by Timothy Roscoe Carter | Sep 22, 2015 | Opinion
[The following is an excerpt from a book in progress, The Poverty Abolitionist’s Handbook.]
Q: But who will clean the toilets? If everyone has an income sufficient to meet their basic needs, even if the vast majority of people want to do some productive work, what incentive will there be for anyone to do all the dirty and dangerous jobs that need to be done for society to function?
A: That is an evil and aristocratic question. How will we find cheap labor to do the nasty jobs we want done, but don’t want to do ourselves, if we don’t starve some unimportant people who refuse to do them for us? This question is the labor equivalent of the question a Democratic California State Senator in the 1970s asked a group of feminists who were petitioning for the removal of the marital rape exemption: “But if you can’t rape your wife, who can you rape?” Or the plantation owners at the end of the Civil War who demanded to know who was going to pick their cotton.
You want to know where the incentive to do dirty jobs will come from? How about the free market? If you offered enough money you could probably get Warren Buffet to clean your toilet. You want your toilet cleaned? You do not want to do it yourself? Then just pay someone else who is not afraid of starving whatever it will cause them to clean it for you. You don’t have enough money? So sad. You probably do not have enough money to buy your own private jet, do you? That’s life. Though, you can look at the private jet rental cost instead in the meantime, so it isn’t all bad, right?
Note: This answer is a rant, but the question deserves it. Admittedly the *questioner* probably does not deserve the rant. There was a time only a half-century ago when the idea of prosecuting a man for raping his own wife seemed absurd. It seemed absurd to a man raised to believe it was his wife’s duty to cook, clean, and to give sex to her husband, and he did not think about the unfairness to the wife any more than most of us think about the unfairness to the chickens we eat. If you had a visceral defensive reaction to the idea that there is something unfair about eating chickens, then you can at least have some sympathy for the man who thinks it is his right to rape his wife. If you object that there is a huge degree of difference between the unfairness of eating chickens and the unfairness of raping wives, well, I would agree with you. (Full disclosure: I eat chickens.) Of course, the person who wants to force others to clean his toilet cheaply or starve would also see a huge difference between that and rape. And note that prosecuting men for raping their wives also seemed absurd to a lot of women who believed they were being good wives by submitting to their husbands, and saw – probably unconsciously – removal of the marital rape exemption as an attack on an identity that they based their self-worth on. And many people asking who will clean the toilets will actually be people who have themselves worked demeaning jobs at exploitative wages to provide food for their families and take pride that they did what they had to do to survive. Such people may see a basic income as an attack on their self-worth and personal identity in a manner similar to the good wife who finds it absurd to prosecute a man for “raping” his wife. So calling out such questions as evil probably does real harm to people who do not really deserve it. But to treat such questions as reasonable does the harm of conveying the idea that they are in fact reasonable questions. The only way to teach the wider public, and most importantly rising generations, that it is contemptible to ask who will pick your cotton if not slaves, or who a man can rape if not his wife, or who will clean the toilets if not people who would otherwise starve, is to treat the question with the contempt it deserves. If you absolutely must answer the “But who will clean the toilets?” question in a diplomatic way, you can substitute the answer to the next question about the effect of a basic income on wages. I still do not recommend it, because I believe it to be more important to call out the assumption that it is acceptable to force some people to do dirty jobs for others cheaply under threat of starvation.
Q: What would be the effect of a basic income on wages?
A: Overall there would likely be a moderate upward pressure on wages and possibly a slight leveling effect. The “permanent strike fund” aspect of a basic income would give most workers more bargaining power and cause wages in general to rise modestly. The wages of workers doing unpleasant and unskilled work would likely rise dramatically as no one will be forced into doing those jobs. The wages of skilled professionals such as doctors, accountants, plumbers, and electricians would likely fall as more people could take the time necessary to qualify for those positions. If the basic income was at a level sufficient to abolish poverty, the wages for pleasant unskilled work might fall, as it might be reasonable to rethink the need for a minimum wage. The leveling effect of a basic income is unlikely to reach a point where it will make financial sense for a law firm to require attorneys to take turns cleaning the office bathrooms, because then fewer people would likely become attorneys. But if it does, so be it. This makes it even more difficult when looking towards retirement, with many looking to work straight into retirement to help themselves financially. Others find that they are looking towards their equity for any help with retirement finances with some using something like this equity release calculator to find out how much they have and will be able to live on during their retirement.
Q: How will a basic income affect economic growth?
