BIG has been recommended in a TED talk by MIT’s Andrew McAfee, who cites arguments similar to ones presented at earlier NABIG Congresses. “The New Machine Age” brings on the possibility of a very good or very bad future. He only mentions BIG 9:55 seconds into the talk but it is well set up.
It’s online at:
https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_mcafee_what_will_future_jobs_look_like.html
In 2011, the United Nations (UN), fronted by Michelle Bachelet, head of UN Women, launched the Social Protection Floor [SPF] initiative (1). This initiative aims to support the development of social protection worldwide. Arguably, this development represents an opportunity for more experimentation with basic income and possibly fully-fledged basic income programmes.
National SPFs aim to extend social security vertically (providing more comprehensive services and benefits) and horizontally (extending coverage to a greater number) to cover all groups. In particular, SPFs can assist the extension of coverage to the unprotected, the poor and the most vulnerable, including workers in the informal economy and their families. Countries should define their floors according to national needs and priorities and progressively build their floors in the most advanced yet achievable manner. The UN states that SPFs should comprise at least the following social security guarantees:
The UN’s use of ‘basic income security’ should not be understood in the same way as the Basic Income Earth Networks use of “basic Income.” Basic income security literally means a set of minimum income guarantee that could or could not be arranged as an unconditional, universal payment. These guarantees can be fulfilled in different ways through social insurance, social assistance or effective minimum wage or labour market measures.
In spite of a possible divergence with BIEN’s conception of a basic income, it is likely that these policies would represent a significant step toward basic income by legitimising the idea of basic income security as an essential ingredient for human development. Arguably, these would create a social policy culture more conducive or receptive to BIEN-type notions of basic income. In fact, many of the income security programmes championed by the SPF are those often touted by the BIEN community as precursors to fully-fledged basic incomes, such as the Bolsa Familia in Brazil. Clearly, there is some convergence.
In June 2012, this initiative was bolstered further when the International Labour Conference of the International Labour Organization voted on an historic Recommendation for a SPF, which supports the extension of social protection coverage and the progressive building of national social security systems. The adoption of this new international labour standard, the Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection (No. 202) (3), marks a major milestone for social security, as it reaffirms the human right to social security and renews national commitments to extend coverage.
The current momentum gathering behind the SPF and the actual proliferation and strengthening of existing SPFs throughout middle- and low-income countries already provides the basic income with an entry point as well legitimising basic income discourse in general. In fact many social pensions and family benefits (as advanced by the SPF) are essentially a basic income for the elderly and for children. Moreover, they have proven their impressive positive economic and social impacts (4) However, extending a rights-based discourse to basic income (in the BIEN sense of the world) still remains plagued by an array of difficulties where active population (i.e. the working population) groups are concerned. In other words, the SPF has a more ‘workfare’ view of income guarantees for the working poor, and that this group should not get unconditional income guarantees. Rather they should have to participate in some kind of public works’ programme.
Perhaps even more interesting still, is the emergence of a new hot topic within development discourse of the SPF: the idea of a specific ‘global fund’ to finance SPFs globally (5). If new financing sources do become available this may open up new financing sources for basic income-type programmes to be introduced for specific population groups. Thus, all those interested in the basic income would be well advised to keep an eye on the emergence of a global fund.
Naturally, many have well founded reservations about a yet another vertical fund earmarked for a specific use. It may add to an already confounded and highly fragmented international development assistance architecture, and result in top down prescriptions of how countries should develop their SPFs. Nonetheless, in spite of these concerns there is a discernable groundswell of political support for the idea of global fund for SPFs. It is perhaps conceivable that the idea of basic income will find ripe opportunities here. Watch this space.
For more information on this issues see:
1. ILO. 2011. The Bachelet report: Social Protection Floor for a fair globalization, Report of the Advisory Group chaired by Michelle Bachelet Convened by the ILO with the collaboration of the WHO (Geneva).
www.ilo.org/global/publications/ilo-bookstore/order-online/books/WCMS_165750/lang–en/index.htm
2. Ian Orton. 2012. The ILO Recommendation on Social Protection Floors: A milestone in the extension of social security coverage. ISSA, Geneva.
www.issa.int/News-Events/News2/The-ILO-Recommendation-on-Social-Protection-Floors-A-milestone-in-the-extension-of-social-security-coverage
3. ILO. 2012. Social security for all: The ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation (Briefing note). Geneva, International Labour Office.
www.social-protection.org/gimi/gess/RessFileDownload.do?ressourceId=31089
4. Ian Orton. June 2010. Reasons to be cheerful: How ILO analysis of social transfers worldwide augurs well for a basic income (with some caveats). Submitted for the 13th International Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network, Sao Paulo, Brazil, basic income as an instrument for justice and peace.
www.bien2010brasil.com
5. Magdalena Sepúlveda & Oliver de Schutter, 2012. Underwriting the Poor: A Global Fund for Social Protection. Briefing Note 7. United Nations SpecialRapporteur on the Right to Food.
www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/otherdocuments/20121009_gfsp_en.pdf
Disclaimer:
The responsibility for opinions expressed in this article rests solely with the author and dissemination does not constitute an endorsement by the International Labour Organization of the opinions expressed in it.
