by Roland Duchatelet | Sep 19, 2016 | Opinion
Social security emerged in Western Europe with voluntary solidarity contributions within labour unions in the late 19th century developing into a mandatory insurance contribution organised by the state in 1950. A mandatory insurance payable to the state is a tax, in this case a tax on labour. Because the employer pays all if it, it does not matter if legislation categorises it as employee’s contribution or employer’s contribution.
In addition, the 20th century saw the birth of a new type of tax: the income tax, designed to capture the total income of wealthy people. However, after 1950 the income tax started to hit the rising incomes of the working class. It became the second component of the tax on labour. Zero in 1930, insignificant in 1950, the total tax on labour is now by far the most important tax income for Western European states. It varies between 50 to 200 percent of the net labour income of the workers, making the cost of labour on average twice as high compared to what the worker gets.
The history of its creation explains why social security is linked to labour participation. The political class assimilates “job creation” to welfare: the more people work, and the longer they do, the more taxes are paid and the better for the state budget. This thinking induced many countries to increase the age of retirement. Obliging older people to work longer when there is a five-fold increase of unemployed young people waiting for a job, is absurd. It is an example of wrong collective thinking by people indoctrinated by the “Labour Church”, because they assume “full employment” is still possible.
In the cultural sector, the high tax on labour is a problem. We can watch fantastic artists for free on television. High taxes on labour increase the wage cost of artists. Most local performances cannot compete unless they get subsidies, which is now current practice in most Western European countries. Would it not be more straightforward to have no taxes and no subsidies in the cultural sector?
Education and healthcare are heavily subsidised in many countries to cover the cost of their employees including the tax on their labour and other expenses. Their net finances would be the same if taxes on labour would be set to zero and subsidies lowered with the same amount.
Same for services completely paid by our tax money like police, justice, the military, federal and local administration: the labour tax cost included into the payroll expenditure of the state is paid and collected by the state, the same wallet. Setting their labour tax to zero would not affect their net finances.
In Western Europe, 40 to 50 percent of employment is publicly funded which means the corresponding labour tax has no effect on net state receipts.
For a state, the real proceeds of labour tax come from the non-subsidised private sector. Hence, the proceeds are much lower than what policymakers are tempted to believe while looking at public accounts which provide gross rather than netted labour tax income figures.
Meanwhile, the high tax on labour effectively increases the cost of services for those who want their shoes, a washing machine or a bike to be repaired. Mind that the “Labour Church” does not allow citizens to trade services. Services should be acquired from service companies because allowing citizen’s to work for each other by exchanging services would be unfair competition to the firms selling such services.
These firms charge a labour cost at least twice as high as what their workers get, because of the tax on labour. This higher price obviously reduces the demand for repair services and many people try to paint their house themselves, maintain their garden themselves and their kids drive bikes without proper lights or brakes. The tax on labour reduces exchange of services, hence it reduces the creation of wealth in the proximity economy.
In Western Europe, the labour Church created this barrier to social inclusion by segregating contractual labour from voluntary and informal work. Helping each other in an informal way, like our grandparents did, is not permitted anymore: the labour tax collectors are chasing offenders. However, poor people can get help from subsidised workers if they successfully find and convince the right state personnel that they are really poor. Clearly, the economic religion put in place by the “Labour Church” does not empower the population to help each other.
Would it not be more effective to convert the directive, complex, fraud-prone and costly social security allowance system into its basic income equivalent and allow the social economy to thrive again by allowing people to work for each other in an informal way, like our ancestors did until 50 years ago?
by Kate McFarland | Sep 17, 2016 | News
Reinvent has produced a video series called the “This Future of Sharing”. Several guests in the series — including Andy Stern, Robin Chase, and Natalie Foster — speak about the benefits of a universal basic income in light of the flourishing of the “sharing economy” in the United States.
In the US, one of the striking economic changes over the past decade has been the rise of the so-called “sharing economy” — also known as (or closely related to what’s known as) the ‘collaborative economy’, ‘on-demand economy’, ‘access economy’, ‘peer economy’, and many other terms — exemplified by such services as Uber and AirBnb.
The YouTube channel Reinvent has recently produced a series called the “This Future of Sharing“, consisting of extensive one-on-one video interviews with a variety of noted individuals who have thought in-depth about the implications of the sharing economy.
According to the description of the video series:
This Future of Sharing project sets out to answer the key question: How can we make the sharing economy work better for everyone? We’re going to spend 2016 in conversation with thought leaders who deeply understand the sharing economy and its potential, as well as the people who run and understand cities, including those wary of any excesses and rough edges.
