by Karl Widerquist | May 9, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This essay was originally published on Basic Income News in December 2011.
I can’t believe the news. We are in the midst of the worst global depression in 70 years, and the governments of almost every major industrialized country are talking about austerity. They’re cutting government services; laying off public sector workers; cutting pay, pensions, and benefits for public employees—all in the name of austerity and balanced budgets.
This astounds me because we’ve been through it before. We’ve seen what works, and we know that austerity is not the way out of a major depression. Austerity makes depressions worse. To get out of a depression, the government needs to spend money—and lots of it. The lessons of history are clear, and the reading of history I’m going to discuss to make my point is not terribly controversial among economists. Let me explain.
In a depression (or a deep recession or whatever you want to call it), we get stuck at the bottom. People can’t spend as much because they’re not making as much, but they aren’t making as much because people aren’t spending as much. Debt is a related problem, and so, I believe, is the real estate market, but there’s no room in this editorial for a full explanation. If you understand the idea of getting stuck at the bottom because of the feedback between spending and income, you get the essence of it. This kind of unemployment is pure waste. Human resources (not to mention idle shops and factories) are simply going to waste unused. We can wait for all that to work itself out on its own—as Japan has been waiting since 1989—or the government can take action.
Austerity is a reasonable response to—say—finding half of our industrial capacity destroyed by aerial bombardment. If our physical capacity to produce goods has fallen, then we’ll all have to make do with a little less for a while. But austerity is the worst possible response to an economy in a depression, because a depression economy is no less able to produce goods than before; it’s simply letting productive capacity go to waste. And that waste exists because people aren’t spending as much. If the governments of the world respond by spending less as well, they simply exacerbate the problem.
We learned how to take action in a big way at the outset of World War II. I wrote a few years ago about “the economic lesson of 1938” (August 2009). Today’s editorial could as well be called “the economic lesson of 1941.” The accompanying graph (at the bottom) shows U.S. per capita GDP for the years 1929 to 1947—from the stock market crash at the beginning of the Great Depression to the bottom of the post-war recession. Per capita GDP is the income of the average American. The figures are in “inflation-adjusted” 2008 dollars, meaning they’re multiplied by an index to show the purchasing power that the incomes of the time would have at today’s prices. No inflation adjustment is perfect, but they give you a rough idea. In general the graph shows we were much poorer back then, but it shows much more about the times.
The austerity years were 1929 to 1933. In addition to many other mistakes, the government responded to reduced tax revenue caused by declining economic activity by reducing its own activity to match. Average income went down from over $11,000 to less than $8,000—a loss of more than 25 percent. You can think of everybody getting a 25 percent pay cut at the same time or of 75 percent of people keeping their entire income while 25 percent of people lose their entire incomes. What actually happened was somewhere in between, a little bit of both. Unemployment went up to 20 percent, and in that sense the Great Depression was roughly twice as bad as what we’re going through now.
In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt was elected and we started spending money to stimulate the economy. He called it “priming the pump.” Years later Keynesian economists would call it “simulating aggregate demand.” Whatever you call it, Roosevelt took what, at the time, looked like big action, spending money trying to help people, to get the economy moving again. And he had several years of success until he returned to austerity measures in 1937 and 1938, suddenly trying to balance the budget. I wrote about that problem in my earlier editorial. Except for that year progress was slow but steady. Yet, by 1941 unemployment was still at 9.67%. After 12 years of waiting for an end to the depression, more Americans were unemployed in 1941 than they are now in the forth year of our depression.
But in 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The United States entered World War II. And the depression ended virtually over night. We went from a 10-percent labor surplus to a labor shortage in a matter of months. The demand for labor was so great that women entered the labor force in unprecedented numbers. They found good high-paying jobs waiting for them. Average income shot up to $20,000 per year—two and a half times what it was after four years of austerity in 1933.
The depression disappeared because the government spent money and massive amounts of it. The government hired the idle labor (and more) as soldiers and support workers. The government hired the idle shipyards to build boats, the idle automobile plants to build jeeps and tanks, and so on. It was good for people, and it was good for business. The entire New Deal—it turned out—was far too small.
