by Kate McFarland | Jan 15, 2017 | Research
The quarterly Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare (based at Western Michigan University) published a symposium on the basic income guarantee (BIG) in its September 2016 issue.
The symposium includes five articles on the topic, plus an introduction written by two members of BIEN: Richard K. Caputo (Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University) and Michael Lewis (School of Social Work at Hunter College, CUNY). The first three articles present arguments for the adoption of a BIG in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, respectively. The fourth argues that a BIG is more politically feasible in the United States than alternative approaches to economic security, such as a Swedish-type welfare state. The fifth proposes a feminist argument for a BIG, although cautioning that more empirical work is needed.
Titles and abstracts, with brief descriptions of the authors, are given below. Links to manuscripts are provided where available.
Jennifer Mays and Greg Marston – “Reimagining Equity and Egalitarianism: The Basic Income Debate in Australia”
“Reimagining equity and egalitarianism calls for rethinking traditional welfare responses to poverty and economic security in Australia. Similar to other advanced Western democracies, Australia has pursued policies underpinned by neoliberal economics in an effort to curtail perceived excesses in public expenditure over the past three decades. In response to these policy settings, commentators and policy activists have increased their attention to the potential of a universal and unconditional basic income scheme to address economic insecurity. This paper positions basic income within the context of Australia’s welfare state arrangements and explores the potential of the scheme to respond to economic insecurity, particularly precarious employment and poverty traps created by a highly targeted social security system.”
May is a Course Coordinator in the School of Public Health and Social Work at the Queensland University of Technology, and Marston is Head of School at the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland.
Mays and Marston are both active members of Basic Income Guarantee Australia (BIGA), BIEN’s Australian affiliate, and were co-editors (with John Tomlinson) of Basic Income in Australia and New Zealand: Perspectives from the Neo-Liberal Frontier (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
James P. Mulvale and Sid Frankel – “Next Steps on the Road to Basic Income in Canada”
“Canada has had recurring debates about guaranteed or basic income over several decades. This article outlines reasons for implementing basic income in the Canadian context–reducing poverty and inequality, addressing precarious employment, and building an ecologically sustainable economy. Recently there has been a strong renewal of interest in basic income in Canada. Expressions of interest have come from the Liberal federal government elected in 2015, from provincial governments, from political parties not in power, and from municipal governments. Support for basic income also is found in a growing range of prominent individuals and organizations. While basic income advocates are encouraged by recent developments, several large and complex questions remain on how this approach can be implemented in Canada. These questions encompass the specifics of design, delivery, funding, and political support. How can basic income build on existing income security programs and leave Canadians better off in the end? How can we ensure that basic income is not used as an excuse to cut vital services such health care, social housing, early childhood care and development, and social services for those with disabilities and other challenges? How can basic income be set in place in Canada,given its complicated federal-provincial nexus of responsibility for, delivery of, and funding for social programs? The article concludes with principles that might help guide the implementation of authentically universal, adequate, and feasible basic income architecture in Canada.”
Mulvale is Dean and Frankel an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba — the site of the 2016 North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress, which they helped to organize.
Keith Rankin – “Prospects for a Universal Basic Income in New Zealand”
“New Zealand is a small liberal capitalist country with a history of egalitarian values and political reform–including the early introduction of universal welfare benefits–and with an uncomplicated relatively flat income tax structure. As such, it has sometimes been seen as a “social laboratory,” a theme of writing about New Zealand and of New Zealand social historians. It therefore has all of the elements in place that could make New Zealand a candidate to become a world leader in integrating income tax and social welfare regimes into a form of universal basic income. Nevertheless, through a combination of intellectual inertia, media cynicism, and the requisite elements not all coming together at the same time, the outlook for an open and healthy discussion around public property rights and unconditional benefits remains constrained. Despite this unpromising intellectual environment, New Zealand may yet stumble upon such reform as a political compromise, as it might have done in 1988.”
Rankin is a Lecturer of Business Practice at the Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand.