BIG Congress at the EEA annual meeting
The Twelfth Annual North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress begins today, Thursday, May 9, 2013 at the Sheraton New York Hotel. The NABIG Conference is a joint conference of the USBIG Network (www.usbig.net) and BIEN-Canada. It is being held as a sub-section of the annual meeting of the Eastern Economic Association (EEA).
The conference includes 40 speakers from around the U.S. and Canada and from around the world. Featured speakers include
For more information go to the USBIG website: https://www.usbig.net or the EEA website: https://www.ramapo.edu/eea/2013-2/.
A very positive sign that the Unconditional Basic Income proposal is advancing in the Americas is that a “Ley Marco de La Renta Básica”, “Draft Basic Income Framework Law”, was approved by the General Session of the Parlatino, Parlamento Latino Americano [Latin American Parliament], held last November 30th, 2012, in Panama City. After three preparatory meetings of the Commission of Economic Affairs of the Parlatino in Aruba, Curacao and Buenos Aires, with the cooperation of the Representatives Rodrigo Cabezas Morales, from Venezuela, President of the Commission, Maria Soledad Vela Cheroni, from Ecuador, Ricardo Berois, from Uruguay, and myself, during which the proposal was discussed, it was finally presented as a model for all the parliaments of all 23 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.
This Ley Marco de la Renta Basica takes into account what is considered in the Brazilian Law, approved by the National Congress, by all parties, both in the Federal Senate, in 2002, and in the Chamber of Deputies, in 2003, and then sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in January 8th, 2004: The Citizen’s Basic Income will be introduced step by step, under the Executive criteria, taken into account first those most in need, such as the Bolsa Família Program does.
The Brazilian population in 2013 is around 194 million inhabitants. According to the Bolsa Família Program, all families with a monthly income per capita up to R$ 140.00 can benefit from the program with the following rules:
If the per capita family income is below R$70.00 per month, the initial basic benefit to the family is R$ 70.00. In addition, for all families with income per capita below R$ 140.00 per month, they have the right to receive R$ 32.00, R$ 64.00, R$ 96,00, R$ 128.00 or R$ 160.00 if the family has, respectively, one, two, three, four or more children up to the age 15 years and 11 months, plus R$ 38.00 or R$ 76.00 if the family has one or two adolescents, respectively, from 16 to 18 years of age.
There are some conditionalities: if the mother is pregnant, she must do the pre-natal health exam in the Public Health System of the region where she lives. The children up to six years of age must be taken by their parents to the Health System to take the necessary vaccines, according to the Health Ministry’s calendar. The children aged seven to 15 years and eleven months must be in school at least 85% of the classes. The adolescents aged 16 to 18 must attend at least 75% of the classes in school.
In January 2013 there were 18.491.302 families in Brazil with per capita income up to R$ 140.00 per month that, therefore, would be allowed to get the benefits of the Bolsa Família Program. By March 2013, there were13.872.243 families enrolled in the Bolsa Família Program that is 75% of those who, by law, are entitled to enroll in the program. Since there are around 3.5 people in each family among the relatively poor, we may say that almost one fourth of the Brazilian population of 194 million today benefits from the Bolsa Família Program.
Since June 2011, President Dilma Rousseff has launched the Active Search process through which all levels of government and social organizations of all kinds should help in finding those families with the right to have the Bolsa Família benefit and that have not been identified and enrolled in the program yet. Since March, 2013, all families enrolled in the Bolsa Família program with at least one child up to 15 years and eleven months of age whose monthly family income, plus the Bolsa Família benefits, does not reach the sufficient to provide at least R$ 70.00 per capita, the Federal Government, through the so called Brasil Carinhoso or Brazil Care Program, will provide what is needed to complete the monthly R$ 70.00 per capita to the family. Through this measure the government is trying to guarantee that all Brazilian families, from now on, have at least R$ 70.00 per capita per month.