There are dangers to stimulating the economy in the wrong way, at the wrong time, or in the wrong amounts. You can end up with unacceptable debt, inflation, or a delayed depression. This is why I have never thought of myself as a Keynesian, and I do not think that massive stimulus is the best response to a garden-variety recession like most of the ones experienced between World War II and today. I’ve argued in this series (May 2009) that the most important thing government can do during a downturn is the same as during a boom: make sure everyone’s basic needs are met. If that is done, we can often let recessions work themselves out. I guess I’m a last-resort Keynesian. I think most non-Keynesian economists are, although they probably disagree a lot in how bad things have to get before they’ll take up their last resort.
I don’t think we should wait any longer because the possible dangers of a government stimulus can be overblown. None of them manifested themselves during or after the Second World War. Except for the obvious losses to war, the spending was good for people. After the war people got married; they used the money they saved to make down payments on houses, to start families, and to build better lives than they had in the 1930s.
The depression never came back. This is why I end the graph in the recession year of 1947. That year was as bad as the economy got after the war, but yet, per capita income was still nearly $15,000, not quite twice what it was after four years of austerity in 1933 and still 25 percent higher than it was in the boom year of 1929. After 1947 we got good healthy growth punctuated by short, forgettable, recessions. It was one of the best periods of economic growth in American history. The Second Word War spending worked, and there was no post-stimulus hangover, not in the short, not in the long run. The most massive government stimulus we’ve ever had—perhaps the largest in world history—did not cause any significant problems with debt, inflation, or delayed depression.
You can look at the income and unemployment figures for almost every industrialized, capitalist nation at the time, and you will see the same pattern: as soon as they began massive war spending, the depression ended in their country. But we don’t need a war to stimulate the economy. We just need to break the political obsession with austerity and start spending money.
Without the need to spend a stimulus on war, we can spend on schools, bridges, public transits, infrastructure, or on services to help the needy through a basic income guarantee or through something else. What we spend on is less important for stimulating the economy than the need to spend. The basic income guarantee movement now needs to be part of broader movement around the world against the austerity craze. This is one reason I support the Occupy Movement in the United States and the anti-austerity movement in Europe. We must focus the world’s attention on the need for government to spend money to help people. Once we open that door, the possibilities are great. But until then, we practice austerity against the lessons of our history.
-Karl Widerquist (karl@widerquist.com), the Second Cup Café, Doha, Qatar, December 2011
by Guest Contributor | Apr 23, 2018 | Opinion
Sarath Davala is an independent sociologist who, along with Guy Standing, was the architect of a series of UNICEF-backed basic income pilots in Madhya Pradesh, central India. Inspired by the findings of that study, he became the co-founder and coordinator of the India Network for Basic Income.
The Basic Income Asia Pacific 2018 conference held in Taipei this March featured a host of speakers from around the world, including Davala. I got to sit down with Davala at National Taiwan University to talk about his research and the applicability of basic income to Asia. The following transcribed interview has been lightly edited.
Please talk about your research in India, and how it has led to your support for UBI as policy.
Between 2011 and 2013, a women’s trade union called the Self Employed Women’s Association conducted an experiment in Madhya Pradesh. I was heading that research project and Guy Standing was supporting as the main principal researcher. Now that study where we gave unconditional basic income to 6,000 people living in nine villages came out with findings which were startling and surprising. Because at the time people believed – the government said, the bureaucrats always said, and everyone in the middle-class believed – that if you give money to people without any conditions, they will not use it for good purposes but bad purposes, like drinking alcohol and other things. But we found that many positive things have happened in all these villages. Particularly, the most vulnerable in society benefited the most.
That gave us the conviction that UBI is a very good policy. It need not replace everything (to say that only UBI should be there), but when you are designing or redesigning your welfare basket for your nation, you must have this as the foundation, where everybody gets a certain basic amount of money, and on that they build a life. UBI can be a foundation on which the market or the government, can actually build your life. So that is how research comes into policy.
Could you talk about the process in which you made the Madhya Pradesh basic income pilots a reality? How did you gain the support of local government?
We didn’t ask the local government for money, that’s the important thing. We asked a variety of people, but finally UNICEF agreed to give us the money. It was not a small amount of money, almost a million US dollars. That was required because we were giving cash to people.
