by Citizens' Income Trust | Nov 8, 2013 | Opinion
Karl Widerquist, Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A theory of freedom as the power to say no, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 1 137 27472 4, hbk, xiv + 241 pp, £62.50
The message of this book is simple: We are not free; we ought to be; and a Citizen’s Income (called here a ‘Basic Income Guarantee’) is an important means to that end.
The ‘propertylessness’ in the title represents the diagnosis: that is, that someone who is without sufficient property to meet his or her basic needs is reliant on property owners for the meeting of those needs (through an employment contract, state benefits, or some other mechanism) and is therefore not free. Starting from a definition of freedom as non-interference, Widerquist develops a theory of ‘status freedom’: ‘the effort to identify the difference between a free person and an unfree person’, and also a refined definition of freedom as ‘effective control self-ownership … freedom as the power to say no’ (p.15). Co-operation with others should always be voluntary, which means that it should be from a position of genuine independence: and it is this ‘independentarianism’ that requires an individuals’ right to property and therefore to a Citizen’s Income.
In this book Widerquist draws out the implications of freedom as effective control self-ownership, and particularly its relationship to the individual’s co-operation with other individuals, to the labour market, to our ability willingly to sign away our freedoms, and to such theoretical positions as Philippe Van Parijs’s ‘real freedom’ (a positive freedom to do as one wishes consistent with others’ freedoms) and Stuart White’s ‘justice as fair reciprocity’.
Alongside this somewhat abstract discussion of concepts, Widerquist studies today’s social and economic context, and concludes that
in a modern, industrial economy [effective control self-ownership] is best secured by an unconditional basic income guarantee large enough to secure housing, food, clothing, and basic transportation, plus enough more that individuals do not display signs of economic distress (p.70)
and also that a Citizen’s Income is compensation for our inability to provide everyone with sufficient status independence (p.71).
There is no attempt to escape the logic of capitalism. Trade is a perfectly just mechanism if undertaken by independent individuals and by mutual agreement; and Widerquist shows how a moral obligation to participate can be satisfied better by voluntary participation than by mandatory participation:
Even if people have an obligation to contribute to a just system of social cooperation, giving individuals the power to say no to working conditions they find unacceptable might be a better method to create a just system of social cooperation than giving a democratic majority the powers both to determine the conditions of fair cooperation and to enforce participation. (p.117)
For Widerquist, the individual’s freely-chosen consent to participate is paramount: a freely chosen consent that can only be guaranteed by the existence of an exit option: that is, by the ability not to participate.
This book is many things: an exercise in political economy; a textbook on philosophy and social ethics (particularly in chapter 9 on ‘duty’); and a sustained argument for a Citizen’s Income: and it is an excellent example of all of them.
However, there remains a problem with terminology. For a UK audience, the language of ‘guarantee’ is confusing. A ‘guarantee’ of an income is a promise that someone’s income will reach a particular level, and this can be achieved by a means-tested benefit as well as by a universal one. The previous Labour Government’s Minimum Income Guarantee was means-tested, and was as far from a universal benefit as it is possible to get. It is unconditionality, individuality and universality that matter, and Widerquist might have stressed these important characteristics of a Citizen’s Income more than he has.
But having said that, this is an important contribution to the literature on universal benefits, and therefore to the debate that might one day lead to their extension to working age adults.
by Karsten Lieberkind | Sep 23, 2013 | Opinion
If you are searching the internet for ‘basic income’, ‘basic income guarantee’ or related subjects or you are a regular visitor to the various internet-based social networks like Facebook it would hardly have escaped your attention that quite a few of your hits will point to websites or blogs discussing topics like the Equal Money System and recently also Basic Income Guaranteed (previously ‘Grant’), with the acronym B.I.G. (or BIG)., but not to be confused with the Basic Income Guarantee (without ‘d’) of organisations such as USBIG that are affiliated to BIEN. Even more recently, the name was changed again, this time to Living Income Guaranteed (LIG). The terms are here used interchangeably. All those sites can ultimately be traced back to an organization called Desteni which is based in South Africa and its offspring, an online community of groups in more than 20 countries, called Equal Life Foundation.
