by Kate McFarland | Mar 6, 2017 | News
The distinguished economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics, spoke about basic income during an interview on the Indian television channel New Delhi Television (NDTV).
Asked whether India should consider a universal basic income (UBI) as discussed in the country’s recently released 2017 Economic Survey (see chapter 9), Sen replied with several criticisms of the idea. First, he rejected Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian’s invocation of Mahatma Gandhi in the Economic Survey chapter on UBI, calling for more “humility” in interpreting Gandhi. Sen proceeded to argue that UBI is not the best way to address poverty in India, where funding for health care, education, and other public services is deficient. He claimed that it is not enough to “give people cash and go away” and that it would be an “abdication of responsibility” if the government were to provide people with money rather than providing better public services.
However, Sen went on to claim the there would be a case for basic income if India had “reached the level of prosperity that Europe has.” If that were so, he said, “I think basic income would be a good thing to have,” then adding, “I don’t think we are there at all.”
Watch the clip
The NDTV interview honored the launch of Sen’s book Collective Choice and Social Welfare: Expanded Edition.
Post reviewed by Russell Ingram
Photo: Amartya Sen, CC BY-NC 2.0 FPA S.r.l
by Genevieve Shanahan | Feb 13, 2017 | News
The Economist has published a short article focused on the basic income chapter of India’s recent Economic Survey (covered in Basic Income News here).
The article expresses the opinion that the case for basic income is premature in rich countries (assuming automation and associated job loss is the main case for such a scheme in these states). However, it argues, the case is more compelling in India given its “thicket of welfare payments” that are plagued by inefficiencies and corruption:
“Giving people cash would be far better than today’s system of handing out welfare in kind. The plethora of schemes in place for Indians to claim subsidised food, fuel, gas, electricity and so on are inefficient and corrupt. Beneficiaries are at the mercy of venal officials who can lean on them to accept less than they are entitled to. Payments in kind rest on the paternalistic assumption that poor Indians are incapable of making rational spending decisions.”
While exploring potential issues to do with the political palatability of including wealthier people in the programme and ensuring the payments reach low-income rural areas with limited access to banking facilities, the article concludes: “as a way of helping the world’s poorest people, the case for a UBI is strong.”
The Economist, “Bonfire of the subsidies: India debates the case for a universal basic income”, The Economist, February 2, 2017.
Reviewed by Dawn Howard
Photo: People queue outside a bank, Salt Lake City, Kolkata. CC BY 3.0 Biswarup Ganguly
by Genevieve Shanahan | Feb 8, 2017 | News
In the run-up to the Goa Assembly Elections that took place on 4 February, the Goenchi Mati Movement (GMM), which advocates for mining reform to fund a citizen’s dividend, gained the support of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Goa Su-Raj Party (GSRP). Its work was also endorsed by British MP John McDonnell on a recent visit.
As previously outlined on Basic Income News, the GMM advocates mining practice reforms in Goa, India, based on the principles of environmental custodianship and intergenerational equality. An aspect of its proposal involves the investment of mining revenues into a permanent fund, to be used to finance a citizen’s dividend – a type of basic income.
The GMM asked politicians and parties contesting the Goa Assembly Elections of 4 February to endorse their manifesto, which is here available in both text and audio, in multiple languages. It also implored voters to only support those who have adopted the manifesto’s aims, as listed on their Election Tracker. The results of this election will be announced in March.
In a press release, Claude Alvares of the GMM and director of the related Goa Foundation said:
“It is a significant step that two political parties in the fray in the February 4 election have written to the GMM accepting the Goenchi Mati proposals for mining. This is a sea change in the way politicians are now seeing mineral resources, that they do not belong to mining lease-holders or the government, but to the people of the state, poor and rich. It’s about time law and political activity reflects this basic constitutional promise.”
The AAP has been making waves in recent years for its anti-corruption principles and actions. With a name that translates as “the Common Man Party”, it enjoyed a surprise victory in Delhi (of which its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, is now chief minister). The GSRP, whose name is translated as “the Goa good governance party”, also focuses on corruption issues at a regional level.
John McDonnell with Rahul Basu and Claude Alvares of the GMM. Credit: goenchimati.org
Indicating that support for the GMM is not limited to India, John McDonnell, Labour MP and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK, met with the main designers of the GMM on a visit to Goa over Christmas.