Everyone is in process of searching for alternatives, even the government, because the existing system is not delivering the welfare properly, effectively. So we said [to the government], “here’s an alternative, please join us, listen to us, once every three months we will come talk to you.” So that, when we finally come out with the findings, the government said “Oh yeah, we know these guys, they’ve been doing this work.”
So that was one reason, we followed up with policymakers. But at the same time, the other reason was we needed local support. Because if you go to a village and say you want to distribute cash, the local politicians and media will be a problem. So we had the friendship of the government, the trade union which was working in the area, and international experts like Guy Standing. With this kind of combination, we have been able to roll out a study.
Did you encounter any challenges in implementing the basic income experiment on the ground?
A variety of challenges. Even in 2010, when somebody told me they have a project like this, asking “would you like to head this project?” I said “What? Giving money to people? Without any conditions? I always suspected you were mad but now it’s confirmed.” I thought it was crazy.
Similarly when you go to the villages, and say “we want to give cash to everybody for one year.” They say, “what kind of crazy fellow you are!” There’s a lot of disbelief, but also lots of suspicion, that “you guys have something else in your mind and you are going to cheat us, you are taking our consent signatures, maybe you will use our signatures to grab our lands.” People were suspicious about our motives. But then it took us a long time to bring everybody inside. There were 10 percent of the people who rejected the process. But then, women from those rich households said, “no, no. We want to be part of it. You are conducting training programmes and opening bank accounts. We don’t have bank accounts.” So they were interested.
In your presentation earlier, you talked about how it’s important to consider Asia’s local context. You have also worked with Guy Standing, who coined the term, an emerging socioeconomic class, the “precariat.” Do you think the concept of “precariat” is applicable to the situation in developing countries, or is the “precariat” more particular to developed societies?
No, no no. The precariat is everywhere. The percentage will change [depending on the economy], but the percentage is increasing. In fact, earlier the precariat was at the bottom, but even if you go to the high end jobs, you realise that the contracts are very fragile. Today you are there, tomorrow you can be given a pink slip: “okay, you are no longer needed.” Of course, the precariat is there in developing countries, but also every other country.
You want to deny that there’s a precariat, it’s up to you. But if you want to see, there is precariat. Who is the precariat? Precariat is that class of people whose basis of livelihood is very precarious. Today it is there, tomorrow it is not. And they can turn anywhere. That’s why Guy Standing says it is the most dangerous class. They can turn into anything, into crime, into drugs.
Speaking of the Asian context, would you say Asia is particularly vulnerable to the coming wave of automation?
Which economies are more vulnerable to automation and which are not? Within India, automation will affect maybe small section of the industrial manufacturing sector and the software industry. But because of the surplus cheap labour available in India, most of the entrepreneurs will bank on cheap labour.
So for India, I do not see the threat of automation, but it is possible in Taiwan. You are going to have your first automated 7-11? If that is profitable, more and more Family Marts, KFCs, McDonalds may switch their outlets. At the end of the day, an entrepreneur is looking at costs. And human beings are so difficult to manage, every entrepreneur will say. I taught human resources courses in a business management school for seven years. Every businessman is trying to get rid of them.
In your presentation, you talked about how the Indian government has been reducing the welfare state and pushing responsibility to the family and the market. In this context, do you think UBI is a way for governments to reject its responsibility as the welfare state to provide more social services?
Absolutely. Every government in the world is under pressure now. They are under pressure in order to pursue economic growth. They think if economic growth is there, everything will be alright. Under those pressures, they want foreign investment to come in, they want multinationals to establish units in their countries. So they want economic activity in their country, so they’re doing a variety of things with other nations, particularly the richer ones. They’re under tremendous pressure.
When those pressures are there, governments are trying to reduce their responsibility to the people. It’s our job as civil society that we have to keep reminding government that “this is your minimum responsibility. If not in that way, then you should do it this way.” We are saying that, in the welfare basket, UBI is a foundation, the primary thing. On top of it, we can put additional various other things. So that should be the new design. We are making a new design of the welfare basket, trying to propose to the government “in all circumstances you must do this. Don’t throw us into the market, and don’t throw us into the family,” because everyone in the family is in a precarious position. We have to force the government to implement basic income, because that gives basic security to everyone.