One day, I hope in the near future, we will be able to make the transition from the Bolsa Família Program towards the Citizen’s Basic Income, not only in Brazil, but in all countries of the three continents of the Americas.
Link to the Draft Basic Income Framework Law approved by the Parlatino:
https://www.usbig.net/papers/Palestra%20USBIG2013_English.doc
“What? You think the government should just give everybody money?! Regardless of whether they worked for it or not? Regardless of whether they even need it or not? Why do you think *that* would be a good idea?”
You are out in public. It just came up that you support a basic income guarantee, and someone just hit you with the above incredulous questions. Unless you are on a college campus or at an academic conference, you can probably expect your listeners’ attention to last roughly one minute before they are either intrigued and ask more questions, or they tune you out completely. What do you say?
Well, obviously there are a lot of different reasons why people support a basic income, and so your answer will depend in part on why you personally support a basic income. And it will also depend in part on what you think your listeners’ core beliefs are, and what may therefor persuade them. So there cannot be just one right answer.
With that in mind, I offer the following eleven suggestions.
All of the following arguments are my own derivative summaries and reinterpretations of other people’s ideas. The Keynesian and Georgist arguments are derived from the writings of their namesakes. The market utilitarian case is derived from the ideas of Milton Friedman, and the independentarian case is derived from the ideas of Karl Widerquist. I am also particularly indebted to Widerquist for inspiring the fairness case. None of the other arguments are original, but I have sadly forgotten the individuals from whom they are borrowed.
So please feel free to use any or all of them as you see fit to promote the abolition of poverty. They can be used in person or in speeches, in blog posts or comments, in Congressional hearings or your Facebook status, or anywhere else you see fit. Also feel free to modify them as necessary.
And yes, I have timed myself speaking all of them, and I was able to speak each of them at a normal speaking pace in one minute or less.
Property is a social construct legally enforced by the government. If all people are considered equal, then absent any other considerations, each person should have an equal amount of property. So material equality should be the default. In a free market economy with a basic income at or below the highest sustainable rate, those who choose to live off of the basic income are not living off of the work of others. Rather, they are living off of less than their “fair share” of property and allowing the extra to be used by those who choose to work.
The free market is the greatest generator of wealth ever devised. Money is the most effective means of socially producing utility, as it allows each individual to obtain whatever needs and wants they subjectively require. However, one dollar in the hands of a poorer person produces greater utility than a dollar in the hands of a richer person, because the richer person can fulfill more of their more important needs and wants with the rest of their money than the poorer person can. So the transfer of money from a richer person to a poorer person increases overall utility. The government is incompetent at running people’s lives or regulating the economy, but the one thing it can do effectively is mail out checks. A basic income is most effective means of transferring money from the richer to the poorer with the least government interference and the least work disincentive. The natural limit on the amount of the basic income is the point where the work disincentive from the required taxes reduces wealth the point where the basic income would have to be reduced.
Keynesian economics works when implemented correctly. But properly implementing Keynesian economics is politically very difficult. It requires politicians who are willing to spend a lot of money on stimulus when the government appears broke, and then turn around and become deficit hawks when the government is rolling in cash and everyone wants a piece of the pie. A basic income funded primarily from an income tax would become a massive institutionalized entitlement expected by the population whose cost would automatically increase and decrease in direct opposition to the economy. As unemployment rises, the number of net receivers goes up, and as unemployment falls, so will the number of net receivers. Keynes once famously said that the government should pay people to dig holes and fill them back up again. But why waste people’s time? Anyone who sits on the couch and watches TV while living off of a basic income will contribute as much to society as the hole diggers. And anyone who does anything more productive will create a net good for society.
Poverty is not a natural tragedy like cancer or earthquakes. Poverty is a human caused tragedy like slavery or government oppression. Slavery is caused by societal recognition of humans as property. Government oppression is caused by governments punishing people for their beliefs or characteristics, and without due process of law. Poverty is caused by property laws that deny some people access to necessities. These types of tragedies can be ended by recognizing that humans have the right not to be subjected to tortuous conditions imposed by other humans. Humans have a right not to live in slavery. Humans have a right to be free of government oppression. And humans have a right not to live in poverty. A basic income is not a strategy for dealing with poverty; it it the elimination of poverty. The campaign for a basic income is a campaign for the abolition of poverty. It is the abolitionist movement of the 21st century.
