by Guest Contributor | Aug 10, 2015 | Opinion
Busiso Moyo
[The Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states are characterized by high levels of poverty and some of the highest levels of inequality globally, albeit endowed with high levels of mineral resources. – ed.]
By Busiso Moyo
Despite being endowed with many natural resources, Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA), wherein 13 of the 14 SADC countries are located, ranks amongst the worst regions globally in terms of poverty and socio-economic inequalities. Evidently, for the region, the capitalist ‘trickle down’ effect of wealth to all citizens in the context of a neoliberal global political economy has proven to be a fallacy. As such, now more than ever, it has become imperative for African governments to prioritize social protection namely through the provision of a Basic Income Grant (BIG) for all residents furnished through universal Social Cash Transfers (SCTs).
A cursory look at SADC countries’ socio-economic circumstances clearly reveals the need for upping efforts towards social protection to ensure that the most vulnerable are safe from destitution. South Africa, the economic mecca of Africa, despite being a middle-income country, is the one of the most unequal countries in the world. People with access to wealth experience the country as a developed modern economy, while the poorest still struggle to access even the most basic services. On the other hand, since the late 90s, Zimbabwe’s economy slowed down and grounded to a halt by 2008 due to socio-political challenges that still bedevil the country to this day. Unemployment is estimated at 80% to date thus leaving the majority of people in abject poverty. Furthermore, 5.3 million people or 50% of the Zambian population falls under the poverty line coupled with the fact that 70% of Mozambicans are classified as ‘poor’. Consequently, poverty and socio-economic inequalities have left the majority of people within the SADC-region food-insecure and with many of the region’s children’s educational aspirations frazzled.
Amidst the above, South Africa has borne the brunt of regional poverty and inequalities as the net receiver of socio-political economic refugees from around Africa especially the SADC region, resulting in refugee management headaches for authorities and ills like recurrent xenophobic attacks on non-South Africans. Therefore, a SADC-wide BIG would not only serve as a buffer against poverty but would be utilized as a stabilizing force to stimulate local and regional growth in-turn curbing one-directional mass movement of people to countries like South Africa.
A universal SADC-wide unconditional social cash transfer to all citizens of no less than US$15 per month, would go a long way in curbing destitution. SCTs, as opposed to in-kind gifts, give beneficiaries the freedom to acquire what they need exactly. This freedom to choose in itself constitutes human security.
The fact that poverty is dire in SSA should not simply be left to the sphere of development practitioners with an interest in poverty-alleviation, but as an obstacle to the enjoyment of many human rights ought to be a concern of all change agents within society. For States and capital-interests within the region in particular, the role of SCTs as the best intervention strategy in the fight against poverty cannot be ignored any longer. Granted, some scholars have alluded to the fact that the notion of social cash transfers brings about dependency amongst beneficiaries and removes the impetus for seeking meaningful employment. So what? People deserve to benefit from the region’s natural resources in a non-prejudicial manner, especially in the pervasive absence of formal jobs. Nonetheless, for the half-convinced, its high-time we acknowledge that the poor are in fact good managers who already know how to do best for their families with the little they have. Many sustain the survivalist economy at the bottom of the pyramid with such wise daily financial decisions. For scholars such as Joseph Hanlon, the questioning of the frugality of the poor is tantamount to blaming the poor for their circumstances. Moreover, such feeble arguments show a lack of appreciation for the political history of SSA and its structural make up. Worse still this mindset portrays a blind endorsement of the neoliberal agenda. Remarkably, a study of European history shows that social protection came first, then economic growth. Indeed saving and/or the entrepreneurship-spirit cannot happen when the majority of people have to endure hunger-pains.
Empirical evidence of successes of SCT schemes globally abound. Brazil’s 2003 initiated Bolsa Familia SCT scheme, supporting about 12 million families, has to date decreased inequality by 17% and the poverty rate has fallen from 42.7% to 28.8%. For the South African experience, social safety nets such as the child grant have already shown that SCT schemes are capable of producing positive outcomes. Gharagozloo-Pakkala observes the following, ‘In South Africa, the child grant reduced the poverty gap by 47%; in Kenya unconditional cash transfers saw a 19% increase in primary school enrolment among ‘hard-to-reach’ children; in rural Ghana, for every one Cedi transferred, 1.50 Cedi of income can be generated in the economy”. Malawi’s Mchinji district’s SCT scheme also testifies to a positive turn of SCTs. SCTs are recorded to have “…influence[d] household productive capacity [and]…ownership of agricultural assets increased 16 per cent…”
Having shown the need for a BIG and it’s transformative power, it is necessary to conclude this piece by observing that in a region blessed with natural resources the issue of a BIG roll out to all – SADC residents, refugees, economic migrants, asylum seekers funded by proceeds from extractive industries and other actors, is not ‘alms’ giving or a charitable gesture, but is an act of economic and social justice, and most importantly an investment in the poor’s human capital!
SADC wide BIG
“Make the Change Happen!” – Support the call for a SADC BIG. Visit www.spii.org.za
Busiso Moyo is an Advocacy and Campaigns Officer with the Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII).
by Toru Yamamori | Aug 8, 2015 | News
Jeremy Corbyn, front running candidate to be the next Labour Party leader, has recruited Richard Murphy, an advocate of basic income, to draft his economic policy.
