in work hours as a bad outcome.
Finally, public officials representing positions across the political spectrum briefly presented their views on the idea of a basic income for Scotland. Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP) Alex Rowley (Labour) enjoined Scotland to be ambitious and bold in tackling poverty. Fife Councillor Dave Dempsey (Conservative), a former student of mathematics, described basic income as an “elegant” solution, and revealed that the Fife Conservatives support the idea (although he could not speak for Scottish Conservatives in general). Maggie Chapman, co-convener of the Scottish Green Party, emphasized the ability of basic income to transform the nature of society and the economy. Chapman noted that, as well as ameliorating many problems with the welfare system, a basic income would support work that is currently unpaid or underpaid, such as care work. Another Fife Councillor, Lesley Lewis (Labour), addressed some of the issues and challenges in winning public support. Finally, Member of Parliament (MP) Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party), a long-standing supporter of basic income, also spoke about the uphill battle faced by proponents of the idea — especially given that money is highly valued in society as a mark of success. Cowan encouraged everyone to write a personal letter to their MPs and MSPs in support of basic income, stressing that letters do influence policymakers.
More information on the event
Gerry Mulvenna, “Basic income – real social security,” The Independence Live Blog, January 30, 2017.
“Flashback to Kelty: Maddy’s opening address at our Pilot event,” Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland blog, February 6, 2017.
Liam Turbett, “The Scottish Town Planning to Give Everyone Free Money,” Vice, February 1, 2017.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: Fife’s Roome Bay, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Tom Parnell