McDonnell’s visit was prompted by the Goans in his constituency of Hayes and Harlington, who requested that he consider the GMM’s proposal. Among those he met were Alvares and Rahul Basu, director of the Goa Foundation research cell specifically dealing with intergenerational equity issues.
The GMM reports that McDonnell expressed his interest in exploring the potential for a similar proposal in the UK. Quoting McDonnell:
“I wholeheartedly compliment the GM campaign for the originality of its proposals. I am studying with my team of expert advisers the potential for their implementation in the UK in the near future as well. The innovative and creative approach by the GM campaign to addressing the increasingly pressing issue of intergenerational equity is truly inspiring.”
Basu has previously written for the Citizen’s Income Trust about the lessons the UK might learn from the GMM. In that article, Basu outlines the general principles of a citizen’s dividend derived from natural resource revenues:
“states should a) ensure that they receive the full value of the minerals being extracted, b) set up a Permanent Fund in which all mineral receipts can be deposited, for the benefit of future generations, and c) as this fund belongs to the people, the real income (after inflation) generated by the fund should be distributed equally to every citizen as a commons dividend, a Citizen’s Dividend. This is like a Basic Income, or a Citizen’s Income, except that the funding source is income from the commons, and the amount can vary from year to year.”
Other actions GMM have been involved in recently include a Change.org petition and a song which, according to the GMM website, “relates to the aspiration of millions of Goans worldwide, that of saving the land that is so dear to our hearts. It gives traction to the thought of saving our land, and to discuss the real and secure future of Goa for our children.”
Read More:
The Goenchi Mati Manifesto
The Goenchi Mati Movement Election Tracker
Change.org petition
Roxanne Coutinho, “PRESS RELEASE: Goenchi Mati Movement announces support from GSRP & AAP”, The Goenchi Mati Movement, 18 January, 2017.
Kate McFarland, “GOA, INDIA: Mining reform group releases Manifesto, calls for citizen’s dividend”, Basic Income News, 24 November, 2016.
Kate McFarland, “GOA, INDIA: Citizen’s Dividend promoters find support in Archbishop’s address”, Basic Income News, 10 January, 2017.
Prakash Kamat, “Environment high on Goan agenda”, The Hindu, 21 January, 2017.
Roxanne Coutinho, “PRESS RELEASE: British MP and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer meets Goenchi Mati Movement (Goa)”, The Goenchi Mati Movement, 13 January, 2017.
Rahul Basu and Deepak Narayanan, “Viewpoint: What can we learn from a campaign for zero-loss mining in Goa?” Citizen’s Income Trust, 3 August, 2016.
Reviewed by Cameron McLeod
Photo: Goa, India, CC 2.0 by @SunishSebastian
by Kate McFarland | Feb 4, 2017 | News
The Government of India has released its 2016-17 Economic Survey, with its eagerly awaited chapter on UBI. The discussion is largely favorable, declaring it time for “serious deliberation” about a UBI for India.
Each year, the Ministry of Finance of the Government of India releases a document called the Economic Survey, which reviews and analyzes developments in the nation’s economy. The Economic Survey is made publicly available (its official website promotes it to “policymakers, economists, policy analysts, business practitioners, government agencies, students, researchers, the media, and all those interested in the development in the Indian economy”), and is presented to the Indian Parliament during its budget session.
Arvind Subramanian CC BY-SA 2.0 PopTech
Last September, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian announced that the 2016-17 Economic Survey would contain a chapter on universal basic income (UBI), making the document hotly anticipated among UBI supporters and others following the movement. (Sensationalized reporting led some early reports to claim, mistakenly, that India was about to launch UBI.)
The 2016-17 Economic Survey, with its 40-page chapter “Universal Basic Income: A Conversation With and Within the Mahatma,” was officially released on January 31, 2017.
Its discussion on UBI is framed around the question of whether Mahatma Gandhi would have endorsed UBI, a question that Subramanian anticipated in comments to an inter-faith prayer meeting last fall. (The main conclusion, presented on the first page, is that he would have been conflicted; a bit more is said in the final section, but I shan’t spoil the ending.)
The tone of the chapter is highly sympathetic to UBI, and the Ministry of Finance calls UBI a “powerful idea whose time even if not ripe for implementation is ripe for serious discussion.”
BIEN co-founder Guy Standing, who conducted basic income pilot studies in India earlier in the decade, was among those who provided input to Indian government for the survey. Standing states,
This is the first major government that has come out with an official favourable report on basic income, and has shown that it is feasible. It recognises the political obstacles and the challenges of rolling it out. We are delighted that the team writing the chapter in the Economic Report have drawn on our basic income pilots in Madhya Pradesh, which are still the biggest such pilots to have been conducted, as shown in our recent book.