Corbyn, a 66-years-old MP, not especially prominent in Westminster politics, has recently gotten tremendous media attention on account of his unexpected initial success in getting support for his candidacy for Labour Party leader, coupled with mainstream Labour politicians’ panic reaction against precisely this (Tony Blair, for one, has advised Corbyn supporters to get a heart transplant).
Although Corbyn himself hasn’t spoken on basic income yet, there have been some speculations as to whether he could possibly support the idea — namely: ‘Why Anti-Austerity Needs The Basic Income: SNP, Jeremy Corbyn?’ and ‘Universal Basic Income: How the Labour Party could stand up for workers, help the poor and be pro-business’.
Richard Murphy, Tax Research UK
It is good news for basic income supporters that Richard Murphy is involved in drafting Corbyn’s economic policy.
Murphy, an economist at Tax Research UK, is also an advocate of basic income and co-author (with Howard Reed) of ‘Financing the Social State’ (pdf), which recommends the implementation of basic income in the U.K. This policy paper was published in 2013 by the Centre for Labour and Social Studies.
Corbyn hasn’t published his detailed economic plan other than providing a brief outline. Despite this, The Daily Mail, The Times, to cite a few, have already termed it the derisory ‘Corbynomics’.
Will basic income be included in ‘Corbynomics’ (which I am using the term without ridiculing tone)? Will Corbyn win the Labour Party leader contest? We will know by the autumn. The party’s internal vote will begin Friday 14 August and close on Thursday 10 September, with the results being announced on Saturday 12 September.
Credit Picture: CC Chris Beckett
*Minor editing for a link and for responding one of comments below on 10th August
by Vito Laterza | Jul 29, 2015 | Opinion, Research
Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution, by James Ferguson (Duke University Press Books, 2015).
James Ferguson’s latest book focuses on the rise of social welfare programs in southern Africa, in the form of grants to low income and vulnerable groups, primarily the elderly, women and their children, and the disabled. Post-apartheid South Africa has led the way. It has an extensive system which administers grants to 30 percent of the population. Other countries like Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Mozambique have also implemented nationwide programs, while pilot programs are being tried elsewhere in the region.
Ferguson’s goal is not to provide an extensive ethnographic treatment of these developments, but rather to analyze their implications and the field of political possibilities they might open up. Half comparative ethnography, half political pamphlet, Ferguson’s impressive narrative is a tour de force questioning, deconstructing and reconstructing classic and contemporary notions of poverty, development and the welfare state in the region and beyond. Through a focus on direct cash transfers, the author brings together the anthropology of southern Africa, with the latest debates in development practice and anti-poverty activism.
Written in a highly readable style, the book is structured around a series of self-contained chapters, originally given as the Lewis Henry Morgan lectures in 2009 at the University of Rochester. One can easily read the chapters independently or as part of a larger whole.
Ferguson’s starting point is the contradiction between dominant narratives on the relentless expansion of the neoliberal state, and the substantial extension of state social provisions through grants. The modest size of these social payments sets them apart from more comprehensive welfare measures in Nordic countries, yet the author believes that this phenomenon marks the rise of what can be legitimately called “welfare states” in southern Africa. While their impact might be limited in the present form, the systems in place lay the foundations for more radical possibilities.
Breaking away from conventional welfare and poverty interventions, grants are not delivered with the final goal of reproducing a healthy and productive workforce in the cities, or creating a class of productive farmers in the rural areas. The eligibility criteria are simple – mostly age for pensions and child care grants – and do not include conditions like searching for employment or investing in productive activities.
This hints at economic structures that affect the vast majority of southern Africans: the rural areas are witnessing a constant decline in agricultural production, while the formal sector in urban areas, even when experiencing high growth, simply fails to absorb most people who are in need of employment. Far from being a temporary situation that can be rectified through economic policies, this is a chronic feature of contemporary capitalism in southern Africa and increasingly in other parts of the world, including Northern economies like the US and Europe.
The author points out that production remains the dominant paradigm in economic anthropology, development discourse and practice, and radical left thinking. He calls for a radical shift away from “productionist” tenets towards distribution. His wide-ranging critique builds on a re-elaboration of key themes in classic and contemporary southern African ethnography, from kinship-based reciprocity across the rural-urban spectrum to a mix of moral and economic concerns at play in sex, love and intimacy in times of precarious livelihoods.
The “distributive political economy” mapped by Ferguson is characterized by a myriad of acts of wealth distribution, entangled in multiple and complex relations of dependence influenced by configurations of gender, kinship, labor, community, ethnicity, society and the state. Rather than producing more wealth, this “distributive labor” is primarily directed at dividing sources of wealth into “smaller and smaller slivers as they work their way across social relations of kinship, clientage, allegiance, and solidarity” (p.97). It is this kind of activity that sustains and reproduces society, more than engagement in production as defined by macro-economic frameworks centered on the labor of able-bodied men in the formal sector and the reproductive work of women as wives and mothers. One powerful example of this reversal in South Africa is the shift from dependence of women, children and rural relatives on remittances from men working in the mines in the heyday of the apartheid economy, to the central distributive role played today by women and elderly people. The latter are the main beneficiaries of state grants, and disenfranchised men at the margin of the productive economy have increasingly come to rely on them.