According to the Equal Life Foundation, the LIG is considered part of and the first stage in the development of the overall philosophy of the Equal Money System and a human right, an intrinsic part of citizenship. It is to be financed in part by equal access to resources such as ‘mining resources and water resources, electricity, cellphones, telephones’ of which all citizens become ‘shareholders’. Those resources, some of which are already owned by ‘capitalists’, are to be nationalized, the reason being that the shareholders, that is the citizens, ‘should have owned them in the first place’. It is considered a human right that profit from such corporations be shared equally among all citizens as social dividends in the form of a Basic Income because, in the final analysis, natural resources belong to no one but the earth. ‘This way the corporation = becomes government, the shareholder = the citizen, the profit = the Basic Income Guaranteed’. Occasionally, owning property beyond what is reasonable is even referred to as ‘theft’ or ‘treason’.The ‘capitalists’, however, will also profit from a transition to LIG as more people will be able to spend money on products and this will, in turn, boost the general economy.
In addition to the nationalization of resources, financing the LIG may take place through tax on goods and services, that is, sales tax, value added tax or important duty. The philosophy behind is that the value of labor should be directly reflected in the prices of the goods and services: ‘part of the price is another person’s livelihood, and that as you give = you will receive’. Toll tax on roads is also suggested as another form of tax on consumption. All income and corporate taxes are to be abolished and so will play no part in financing the LIG, as this would allegedly amount to ‘charity, where the rich give to the poor’.
How does the LIG compare with the Basic Income advocated by BIEN and its affiliated organizations? Following one of BIEN’s prevalent definitions, four conditions are to be met for a proposal to qualify as a genuine Basic Income: It must be universal, individual, unconditional and high enough for a decent standard of living.
LIG reportedly complies with the first condition in that it is paid to individuals rather than families or households.
LIG is universal in the sense that everyone including children, in principle, is entitled to receive it. The exceptions to this fall under the category of conditionality, a subject that I will return to next. In a transitional period, children may receive a lower grant, a ‘basic child grant’, but the goal is a full LIG for all and will not be dependent on the parents’ income.
LIG is not unconditional or at least only to some extent. First of all, there are certain limitations (‘Certain Rules‘) to what recipients of a LIG can own. If you are able to sustain yourself through investments or savings or if you have a job, you are not entitled to receive a Basic Income. In other words, prospective recipients are means-tested. From this perspective, LIG is sometimes referred to as a form of insurance in that it is paid out if you are unable to provide for yourself the basic needs. ‘Basic income is a means to an end and not an end in itself’ and ‘there is no point in giving to people who don’t need it because their human rights are already secured’. It is, however, to my knowledge not discussed how to deal with people who are not willing to work even if one is available, but from my own correspondence with members of ELF and this reply it would seem that there are no strings attached to their proposal besides means-testing. If you are willing to live very modestly, with few possessions, you may live exclusively on your LIG and will not be forced to take a job.
LIG seems to comply with the condition of being ‘high enough: ‘The basic income should be ‘sufficient for a person or a family to live a decent life, one worthy of their birthright as a citizen’. However, in order to keep an incentive to work, ELF suggests a fixed minimum wage at ‘double the Basic Income’. For people working part-time, this will only pay off if they work enough hours and/or if they are sufficiently educated or skilled to receive a higher pay than the minimum wage. Otherwise, they might just as well live off their LIG and do voluntary work. However, this part of the proposal does not appear to be fully worked out.
In addition to the LIG, a ‘Subsidy for Homes‘, that is, for building one’s own house, will be provided, to the benefit of both the recipients and the industry.