While it also encompasses many other topics, the series includes several interviews that directly engage with the idea of universal basic income, including the following three.
• Andrew Stern, “A Proposal for Universal Basic Income from the Former President of SEIU” (published July 20, 2016):
Andrew Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and author of Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream, believes a universal basic income is the best way for the United States to deal with massive changes in our economy—changes that will only be exacerbated by increasing automation.
• Robin Chase, “Speeding the Pace of Evolution to Avoid Revolution” (published June 9, 2016):
Zipcar Co-Founder Robin Chase believes the status quo is broken, and that sharing economy platforms—which she refers to as “peers inc”—are part of the solution. Chase chose this terminology because of the mutual importance of what she sees as two halves of the equation: the platform and the peers.
Chase brings up UBI around 35 minutes into the interview, stating that it’s part of the solution, but cautioning that it should not be considered as a stand-alone policy. (She adds that we would still need universal health care and universal child care.)
Beginning at around 37 minutes, Chase describes her reasons to support UBI in some detail: in brief, a guaranteed basic income would provide one with the ability to refuse bad jobs, pursue one’s passions (including passions that are not readily monetized), and perform multiple jobs if one wishes, exploring new interests and engaging multiple facets of one’s personality.
• Natalie Foster, “Creating New Norms for the Way We Work Today” (published July 27, 2016):
Co-Founder of Peers.org Natalie Foster is a strong proponent of creating a new social safety net outside the bounds of traditional employment. Even if we wanted to bring back the unionized jobs that built the American middle class, Foster says, we can’t. “Work is shifting away from protected jobs, and towards service and retail sectors.”
Foster mentions UBI near the very end of the interview, after being asked about automation. She describes the policy as the “ultimate” portable benefit (portability having been a major theme of the preceding conversation).
Reviewed by Cameron McLeod
Zipcar lot photo CC BY 2.0 Timothy Vollmer
This basic income news made possible in part by Kate’s supporters on Patreon
by Florie Barnhoorn | Sep 15, 2016 | Opinion
Last August 21, the Dutch woke to find an interesting article in their morning paper, written by Mrs. Annemarie van Gaal. In her weekly Monday column she suggested abolishing the AOW and all other income schemes for individuals above 60 years of age, with their unworkable obligations, bureaucratic regulations, and fees and punishments. Instead, AOW recipients would receive an unconditional basic income of €1100 to €1200 a month. This would greatly decrease the seriousness in which they need to take these 9 considerations to make before you retire into account, decreasing worries and stress for the elderly.
For many people, the article came as a surprise, because it was published in the daily journal, De Telegraaf (The Telegraph), which is legendary for its right-wing liberal and right-wing populist bias. And a recent poll among right-wing voters revealed that the majority do not approve of the idea of a basic income.
The Dutch abbreviation ‘AOW’ means ‘Algemene Ouderdomswet‘ – the 1956 law installed a state pension for the elderly, above the age of 65. From 2016 onwards, the retirement age is expected to increase quickly: to the age of 66 in 2018, and to 67 in 2021. And as of 2022, entering the AOW scheme will be linked to the average life expectancy. This brings to attention another point, and that’s life insurance. People heading towards retirement should be considering setting up a life insurance policy with help from companies like az money, and they should be doing this well before they are claiming a pension. With the uncertain health effects of a prolonged working life, seniors unfortunately need to start thinking about what will happen to their families when they die.
The plan for the increase of the pension age was agreed upon by the current coalition of VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) and PvdA (Labour Party) in order to cut government spending. These austerity measures are expected to save the Treasury €3.6 billion by 2024. De Telegraaf was a vocal supporter of the increase in the retirement age.
Mrs. van Galen is a well-known TV personality and businesswoman. In her television program, she teaches benefit claimants how to get a job. She demonstrates how much money the candidate will earn from accepting certain kinds of work, sends him to intensive job application training, and gives him a full makeover: a new haircut, new clothes, and if necessary, new teeth. Dress for success!
Her suggested basic income plan is very appealing because it would affect two major social problems in Dutch society.
The first problem concerns the growing group of people over 60 who have lost their jobs, often in the crisis of 2008-2009, and during the austerity measures that followed.
As Mrs. van Gaal puts it:
The unemployed above 60 are not to be envied. Unemployment among this group has never been so high. Their whole life they worked hard. Now they have lost their work and as a consequence have to deal with sharply declining living standards, whereas their chances to find a new full-time job is nearly zero, so the years to come will be full of uncertainty before they get the state pension (AOW), and what at that time will be left of their saved pensions?