Property is a product of creation, not of mere use. “I made this.” confers property rights, “Tag! It’s mine!” does not. Things that exist as a product of your labor must be yours, and for anyone else to appropriate them is to make you their slave. Land and natural resources, however, are not the products of people, but of nature or God. They are gifts to all of humanity. Individual property in land and natural resources may be practical or useful, but it is still theft. Utility might justify this theft, but compensation is still required. As the appropriation was done without consent, the compensation must be in the form that offers the greatest choice of use to the victims. That form is cash. The most efficient arrangement for payment is for the takers to pay the full rental or use value to a single entity which can then divide the proceeds equally among the population. Taxes are the tribute I pay to you for displacing you from land, the basic income is your dividend.
The one minute transhumanist case for a basic income:
Two hundred thousand years ago humans lived in hunter-gather societies. About 10 thousand years ago, humans began to live in agricultural societies, and then about 300 years ago, humans began to live in industrial societies. Since 30 to 50 years ago, we have lived in a service society. Theoretically, the last economic stage of society is a leisure society, where most people either work in the artistic or scientific fields, or do not work at all. So far, each phase has lasted only a small fraction of the time of the previous phase. If that pattern holds, service societies should last less than two generations, a time period nearing its end. Right now, worker productivity is advancing faster than the need for workers, and robots are inhabiting labs in research hospitals and at DARPA. It is time to prepare for a society in which we simply do not need everyone to work. A basic income will be needed to provide a living for people, and to provide customers for business.
The welfare state may not be the society we would have created, but it has been here for 4 generations, people have come to expect and rely on it, and it would be extremely disruptive to society to get rid of it. But while we may not be able to get rid of the welfare state, we can reform it. The current welfare state necessitates an immense and expensive bureaucracy, it is prohibitively complicated for some of its intended beneficiaries to navigate, it puts bureaucrats in charge of the lives of the poor, it creates perverse incentives for people to avoid work and to remain poor, and it arbitrarily allows some people to fall through the cracks. A basic income would correct all of these problems. A basic income is simple to administer, treats all people equally, retains all rewards for hard work, savings, and entrepreneurship, and trusts the poor to make their own decisions about what to do with their money, taking these decisions out of the hands of paternalistic elitist politicians.
Patriarchy has put the world’s wealth in the hands of men, prevented women from being professionals and entreprenuers, forced poor women into dead-end second-class labor jobs, and forced all women to become unpaid domestic servants and caretakers of the young, elderly, and disabled of their families. Women have been forced to be financially dependent on fathers or husbands who are often abusive. A basic income would change all of this. A basic income would be a massive transfer of wealth from men to women. Women would be free of financial dependence on any man, and the young, elderly, and disabled would all be fully supported. Women could afford to leave abusive husbands, those who chose to be caretakers would be fully compensated, and no woman would be forced into a dead-end job, and would instead be able to pursue her own financial goals as she saw fit.
While it may have been theoretically possible to acquire property in a just manner soon after humans evolved, none was. Every square inch of inhabited land on earth can trace its title back to someone who acquired the land by force. All land titles on Earth are soaked in blood. And not just land titles. Thanks to past government spending, targeted tax breaks, intellectual property, corporate charters, slavery, and meddling regulations, no property or wealth can be said to have been justly acquired. If we assume that those who have the least are greatest net victims, a basic income would provide the best possible rectification with the least government control, producing the least unjust system of property distribution possible in the real world.
A basic income would correct or ameliorate many inequities and inefficiencies inherent in market capitalism. The wages of unskilled and semi-skilled workers would rise as those who enjoy and are good at such work will no longer have to compete against those who are forced to seek such work out of financial necessity. The wages of highly skilled workers will fall as more people are able to take the time necessary to gain the skills to compete for those jobs, lowering the cost of legal, financial, and health care services. A guaranteed income will soften the blow to workers displaced by advancing technology and the creative destruction of the market. Job seekers will be able to take the time necessary to find work that is the best fit for them, increasing efficiency in the distribution of labor. And entrepreneurship will flourish as those wanting to start their own businesses will have an income to survive on during the long lean times that typically come when building a new enterprise.
Property rights are not natural, they are a social convention. But they give each individual freedom, as the essence of property is the right to exclude others, to have a place where no one else has dominion over you. The first rule should be that each individual has inalienable ownership over her own body and mind. But carving up all of nature outside of bodies leaves some people unnaturally without the means to obtain the necessities of life. Therefore each person must also have an inalienable property right to these necessities. Society owes you a living, because society is preventing you from foraging the land to obtain the necessities of life on your own. Society could rectify this problem by letting individuals forage for necessities wherever they wish, or by giving them the land they need to survive on their own, or by providing these necessities directly. But in modern societies, the most efficient way to provide for these necessities is with direct cash payments, a basic income.