The system as a whole is characterized as a mixture between capitalism and socialism, in other words, while the proposal is meant to restore justice through equality, it is not directly opposed to capitalism: ‘The Basic Income Guaranteed will function as the medium through which a state is able to remediate the most direct negative effects of a capitalistic system, while still being able to maintain some of the perks that such a system represents and embodies.’ This version of the Equal Money System – actually an intermediary stage before the full implementation of EMS – is also sometimes referred to as ‘Equal Money Capitalism‘, a system that is further characterized by equal wages and joint ownership to corporations. What this means is that workers are to be shareholders in the companies and the profit generated by them will be paid out equally to all workers once the basic costs of running them are covered. Also production will not take place according to a ‘supply and demand’ principle, but only according to what is needed and ecologically sustainable.
Some, or maybe in due course all, welfare benefits such as pensions will be phased out, at least gradually, as it is suggested that the LIG recipients invest part of their grant in private companies and the revenue from this will eventually make them ‘self-sufficient’. This type of investment appears to be on a voluntary basis however.
One peculiarity of the proposal is that teachers at all levels will be receiving an LIG, meaning they will not get paid, the reason being that teaching is a ‘calling’ and teachers are not supposed to be in it for the money. The educational system as a whole should be entirely free.
In order to prevent corruption, it is stressed that the distribution of the Basic Income is to take place electronically with as few people involved as possible.
In due course, LIG is to be distributed globally.
References:
Basic Income Guaranteed
https://equalmoney.org/
Desteni
https://desteni.org/
Equal Life Foundation
https://www.facebook.com/EqualLifeFoundation
Equal access to resources
https://equalmoney.org/wiki/BIG_Proposal_Basic_Lay-Out#Nationalized_Resources_as_Every_Citizen’s_Birth_right
Nationalized resources
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/basic-income-and-nationalized-resources/
Natural resources belong to the earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4eKv6KDxgvE
Basic Income can save Capitalism
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/basic-income-can-save-capitalism/
Basic Income Guaranteed and Taxation
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/basic-income-guaranteed-and-taxation/
Basic Income Guaranteed with Labor as Interest
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/basic-income-guaranteed-with-labor-as-interest/
Abolishment of personal Tax
https://basicincome.me/discuss/t/63-how-do-you-feel-about-the-abolishment-of-personal-tax
BIEN’s Criteria for an Unconditional Basic Income
https://basicincome2013.eu/
Universality of LIG
https://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.dk/2013/09/day-248-q-on-living-income-guaranteed.html
Individuality of LIG
https://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.dk/2013/09/day-248-q-on-living-income-guaranteed.html
Basic Income Guaranteed and Conditions
https://equalmoney.org/wiki/BIG_Proposal_Basic_Lay-Out#Pensions
No Obligation to Work
https://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.dk/2013/09/day-248-q-on-living-income-guaranteed.html
How BIG will stabilize your Economy
https://equalmoney.org/wiki/BIG_Proposal_Basic_Lay-Out#How_BIG_will_stabilize_your_Economy
Working part-time in a LIG economy
https://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.dk/2013/09/day-248-q-on-living-income-guaranteed.html
Subsidy for Homes
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/basic-income-can-save-capitalism/
Equal Money Capitalism
https://marlenvargasdelrazo.wordpress.com/equal-money-system/
Equal Wages and joint Ownership
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4eKv6KDxgvE
Phase-out of Pensions
https://equalmoney.org/wiki/BIG_Proposal_Basic_Lay-Out#Pensions
Teachers on Basic Income Guaranteed
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/basic-income-guaranteed-and-teaching/
by Karl Widerquist | Jul 8, 2013 | News
In this short article, Philippe Van Parijs proposes a Euro-dividend, which he describes as “one, simple and radical, yet … reasonable and urgent” proposal. The Euro-dividend is a modest basic income for every legal resident of the European Union. According to Van Parijs, “This income provides each resident with a universal and unconditional floor that can be supplemented at will by labour income, capital income and social benefits. Its level can vary from country to country to track the cost of living, and it can be lower for the young and higher for the elderly.”
Van Parijs is a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium and the author Real Freedom for All: what (if anything) can justify capitalism.