A: There will likely be overall positive economic growth resulting from a basic income, as it would end up as a net transfer of money from people who either hoard or invest most of their wealth to people who spend most of their wealth. Hoarding wealth is always bad for the economy, while investing wealth is a gamble that could grow the economy if there is demand for the investment, or squander wealth if there is not. If people have a guaranteed monthly income then they will be more likely to invest in local businesses, look at motley fool reviews and invest in the market, and put the money back into the economy. Spending money manifests demand, and so always helps the economy. Of course, the basic income does have to paid for, and so the economic effects of whatever tax scheme is proposed to pay for must be taken into account. Taxes on both income and consumption discourage economic activity and could counter the increased demand generated by the basic income. However, taxes on land, natural resources, and wealth capture rent, discourage hoarding, and encourage economic activity by forcing those who hold wealth to either use it or lose it.
Note: Philippe Van Parijs, one of the top living figures in the basic income movement, says that when we are asked this question, we should not answer it. There has been no way to empirically test the general question, there have been apparently contradictory results from empirical studies of the effects of a basic income on labor force participation, and economic growth is not the main point of a basic income. Even if it were good for overall economic growth to force 5% of the population to starve, this is not a world we want to live in. However, I believe that reasonable speculation can provide us with a plausible, positive, and useful answer, so I have provided one. But remember, you take my advice over his at your own risk.
Q: Isn’t the claim of technological unemployment just the Ludite fallacy?
A: Well, it is until it isn’t. It is not hard to imagine a society where the vast majority of jobs can be done more efficiently by machines, and the the few jobs that require humans are made so efficient by machines that only a minutely small number of humans are needed to do them. Eventually, this seems inevitable. The only question is whether it will come 20 years from now or 200 years from now. Evidence that it is coming sooner rather than later can be seen in the breakdown of the arguments against technological unemployment. Traditionally, economists have said technology creates more jobs than it eliminates via two primary mechanisms. First, jobs move from one sector to another. Second, higher skilled jobs are created to oversee the machines. So, a thousand years ago, most people worked in agriculture growing food. As technology made it possible for a few people to produce enough food for the many, people moved to factories. By 150 years ago, most people were working in manufacturing making goods. As manufacturing became more efficient, people moved into the service industry. But now, we are running out of sectors. And the jobs currently being threatened by technology include not just low-end work like cashiers and laborers, but highly educated work like accountants and pilots. The rate at which technology eliminates jobs may have already surpassed the rate at which it creates jobs.
Q: Are there other ways to deal with technological unemployment besides a basic income?
A: Yes. There are six.
1. We could allow massive numbers of people to starve.
2. We could guarantee jobs that do nothing useful for society and just waste the time of the employee, such as digging holes and filling them back up again.
3. We could institute a 15-hour work week and a $25-per-hour minimum wage.
4. We could start banning new technologies.
5. We could force everyone to become a cyborg. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
6. We could give everyone computers and robots to rent out, making everyone a capitalist. Of course, their machines would need to be constantly upgraded to prevent obsolescence, some people would make bad choices, and some people would have their business go under through no fault of their own. Which means we would then need to accept mass starvation or strictly regulate how people run their robot rental rental businesses or give people new machines on a regular, periodic schedule.
Or we could just give everyone a basic income.
Q: Isn’t this just communism?
A: Actually, Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek, two of the three most important libertarian economists in history, supported a basic income. Meanwhile, the most famous person to declare that those who don’t work don’t eat was Vladimir Lenin. So in this discussion, I am the one supporting the policies of Milton Friedman, and you are the one supporting the policies of Vladimir Lenin. But please, go back to calling me a communist.
Note: This answer is snark, but the question is not serious. The serious answer is that forms of a basic income guarantee are compatible with both capitalism and socialism/communism, and that fact helps to demonstrate that “capitalism ” and “socialism” are both incoherent terms. But over usually when you hear this question, it is not a serious inquiry but an ad hominin attack. The point of the answer is simply to injure the attacker’s credibility with onlookers by demonstrating that they simply do not know what they are talking about. Bonus points if they have to ask you who Hayek, Friedman, or Lenin is.
Q: Why should working middle class people support a basic income?
A: The first reason is money. Due to extreme rates of income and especially wealth inequality that exist today, under nearly all proposed tax schemes to pay for a basic income, the vast majority of working middle class people will be net beneficiaries. But even if you are near the break even point in the upper middle class, you should support a basic income for the same reason that healthy people should support universal health insurance: You are not invulnerable. You could lose your income and all the wealth you have spent years building up through your own bad decisions, the bad decisions of the C.E.O. of the company you work for, the bad decisions of a politician, a natural disaster, an economic recession, or getting hit by truck and left with back pain that leaves you in bed five hours a day but is invisible to a disability judge. And even if disaster never strikes you, the knowledge that it could strike you constrains your freedom. When you plan for the care of an aging parent, you know how precarious your finances are. When you dream of starting your own business, you know how precarious your finances are. When you consider taking time off for a vacation or to go back to school or to finish an art project, you know how precarious your finances are. When you ask your boss for a raise, *he* knows how precarious your finances are. Now imagine making all of those choices if you knew you had a basic income.
by Guest Contributor | Sep 6, 2015 | Opinion
By Karen Christine Patrick
One thing learned in the caregiver realm is the range and types of disabilities and illnesses that require somebody to help, or preclude people from what is considered “normal” activities. Assessments for the levels of disability are very extensive, and most certainly go through daily activities that can be done by the person or where they need some help.