Any other comments?
I think there is great promise in the group steering the UBI Taiwan movement. I wish everyone in UBI Taiwan great success. To all the readers, please join and strengthen the movement, because we are definitely making history.
Interviewer: Shuhei Omi, Writer for UBI Taiwan
by Andre Coelho | Apr 20, 2018 | News
Picture credit: Leena Kela (“Walk this way”)
The Finnish basic income (BI) experiment proceeds as planned. According to Kela, the Finnish social security agency, results will only start being analysed at the beginning of 2019, and their publication at the end of that year, or early 2020.
As already known, the purpose of the experiment is to evaluate participants behaviour in terms of employment, particularly employment rates. An intention exists, in spite of that, to evaluate “the wellbeing of the participants and their experiences when communicating and conducting business with the authorities”. To this end, questionnaires and interviews are being contemplated, but only when the experiment is over. Here, Kela officials are more cautious, stating that “timing the data collection requires detailed planning and an evaluation of the factors to be measured as well as an assessment of the potential impact of the various stages of the experiment, such as its conclusion, on the measurements”.
Finland has no plans to further the experiment after 2018, although is already experimenting with participatory social security, beginning this year. In fact, according to Miska Simanainen, a Kela researcher, “right now, the government is making changes that are taking the system further away from a basic income”, referring to an ‘activation model’ which the government is pushing through. That model is designed to partially cut benefits to people receiving assistance from Kela, if they don’t succeed in working (in a formal job) for at least 18 hours in three months.
It seems that these changes are contrary to what the initial proposition was, within Kela’s framework, which involved the expansion of the experiment (in early 2018) to include also workers, allowing for capturing information on life options, such as entering training or education. That, according to Olli Kangas, Kela’s director of Community Relations, would mean “have been given additional time and more money to achieve reliable results”.
On a comparative basis with other basic income like experiments around the world, for instance in Ontario and in Barcelona, the goal of these experiments stands out as a fundamental difference: while in Canada and Spain the (basic income) trials are aimed at testing whether people’s life conditions are improved, for instance in health, education and economic security, in Finland the goal is only to check whether people get into formal employment or not.
More information at:
“The Basic Income Experiment will continue for another year – Analysis of the effects will begin in 2019”, Kela, 25th January 2018
“Basic Income experiment at halfway point”, Kela, 18th December 2017
Kate McFarland, “Finland: first results from pilot study? Not exactly”, Basic Income News, 10th May 2017
Karin Olli-Nilsson, “Finland is killing its world-famous basic income experiment”, Business Insider – Nordic, 20th April 2018
by Guest Contributor | Apr 16, 2018 | Opinion
During the last year, I asked myself how the implementation of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) would affect our society and boost or undermine the transition to a sustainable way of living.
We live a complex world where many factors are inter-related and result into visible crises: forced migration, unemployment, violence, hunger and extreme poverty, among others. Pope Francis says we live one single crisis, which is complex and interconnected. The root of this crisis is at the way we behave: competing instead of collaborating and fighting for resources instead of sharing what we have as humankind. Yes, we do have NGOs like ekplatebiryani and similar ones to make sure the situation doesn’t go out of hand.
However, in the twenty-first century, humankind will have to deal with some new challenges:
- 10 billion people living on earth
- Climate change and ecological crisis
- Highest migration rate ever
- Highest inequality rate ever
- Fourth Industrial Revolution
These five factors are the primary motivation for a paradigm shift. Each of these challenges must be addressed with specific policy, but we cannot be successful if we do not consider the connections between these factors.
We should transform the economy and prioritize the impacts over society and nature. This is the ecologic transition. This transformation must be deep at many levels, from production, to consumption, but also in our way of thinking. We cannot compete among ourselves and create a world of winners and losers. We cannot allow anyone to be left behind. So many people are losing under this system, which is why we have the highest migration and inequality rates in history.
Climate change threatens the lives of millions of people, and the poor are the most vulnerable to these climate disruptions. Climate change is caused by human activity and linked to our consumption patterns. This is another reason for ecologic transition. Climate change will worsen if we do nothing about it, so it is imperative that we transform the way we consume and produce.