In India, UBI has become popular largely as a potential solution to the misallocation, leakages, and corruption in the country’s extensive and complex system of targeted in-kind benefits to the poor. The Economic Survey describes these problems in presenting the argument for UBI in India. In addition, it considers the potential for UBI to promote individual agency. Paid to individuals instead of households, it could be particularly effective in empowering women.
The authors also cite empirical studies to assuage worries that UBI would discourage work or promote the consumption of temptation goods like tobacco, alcohol, and paan.
While the discussion of UBI is largely favorable, the authors acknowledge practical difficulties in implementing the scheme nationwide, including fiscal constraints and resistance to eliminating current programs (most of which, according to the survey, must be eliminated if UBI is to be financially feasible). Additionally, the survey notes that there may be popular resistance to full universality — especially the transferring of money those already well-off. To address the latter issue, it suggests abandoning true universality (“excluding the non-deserving” from receiving the benefit), and proposes several mechanisms to discourage the well-off from accepting UBI payments.
Due to these and other practical difficulties, the chapter favors the introduction of UBI in a gradual manner. It presents three possible starting points: (1) offer an unconditional basic income as an optional alternative to recipients of existing subsidies (with the caveat that this approach would not remedy problems in targeting the poor or allocating money to districts commensurate with need); (2) provide a “UBI for women”; (3) provide a basic income that is “universal” only within certain vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, widows, mothers, or those with disabilities or illnesses.
In all cases, the authors note, effective implementation of the scheme would be hampered by the fact that many poor citizens do not have bank accounts or ready access to banks. Thus, a prerequisite is the full implementation of the Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile (JAM) scheme, which would provide all Indians with a bank account and the ability to receive funds electronically, through a mobile phone.
Read the full chapter here.
Plus a Bonus in Chapter 13…
In addition to including a dedicated chapter on UBI, the Economic Survey broached the idea of a sovereign wealth fund and citizen’s dividend, a type of UBI, in a later chapter titled “The ‘Other Indias’: Two Analytical Narratives (Redistributive and Natural Resources) on States’ Development”.
Goan mines, CC BY 2.0 Abhisek Sarda
The chapter refers to the Goa Iron Ore Permanent Fund, which was created by a Supreme Court order in 2012. The state of Goa, which is rich in mineral deposits, has been plagued with corrupt and controversial mining practices. Under the 2012 court order, a portion of the money received from sales of iron ore must be placed into a permanent fund to preserve for future generations. The Goenchi Mati Movement, whose member Rahul Basu provided input to the Economic Survey, demands an expansion of the fund and the distribution of its revenue in equal cash payments to all Goans.
The Economic Survey states:
One way to increase citizens’ participation is via creation of a dedicated Fund to which all mining revenue must accrue. The assumption here is that minerals are part of the commons, owned by the state as trustee for the people – including future generations. Therefore, the revenue from the natural resources should be saved in a non-wasting asset – in a Permanent Fund. The real income accrued by the Fund can be redistributed to citizens affected by and having a stake in the extraction of the resource.
Basu remarked, “We are happy that the Government of India is also considering implementing the core principles of the Goenchi Mati Movement. We hope the people and the politicians of Goa also keep the use of our natural resources and land at the core of their voting choices for the assembly elections [on February 4, 2017].”
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
by BIEN | Jan 30, 2017 | News
(Credit to: The Freepress Journal)
Anjit Ranade, senior economist based in Mumbai, writes in The Free Press Journal that a direct universal cash benefit “can replace ill-targeted subsidies on cooking gas, fertiliser and food grain,” under India’s current welfare system.
4.2% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is spent on subsidies: electricity, fertilizer, food, oil, rail, and water. Many of the subsidies do not make their way to the purported beneficiaries because they are untargeted. Ranade reports, targeted subsidies can use the subsidies better.
Vijay Roshi, Reader in Economics at Oxford University, is an early supporter of UBI for India. With all considered, Roshi sees UBI as a possibility with 3.5% of India’s GDP. Ranada said, “UBI is based on a Gandhian principle: societal welfare is determined by how we treat our worst off.”
Read the full article here:
Ajit Ranade, “From NREGA to universal basic income“, The Free Press Journal, December 12th, 2016