Almaz Zelleke – “Lessons from Sweden: Solidarity, the Welfare State, and Basic Income”
“Progressive critics of a universal basic income argue that most nations face a budgetary choice between a full basic income and investment in public goods, including universal health care, free and well-funded education, and universal pensions, and have prioritized a robust welfare state, or the “Swedish Model,” over basic income. But examination of Swedish economic policy reveals that the welfare state is only one of the ingredients of the Swedish Model, and that another is an interventionist labor market policy unlikely to be expandable to larger states without Sweden’s cultural and demographic characteristics. Indeed, evidence suggests that Sweden’s own recent diversification–not only of race and ethnicity but of occupational strata–will make the Swedish Model less stable in its own home. What lessons can be applied to the case for a basic income in the U.S. and other large and diverse nations or regions?”
Zelleke is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at New York University’s campus in Shanghai. She has written multiple journal articles and book chapters on basic income, and has been an active member of BIEN.
Sara Cantillon and Caitlin McLean – “Basic Income Guarantee: The Gender Impact within Households”
“The potential of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) to contribute to gender equality is a contested issue amongst feminist scholars. This article focuses on the nature of BIG as an individually-based payment to explore its potential for reducing gender equality, specifically intra-household inequalities in material or financial welfare; economic autonomy; psychological well-being; and time allocation, especially leisure time and time spent in household and care work. We employ a gender analysis of existing BIG pilots/schemes as well as close substitutes (e.g., universal child benefits) to assess some of the key claims about the effects of a basic income (BI) on gendered inequality. We also present findings from empirical work on intra-household allocation and decision-making which underscore the role of independent income. The article finds some support for BIG as a feminist proposal with respect to mitigating intra-household inequality, but concludes that further empirical research is needed to argue persuasively for BIG as an instrument for furthering gender equality.”
Cantillon is Professor of Gender and Economics at Glasgow Caledonian University. McLean is a lead researcher at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California at Berkeley.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Cover photo by Christopher Andrews, CC BY-NC 2.0
by Kate McFarland | Jan 12, 2017 | News
Economist Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, expressed optimism about unconditional basic income (bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen) in an interview with Hamburger Abendblatt, a daily newspaper in Hamburg, Germany. Schwab called the idea “basically plausibly” and predicted that discussion about it would develop over the next decade.
The Hamburger Abendblatt interview covered a range of topics related to globalization and digitalization. At one point, the reporters asked Schwab about his assessment of US President Donald Trump’s contention that he will bring back jobs from Asia and Mexico. In reply, Schwab pointed out that some industry might return to the US in the form of “digitized factories”.
Schwab then broached the idea of unconditional basic income in response to a follow-up question about the future of work: if industry is becoming digitized, what should be done for “those for whom there is no longer any work”?
In Switzerland, there was recently a referendum about the unconditional basic income. At least 23% of the citizens voted for it. Even I assent the idea for a basic income is basically plausible. Furthermore, I believe in 10 years the discussion about it will be far more ahead than now.
In response to a question about the effect of a basic income on attitudes toward work, Schwab asserts that a basic income could be seen as recognition for certain types of work, such as care work, that are important to society but currently paid relatively low wages:
I deny that people would then put their hands in their lap and sit lazily at home. A nurse in Germany with 2000 euros gross pay might today feel worn out. If, however, she were to receive a basic income, she might see it as recognition, and she would have a different basic attitude towards her work. In the future, if jobs are swept away due to digitalization, we need on the other hand a humanization of society. Industrial jobs will be gone, but there will be more social work to be done, like medical and health care.
The World Economic Forum is best known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Held each year in January, the Davos meeting brings together approximately 2,500 invited guests, comprising top business executives, political leaders, and distinguished academics, for a series of panels and discussions of pressing global economic, political, and social issues.
The Davos meeting itself has already proven receptive to discussions of basic income. This year, the event will include a panel on basic income, featuring BIEN cofounder Guy Standing. Last year, the event held a forum on a “world without work”, in which Nobel laureate Sir Christopher Pissarides expressed support for a basic income guarantee, and was the site of the dancing “robots for basic income”.