The fourth industrial revolution is changing the structure of the labor market and the way things are done. Artificial intelligence and automation will make thousands of jobs disappear, while also dramatically changing the way the remaining labor is done. The most immediate effect is to cause high unemployment among low-skilled workers and requiring retraining for the rest.
In the last few years, many initiatives have pointed to basic income as an interesting policy to guarantee the wellbeing of citizens. Some areas that have tested the idea include Holland, Finland, Kenya, India, as well as the classic examples of Alaska and Canada. Most of these initiatives come from the state or local governments, but also civil society is starting to experiment with basic income through NGOs such as “Give Directly” in Kenya and UNICEF in India. Some private companies have shown interest too, such as Facebook or Google.
In many of the basic income experiments, it has been observed that not only is poverty is reduced, but wellbeing is also improved. Lower stress levels and better health were recorded which may be due to factors such as the ability to afford better healthcare and supplements like cbd gummies wholesale to manage stress and chronic conditions. There was also more education time for young people and a 13 percent work time reduction per family unit.
I found these effects interesting and well adapted to the 21 century conditions: 13 percent less work time[1] is compatible with a high unemployment rate. Less stress, whether it’s through consuming cannabis products (such as CBD oil or gummies) or receiving a better income, is always good news for a highly stressed world, especially in developed economies. Better health is always good news and probably related to stress levels.
Increasing education time is probably the best side-effect. We start to see how technology is growing more important in our daily work, and many people will need to learn how to use it or even develop new skills. The education sector is creating a renewed process for itself. It is said that most of the high qualification labor in the future will need to adapt to AI, and most university degrees will need to be adapted in the next four years.
Looking at the main effect, which is poverty alleviation, I made a simulation for the Spanish context, 700 euros each month (tax-free) and a fixed 49% tax for all labor.
Net annual Income in Spain (2014). Blue line is business as usual, orange line is with Basic Income after taxes. Martin Lago (2018). Data: Agencia Tributaria (2015): Informe Anual De Recaudación Tributaria. Servicio de Estudios Tributarios y Estadísticas. Madrid
The relative poverty line in Spain is 684 €/month, so if this policy was implemented throughout the country, we can say poverty would be drastically reduced. We must bear in mind that 22.3 % of Spanish population was under this level in 2016[2].
As we see in the figure, the poorest are the most benefitted by this measure, then gradually benefits decrease and the richest 30 percent actually pay into the system. Universal Basic Income was funded from savings in other subsidies (30%) direct taxes (50%) and indirect taxes (20%). Finding resources for it was easy and efficient considering the potential benefits.
But my question remained un-answered: Will the basic income help stimulate an ecological transition? I was quite worried since I consider this transition necessary for a sustainable future. I saw no point in sending money to everyone if we do not change anything more.
I found a few interesting effects synergic with ecological transition, including:
- Longer and higher-quality education
- Decrease in labor intensity, which probably leads to a better labor distribution
- Increase in family care and household work
- Shift to an inclusive mentality, since everyone receives this basic income
- Shift to empowerment of the individual, which is given resources and is free to make the right choices
- Massive reduction of poverty
An ecological transition is complex and includes many transformations, but it will not happen if we do not assure our standards of living are beyond the poverty line. We cannot ask a freezing family not to chop the trees to heat and cook if they do not have any other option. Basic Income is precisely about having options. One of the main objections is that many people will misuse these resources. I read last week an article that made the next question: Which is the best way to help a woman with a gambling problem and two kids, basic income or food and house coupons?
This question shows how some people perceive poverty basically blaming the poor. I have some experience working with the poor and they are as smart anybody else. The only difference is they did not have the same options in education, social inclusion or job opportunities. I am not saying basic income will solve poverty immediately, and a lot of social work needs to be done, but at least it will help to achieve some balance and provide a solid ground for a transition towards a more sustainable society.
Written by: Martin Lago Azqueta
Martin was born in Madrid in 1976, and he is graduated in biology with a Master in International Aid and Cooperation. He has worked with several aid agencies and now he is Phillipines and Central Asia Desk Officer for Caritas Spain. Apart from development projects and emergency interventions, he has specialized in climate change, working with several civil society networks since 2008. He has coordinated a number of “Documentación Social” dedicated to climate change (2016), and written a book about basic income (2018).