Van Parijs, Philippe, “The Euro-Dividend,” Social Europe Journal, July 3, 2013
by Citizens' Income Trust | Mar 1, 2013 | Opinion
The thesis of this book is that there is a ‘good life’ which can be defined independently of our subjective desires, and that it is possible to determine the elements of that good life and some of the means for attaining it.
The first chapter sets out from Keynes’ prediction that increasing automation would enable us to experience a good life at the same time as working shorter hours: but Keynes ‘did not understand that capitalism would set up a new dynamic of want creation which would overwhelm traditional restraints of custom and good sense’ (p.42) – and, as the Skidelskys correctly note in chapter 2, capitalism ‘has given us wealth beyond measure, but has taken away the chief benefit of wealth: the consciousness of having enough’ (p.69).
Chapter 3 surveys pre-modern economic thought, and particularly Aristotle’s, for whom money is the servant of the good life rather than being an end in itself. The Skidelskys then divert us down two cul-de-sacs in order to back us out again. They explore the modern ‘happiness economics’, find it methodologically and ethically suspect, and decide that the pursuit of happiness is no more likely to lead to the good life than is the pursuit of money:
Our proper goal, as individuals and as citizens, is not just to be happy but to have reason to be happy. To have the good things of life – health, respect, friendship, leisure – is to have reason to be happy. (p.123)
Similarly, the authors urge us not to argue from the dangers of climate change to a necessity to reduce economic growth. They prefer a ‘good life environmentalism’: the pursuit of an objectively good life which requires us to treat nature kindly because ‘harmony with nature is part of the good life’ (p.140).
Chapter 6 is the heart of the book because it describes the good life in terms of a set of ‘basic goods’, defined as goods which are ‘universal, meaning that they belong to the good life as such … final, meaning that they are good in themselves, and not just as a means to some other good … sui generis, meaning that they are not part of some other good … indispensable, meaning that anyone who lacks them may be deemed to have suffered a serious loss or harm’ (pp.150-52). On the basis of this definition the authors list seven basic goods: health, security, respect, personality (‘the ability to frame and execute a plan of life reflective of one’s tastes, temperament and conception of the good’ (p.160)), harmony with nature, friendship, and leisure.
The authors study indicators related to the elements of the good life and find that in many ways life in the UK is less good than it was forty years ago. They recommend a ‘non-coercive paternalism’ (p.193), and at the heart of their prescription is an argument for a Citizen’s Income on the basis of their definition of the good life. For instance: leisure and self-directed activity are necessary constituents of the good life, so to enable more people to be employed part-time, which a Citizen’s Income would do, would enable more people to experience the good life.
It is unfortunate that the book advocates the pursuit of the good life purely in terms of our generation of homo sapiens, and explicitly does so in the chapter on ‘limits to growth’. A good life for the planet, and a good life for future generations, are surely just as important as the good life for us. The reader will need to decide whether the Skidelskys have made an adequate case for downplaying that importance. It is also a pity that the book contains no separate bibliography.
But having said that, it is a pleasure to see a book which in general so cogently combines a clearly formulated principle, diagnosis of our current plight, a clear route towards a desired end, and detailed policy prescription designed to take us along that route.
We are of course most encouraged that the Skidelskys have concluded that the attainment of the good life requires a Citizen’s Income.
Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky, How Much is Enough? The Love of Money, and the Case for the Good Life, Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 2012, xi+243 pp, hbk, 1 846 14448 6, £20
by Timothy Roscoe Carter | Feb 25, 2013 | Opinion
“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.
The one minute fairness case for a basic income guarantee:
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 one minute market utilitarian case for a basic income:
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.
The one minute Keynesian case for a basic income:
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.
The one minute human rights case for a basic income:
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.
The one minute Georgist case for a basic income:
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 one minute conservative case for a basic income:
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.
The one minute feminist case for a basic income:
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.
The one minute (right) libertarian case for a basic income:
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.
The one minute liberal case for a basic income:
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.
The one minute independetarian case for a basic income:
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.