Full interview with Schwab (in German):
Hannes Koch and Jörg Quoos “Schwab: ‘Gewinner müssen mit Verlierern solidarisch sein’,” Hamburger Abendblatt, January 9, 2017.
Translation assistance by Ronald Heinrich. Reviewed by Danny Pearlberg.
Photo CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 World Economic Forum
by Kate McFarland | Dec 27, 2016 | News
The 2017 Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum is to include a panel on basic income, in which BIEN’s Guy Standing will be participating.
Guy Standing (credit: Enno Schmidt)
BIEN co-founder Guy Standing (Professorial Research Associate at SOAS, University of London) has been invited to speak at the next meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, which will take place from January 17 to 20, 2017.
The editor of The Economist will interview Standing on the precariat on January 17. Additionally, Standing will take part in a session on basic income on January 18.
By invitation only, the WEF’s annual Davos conference brings together over 2000 CEOs, political leaders, distinguished academics, and other “notables”, and has come to be regarded as one of the most elite economic and political conferences in the world.
World Economic Forum blog contributions
In connection with his invitation to Davos, Standing has authored an article on basic income for the WEF’s blog (“The precariat, populism and robots: is basic income a political imperative?“). In it, Standing presents a series of justifications for basic income.
First, and most importantly, Standing argues that a basic income is owed to all as a matter of social justice: “Land, natural resources, and ideas that become ‘intellectual property’ are all part of society’s collective wealth, created and nurtured by generations of our ancestors. So, it is reasonable to argue that everybody should have a modest share, a social dividend, in the form of an equal, modest, individual, unconditional basic income.”
Standing contends that “all assets, including intellectual property, are resources to which all of society has legitimate claim”–recommending, for example, a “special levy on income generated by patents, copyright and other forms of intellectual property” to pay into a sovereign wealth fund.
Additionally, Standing argues that a basic income promotes individual freedom and security–noting that economic security is a requirement for rational decision-making–and removes the poverty and “precarity” traps in current welfare systems. (A precarity trap exists when a would-be worker decides not to accept short-term employment due to delays in benefits processing or other complications that encourage avoidance of temporary changes in benefits status. In this way, existing welfare systems often discourage temporary work.)
Standing also points out that a basic income would be seen as remunerating unpaid labor–and that this, in turn, could encourage more environmentally sustainable lifestyles.
“Care work, voluntary work, community work and the ‘work’ many do in retraining are all statistically unrecognised today, but they are socially valuable, and are not resource depleting, unlike many forms of labour. A basic income would tilt the economic system towards socially and ecologically sustainable growth.”
Finally, although he seems to regard it as a comparatively weaker argument, Standing concludes by claiming that the automation argument–that is, that a basic income is necessary as insurance against a robot job takeover–“should not be dismissed”.
“The precariat, populism and robots: is basic income a political imperative?“ (December 20) is the final article in a three-part series:
The first, “Meet the precariat, the new global class fuelling the rise of populism” (November 9), describes the characteristics and structure of the precariat.
The second, “The 5 biggest lies of global capitalism“ (December 12), discusses “rentier capitalism” — a system in which increasing shares of wealth accrue to those who hold property from which they can extract rents — and explains how (in Standing’s view) it sits at the heart of contemporary economic inequities.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan.
Davos photo CC BY 2.0 WebRatio Communications.
by Hilde Latour | Dec 9, 2016 | News
“The Earth offers enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed” is the opening sentence of the election-program of the Party for the Animals (“Partij voor de Dieren”, PvdD). This document has been released in advance of the Dutch parliamentary elections, which will be held on March 15th, 2017.
One would expect huge attention to be paid to environmental issues in the election-program of the PvdD, but economic issues also receive extensive attention. In fact, its first chapter is titled “Economy and Labour, Your Money or Your Life?”