The picture in the mind that comes with the word “disability” is somebody with something visible. One of the things that happened that often made me cringe when going out socially with my daughter in her wheelchair is that some well-meaning, curious person would ask, “What’s WRONG with her?” I would say, “Nothing is WRONG with her, but she was born with a condition (etc.) and maybe share a few things, but that is the motif in many people’s minds that they see someone using things like these heavy-duty wheelchairs, cane, walker, something like that and something is WRONG. Which could result in helpful behavior, well-meaning, getting help with doors, or people making some space in the front for us. And my daughter’s condition was visible. Once I got frustrated with one the agencies I had to deal with not realizing she was an actual person, not a theoretical one, and took her out for a day out of school to bring her to said office, make them have to make space in the office for her in her wheelchair as “Exhibit A” … I really hated having to do that but I was at my wit’s end with the “deciders” in that office and this did get results.
I myself became disabled, but mine came on gradually and fit into the category of “Invisible Disabilities” and I became aware of an organization for people who “don’t look sick” as one writer put it. People in this category of disability often experience it that it’s much harder to get help or services because there is nothing to “show for it” as what happened in my Exhibit A story. Certainly, people with mental illness, don’t necessarily have physical traits to show for it. If you encounter someone with a hearing disability, you may not realize it until you notice their hearing aids. Furthermore, you might not recognize the difficulties that they face and the increased costs they have to incur when changing the batteries (if you’re interested in better alternatives, check out https://www.earpros.com/uk/hearing-aids/hearing-aid-batteries here), as well as how they lead their lives on daily basis. For cancer patients, until they are going through the visible effects of treatment, many other disorders and diseases do not “show”. There are so many people who have disorders or conditions that have no visible signs, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore or minimize their suffering. So many people struggle with disorders and conditions that may not have any physical signs, but it still doesn’t mean that we can question them about it or disregard their illness. Some of these invisible disabilities, such as mental health issues, can really affect an individual’s life. In fact, some of them even have to visit PureHempFarms online to purchase some hemp to help them manage their mental illness, so it’s important that they receive the support that they need.
Where the Basic Income Guarantee comes in is to not put people in that agonizing position of having to “prove” they are sick enough for help. They can work through their disability issues or recovery issues with dignity, having a basic way to live and not have that worry added onto the stress of what is already going on with their health. Some people have intermittent visitations of their conditions, not knowing when they are going to have debilitating bouts. Again, not fully disabling all the time, but enough during the bad times to preclude working full-time.
There is much talk in the B.I.G. advocacy community of robotics replacing jobs and that a basic income is to be the logical response to technological unemployment. To this I heartily agree because most employers have looked to their workers as “human resources” which seems an impersonal term that implies that some how people are “units” that don’t break down. Our bodies are not robotic, they can break down. Our minds, especially in this precarious age, also can suffer injury just from the stress of uncertainty as we are in times that are a changin’.
We can affect a dignified change, we can acknowledge the humanity in our changes by choosing the Basic Income Guarantee to bridge the gap between living and work as we knew it.
For more about the Invisible Disabilities Association go to invisibledisabilities.org.
For more from Karen Christine Patrick, visit her blog.
by Josh Martin | Sep 4, 2015 | News
Santens article eloquently discusses a recent report by David Autor of MIT on the history and future of work, highlighting realities that may not be common knowledge. For instance, low-income jobs have consistently grown throughout the past forty years, but there has been an erosion of middle-class, manufacturing jobs and a slowing of high-skilled, high-paying jobs. When academics claim technology creates jobs as much as it eliminates them, they often ignore the fact that these jobs often are low-quality work that leaves people worse off. Further, Santens cites the Oxford study that found that 47% of jobs are at high risk of automation in the next two decades. Those low-income jobs may shrivel up as well. Considering all of this information, Santens implores policy-makers to consider a basic income as a means to combat the future of technological unemployment.
Scott Santens, “Everything You Think You Know About The History and Future of Jobs Is Likely Wrong” 19 August 2015.
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 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.