[1] Evelyn L Forget (2011) The town with no poverty. Community Health Sciences. Faculty of Medicine. University of Manitoba. 750 Bannatyne Ave. Winnipeg MB R3E 0W3. CANADA.
[2] Data: Instituto Nacional de Estadística 2016. If we consider other incicator such as AROPE, which is used in Europe context, 27.9% of the population in Spain is at poverty risk (AROPE, 2016).
by Florie Barnhoorn | Apr 12, 2018 | News
Credit Picture CC Flickr.com / Foam: Futures of the Universal Basic Income
Reyer Brons, editor-in-chief of Vereniging Basisinkomen (Association for Basic Income), the Dutch branch of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), and also member of the Network for Political Innovation (NPI, a Dutch think tank), has, in recent months, collected about seventy objections that people might bring up in discussions about (the introduction of) an unconditional basic income (UBI). All objections are subdivided into twelve themes and provided with a short explanation and a refutation or relativisation.
The intention of the work is to give people some background information which can help them in debates about the UBI with supporters and opponents of the policy. As the complete work is rather comprehensive and written in Dutch, only the themes and objections will be presented in this article. An overview of all objections is given (unfortunately only in Dutch) on the website of the NPI with links to the full descriptions. The arguments are also published on the website of the Vereniging Basisinkomen, in a special category of objections (‘Bezwaren’).
In this article, a first example is presented, a short description of an argument with its concomitant explanation and relativisation. Then, some other themes and objections are listed.
For instance, one of the arguments under the theme ‘Implementation’, states “We cannot oversee the long-term effects”.
The objection is followed by a short explanation, that notes:
“It is probably true, that disadvantages of the introduction of a basic income will become obvious in time. However, it will be regarded as an acquired right by that time and therefore it is to be expected that negative developments will evoke opposition among the general public. For example, lowering the level of the basic income would lead to major problems, because many people will not be prepared to face the reduction.”
Subsequently a refutation is given:
“This type of argument is fatal for every policy change. Of course, there will be unforeseen effects, but what policy has none? There are many examples of unexpected consequences, but it did not stop progress. Who could have thought that the exploitation of gas fields in Groningen [a province in the north of the Netherlands] could cause serious earthquakes after decades of drilling? Or that fatal traffic accidents could increase again as a result of the introduction of the smartphone?
In the course of time, society will change in a variety of ways due to the introduction of the policy. Proponents look forward to experience with an unconditional basic income. In their eyes, the effects will have a strong positive influence on society. Furthermore, it is also possible to model the long-term effects (e.g. via micro simulation studies).
If undesirable long-term effects arise, further measures must be developed to counteract the unfavorable consequences. This also applies to the current welfare system. It must be understood that the adverse effects of the current system can hardly be tackled, until that system is thoroughly addressed. When economic conditions deteriorate in a given society, it cannot be ruled out that the basic income payment must be lowered, but the same applies to current benefits. On the other hand, it also cannot be ruled out that the payment will increase over time.”