According to the PvdD, the economic crisis was not caused by scarcity, but by flaws in the economic system. They argue that we are capable of producing all we need very efficiently – with ever decreasing demands on labour – which offers great opportunity to spend more time on caring for each other, our environment and ourselves. However, we have organized our economy in such a way that spending time on these latter goods is in fact increasingly difficult. People are forced to work more rather than less. Many people are excluded and production and consumption are forced to grow, regardless of the demands of the people. Labour is very expensive due to taxes which employers as well as employees have to pay, while at the same time being abundantly available. In contrast, raw materials are scarce but cheap and their mining causes imbalances in nature.
“The current economic system causes growth-and-debt slavery, on account of which everything will jam. We will have to organize this differently,” PvdD states in its program.
PvdD proposes making labour cheaper and non-sustainable goods more expensive. Shorter working hours should be available for everyone, they argue, which will help to tackle unemployment and create possibilities to combine paid labour with other activities, such as care work, parenting or voluntary work. PvdD strives for “a society in which paid labour is no longer seen as the only or most important goal in life”.
Party for the Animals sees an unconditional basic income as a possible solution:
“A basic income for everyone will have to be seriously investigated. With such an income we can perform work and activities that today remain untouched because we don’t have time for them or because they are too expensive. […] A basic income could allow a lot more activities that are beneficial to society to be developed.”
According to the PvdD, polls say 19% of Dutch voters are considering voting for the party in the upcoming elections.
Info and links
The election program of PvdD can be found here (in Dutch)
Photo: topheader international website Party for the Animals
Special thanks to Josh Martin and Genevieve Shanahan for reviewing this article
by Kate McFarland | Oct 28, 2016 | News
The Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean has recently produced a report in which it recommends a universal and unconditional basic income as one measure to promote the equality and autonomy of women.
The Thirteenth Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), was held in Montevideo, Uruguay from October 25-28. It brought together politicians and policy researchers with expertise in the rights and welfare of women in the region.
In the 150-page report titled “Equality and women’s autonomy in the sustainable development agenda”, conference participants discuss their policy recommendations to ensure the equality, autonomy, and empowerment of women.
While the report covered a wide range of policy areas, its section on women’s economic equality and independence is particularly noteworthy for Basic Income News–since, in addition to other reforms, it clearly recommends a universal and unconditional basic income (cf. pp. 50-51).
The report notes that women often “face the most vulnerable and precarious [economic] situations” and thus stand to benefit considerably from a basic income (p. 50).
Summarizing the impact of basic income, the authors write:
While the basic income would not resolve all the problems caused by inequality and the sexual division of labour (as this would require broader structural reform covering different variables), it would have some positive effects, including: (i) increasing women’s freedom by giving them economic independence; (ii) reducing the feminization of poor households; (iii) distributing domestic and care work better, as a basic income would increase women’s bargaining power. In addition, women would gain not only in economic terms but also in terms of rights and autonomy (Raventós and Wark, 2016). The introduction of a universal basic income for women would have at least three further outcomes: (i) a more balanced distribution of resources; (ii) recognition of gender equality by guaranteeing a basic income for both sexes; (iii) enhancing women’s individuality and hence the possibility of furthering women’s representation.
A minimum wage policy, coupled with a basic income policy, would create synergy, helping to increase women’s economic autonomy and to improve distributive equality in countries of the region; in turn, this would contribute to sustainable development (p. 51).
In addition to basic income and a minimum wage, the report calls for a reduction in work hours, which would permit more women to balance employment with domestic work, while also allowing men to devote greater time to childrearing, housework, and so forth.
Elsewhere in the report, while summarizing a range of programs to combat poverty, the authors mention (in passing) “the possibility of recognizing the right to a guaranteed basic income as a new human right” (p. 41).
This is not the first time in recent months that ECLAC has recommended a basic income. In its position document released in May, ECLAC encouraged its member states to investigate the possibility of adopting a basic income guarantee (here presented chiefly as a response to technologically-driven unemployment and instability). The commission’s recommendations have been instrumental in the movement in Mexico City to secure a basic income as a constitutionally-recognized right.
In past years, ECLAC has also been a participant at BIEN’s biennial Congress (2014) and released a report specifically on basic income (2010).
Reviewed by Robert Gordon.
Photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 World Bank Photo Collection.