Establishing and maintaining dependence on others who have access to wealth becomes a full-time job for those who are excluded from the benefits of middle class life. Dependence, in Ferguson’s treatment, has more to do with sharing than either gift or market exchange. Sharing and dependence cannot be easily subsumed under the conventional opposition between equality and inequality. These relations hint at a “new politics of distribution” beyond these two poles.
Within this framework, Ferguson convincingly reinterprets varied political movements calling for redistribution in the region, from the populist socialism of new radical movements in South Africa to the region-wide basic income grant campaign, and debates around land reform and resource nationalism. Calls for redistribution go beyond narrow views of African patrimonialism. People demand what Ferguson labels their “rightful share” in wealth that is owned collectively. Legitimate participation in this process can be framed along citizenship lines at the state level, but there are other levels of belonging too when local communities and traditional leaders are involved. These claims are not exercised from a position of inferiority or supplication. People own collectively all the resources of their community of belonging, hence they have a claim to a share of the wealth produced from these resources.
By inserting the normative and political dimensions of these movements into a long history of local idioms and practices, Ferguson provides a different angle on activist discussions around radical measures like the basic income grant (BIG). BIG is argued from a variety of perspectives, ranging from radical Marxism to left-leaning libertarianism and technocratic social democracy. The distinctive feature of a basic income is that it should not be tied to any condition and everybody should be entitled to it. The ideal world imagined by BIG activists is one where all human beings receive a basic income that would afford them a decent livelihood, with no compulsion to work for a wage or generate income through other activities. This is a radical break from existing welfare measures that tie unemployment benefits to the reintegration of beneficiaries in the labor market. In line with other activist scholars, Ferguson notes that these emerging state systems of cash distribution provide an essential infrastructure for the possible establishment of BIG. At the same time, his anthropological analysis develops moral and political arguments in favor of BIG that are grounded in local discourses and aspirations, a dimension often missed by global activist groups and regional campaigners.
Ferguson joins a growing number of anthropologists who subvert the conventional boundaries between analysis and engagement. With his creative and flexible analysis, he provokes thinking for action beyond narrow ideological boundaries. One could imagine enthusiastic endorsements of his work by Marxist campaigners, World Bank technocrats and traditional leaders alike. This highly original book is likely to leave a lasting mark not only on contemporary anthropological debates around poverty and development, but also policy and activist thinking in southern Africa and beyond.
This review was originally published in Anthropology Book Forum.
by Jenna van Draanen | Jul 20, 2015 | News
New research referenced in a Wall Street Journal article shows just how much the world of routine work has collapsed, citing that over the course of the last two recessions and recoveries (since 2001), the economy’s job growth has come entirely from non-routine work. This comes at a time when an increasing number of scholars, politicians, and citizens are talking about basic income as a solution to what some see as an inevitable job loss from technological advancement. Sources note that we no longer need to all humans to work, as we once did, for everyone to live comfortably and that we need to adjust our expectations and values accordingly.
For more information on technological job loss and basic income, see:
Josh Zumbrun, “Is Your Job ‘Routine’? If so, It’s Probably Disappearing” Wall Street Journal. April 8, 2015
Matt & Mike, “Episode 153 – Basic Benjamins” Robot Overlordz. March 5, 2015.
Scott Santens, “Yes, it really is different this time and humans need not apply” scottsantens.com, January 15, 2015.
Alan Watts, “Money, Guilt, and the Machine” via ScottSantens.com.No date.
by Liam Upton | Jul 9, 2015 | Research
Abstract: Thomas Piketty’s recent book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” provides a great deal of empirical support for the observation that the rate of return on capital (r) is greater than the growth rate of the economy as a whole (g); i.e. “r > g”. From this observation, Piketty derives two important insights: entrepreneurs eventually become rentiers, and except during unusual circumstances, inequality tends to rise over time. This paper views Piketty’s observation against the institutional setting that has prevailed over the period of his study and makes two additional observations. First, whether Piketty’s two insights follow from his observation depends not simply on whether r is greater than g, but on whether the difference between the two is greater than the consumption of the capital-owning group. The relative size of capitalists’ consumption and capital income is not obvious, and therefore, more evidence is needed to confirm the connection between Piketty’s observation and his insights. Second, the statement r has been greater than g is more accurate than simply r is greater than g. Whether r continues to exceed g depends crucially on the political and institutional environment in question. Economists tend to view one specific institutional setting, a version of laissez faire, as natural. But there is no natural set of property institutions, and those that have prevailed over the two centuries of Piketty’s observations are extremely favorable to capital owners. Awareness of the flexibility of potential property institutions raises many ethical questions and makes many tools available to address inequality—one of the most obvious being the taxation of rent on capital distributed as a basic income.
Karl Widerquist, “The Piketty Observation Against the Institutional Background: How natural is this natural tendency and what can we do about it?“, Basic Income Studies, 2015