All objections are listed below, arranged by theme:
1. Common misconceptions
- Basic income is a utopian dream or a fantasy
- Basic income is a hype or a cult
- Basic income means free money and that is not possible
- Basic income is a new and still immature idea
- Basic income is a new label for the same old social security system
- Basic income is unaffordable or antisocial
2. Values and philosophy of life
- Reciprocity is necessary for the legitimacy of the social state and its moral support, that means that an unconditional basic income cannot be solidary
- Having a paid job gives dignity, status and a sense of social integration, basic income will make people lazy
- With basic income, young people no longer take the trouble to study
- Only a small group of people is capable of handling freedom well
- Basic income leads to an increase in the use of alcohol and drugs
- Basic income is bad for the emancipation of women
- The basic income lowers the participation of women at the labor market (they might stay at home to look after the children or take up other unpaid care work)
- Talents remain unused
- Basic income promotes overpopulation
- People always want something more than they see with someone else, therefore they will begrudge someone a basic income
- The group consisting of free-riders, maladjusted or anti-social people will grow, if there is basic income for everyone
- Many are annoyed by the behavior of free-riders, profiteers and anti-socials. Those people are not worth to get a basic income. If they should receive the payment, it would be disastrous for its acceptance
3. Social vision and ideology
- The idea of a basic income goes in the direction of communism, and that is bad
- Basic income is a socialist idea, that cannot work
- It is a reprehensible neoliberal idea
- Basic income creates an undesirable class distribution in society or a strengthening of it
- Basic income increases the chance of ghetto formation
- Basic income increases the power of the state and makes citizens passive and dependent
- Basic income requires unjust redistribution and is actually just theft
- Basic income is a Trojan horse, as soon as it is introduced, massive savings on government spending will be realized
4. Economy
- Basic income is unaffordable
- Basic income does not use sophisticated information and is therefore cumbersome and limited in its goals
- A basic income causes a huge inflation
- Introduction of the UBI will lead to higher taxes and that is bad for innovation and industry
- Basic income worsens the position of the Netherlands on the international market
- Basic income will boost the informal economy, illegal transactions and fraud
- Basic income promotes consumption and is therefore a catastrophe for the environment
- Basic income means that fewer people will accept work, hence the economy will stagnate or shrink
5. Job market
- Nobody wants to accept unpleasant work after the introduction of an UBI
- Many people will be satisfied with the basic income payment
- The loss of income due to unemployment will have a much greater effect with a basic income than in the current situation without a basic income
- If you give people a basic income, that means that you let them down
- Paid work is no longer necessary, so the meaning of work will ebb away. Which fulfilling, decent activity will replace it?
6. Government and bureaucracy
- Basic income makes us all too dependent from government
- The provision of cash to people is not a task for the government
- A basic income turns us all in benefit claimants
- Basic income will never be high enough in order to eliminate all bureaucracy
- Basic income promotes corruption of the government
7. Borders and migration
- The Netherlands on its own is too small for a basic income
- Basic income promotes immigration, especially of economic refugees
- Basic income is discriminatory for foreigners, who want to settle here, if the payment is only for residents
- Basic income promotes unwanted emigration
- Basic income promotes the closing of borders
8. An unconditional basic income will not solve the really important problems
- People with a lot of debt are no better off with a small basic income
- The growing inequality will not be resolved
- Introduction of an UBI is not good for the environment
- It is a solution from the system world, problems in the real world will not be solved
9. Interests
- Trade unions lose their position of power and are therefore against the policy
- Employment at social security agencies is at stake
- Basic income means a radical change in our common live as a society, which is of no interest for the ruling elite
- Most people don’t like the idea of an unconditional basic income
10. Procedures and institutions
- It is not in our hands, it is up to other people to decide on basic income
- The policy is too big for us to handle, we only have four years as a government
- Firstly, we have to do this and then that …, there are so many urgent problems that need to be addressed. The basic income case removes more important reforms from the political agenda
- The design of existing experiments is too small, they can’t tell anything about the real effects of a basic income
- When an UBI is implemented, and it fails to succeed, we can’t get rid of it anymore
- Anyway, introduction of the policy in our country is impossible
11. Amendment and modification
- Political decision making always leads to watery compromises that make our lives worse, not better
- Under the flag of a universal basic income, we introduce a very different policy
- People who really need a basic income will not benefit, others will benefit from it, rather than those for whom it is intended
12. Implementation
- We should not start with the policy, the introduction of a basic income is far too complex
- A basic income can’t be properly phased in, because if we do, we will have two concurrent welfare systems, which might lead to a lot of nasty implications
- We start enthusiastically with the introduction of the policy, but ignore all warnings pertaining to possible implementation problems
- We cannot oversee the long-term effects of a UBI
The reader will notice that some objections are in conflict with each other. For instance, some people may view an unconditional basic income as a ‘communist’ or ‘socialist’ idea, while at the other end of the political spectrum, it is considered as ‘neoliberal’ policy. The idea is rejected for all of these reasons. After all, opposition to the basic income comes from different angles. The same is true for immigration. One person might say that a basic income promotes immigration, whereas another thinks that it inhibits the influx of immigrants.