Despite their dire prospects, the UWV (Employee Insurance Schemes Implementing Body) requires that the unemployed over 60 continues to apply for jobs, whether they can or not. The meager allowances of those who don’t (or can’t) are cut down or withdrawn. In other countries such as America, it can become a lot worse, elderly citizens with no allowances or health care end up forgotten about, without insurance these elderly are very prone to medical emergencies, requiring the aging population to think about insurance early on in their lives. When it comes to dental insurance for seniors, PPOs are the most common insurance plan. They offer a network of preselected dentists that they can choose from. Only if they were to visit one of those dentists will they save money. Otherwise, the elderly population has minimal options when it comes to oral healthcare. Is this how it is looking for the Dutch?
But for businesses to take on an older applicant, the ten different allowances and arrangements assigned to them creates a process so complicated that it’s frequently necessary to hire a third party simply to manage the process. Creating this kind of bureaucracy in the workplace does no one any good, and is certainly no way to encourage employment.
In recent years, the Dutch government has pumped hundreds of millions of euros into job training, networking events, and other arrangements for the older and unemployed. And the effectiveness of these measures is yet unknown, says the Court of Audit, and is hardly expected to dramatically increase employment prospects anytime soon.
The second issue with AOW, is that it’s almost an unconditional income – the state pension is dependant on your living situation. If you are going to live with another person, whether it is a partner, a family member who provides care, or a lodger, you are financially punished, whereas if you choose assisted living you may receive more. And if you have little or no saved pension, pension benefits as supplements are means-tested, so to earn some extra money is nearly impossible. The healthy and elderly will not move in with their children, for example, to babysit the grandchildren, because their income will only be reduced. Strange, indeed, because it would save the government a great amount spent on medical expenses and childcare allowances.
Mrs. van Gaal:
Ultimately, a basic income is the best route for the future, so let’s introduce it on a limited scale, namely into the group aged 60 years and above, regardless of [if] they work or not, irrespective of their living conditions. [And] if you live with another 60 plus [you would] have twice that amount. Look after your grandchildren, start volunteering, help your neighbors, go traveling or take up a small job for a few hours per week. I’m sure we will [have] a much better society. All seniors will take part in society without restrictions and rules, without being cut and without compromising. How nice.
The reaction to Mrs. van Gaal’s column was overwhelming. Within a few hours she was invited onto several talk shows, and many websites took notice of the column and hundreds of comments appeared online. One site recommended appointing her as the first female Prime Minister of The Netherlands.
However, in stark contrast, some politicians reacted bleakly to the proposal. After all, they had worked hard (and were well paid) to develop and defend the new retirement pension scheme and all other relevant legislation. Coalition partners, VVD and PvdA, consider the plan too radical, too expensive and ‘the wrong solution’ to this particular problem. The VVD even said it ‘abhors’ the idea of a basic income. One of their MP’s pointed out that society should not exclude the elderly, and that according to him, that’s what a basic income does. “Then we say to the elderly: you are no longer needed and that is not true. Their knowledge and experience are highly valued in the workplace.”
Norbert Klein, the leader of the Vrijzinnige Partij (Cultural Liberal Party), a party with one seat [in the Tweede Kamer], is pleased with the ideas of Van Gaal – but the plans do not go far enough for him. He has written a memorandum that calls for an unconditional basic income for every Dutch citizen from the age of 18 onwards. On September 19th this memorandum will be discussed with members for the Committee for Social Affairs and Employment of the Second Chamber of Parliament and the Minister for Social Affairs and Employment, Lodewijk Asscher of the PvdA.
Several organizations as well are not very sympathetic to the idea of an unconditional basic income for the 60 plus. “Mrs. van Gaal acts as an elephant in a China shop,” said a spokeswoman for the Unie-KBO, the union for the elderly, “but we are pleased with all the attention [these urgent matters are receiving].” Nibud, the National Institute for Family Finance Information, considers €1100 or €1200 too low to cover all household costs.
But a huge amount of readers reacted positively and enthusiastically. “An idea which is very close to my heart”, commented someone. “Abolish the bureaucracy for 60 plus,” another responded, “finally, someone who really understands the problems of older unemployed”. Readers, too, hinted at a political career for the Telegraaf columnist. “This is a plan which a sane man cannot ignore. Better and more pleasant than the plans that are figured out by the pundits in The Hague. The government may try to increase job opportunity for this group, but now it is clear that this policy fails.”
Annemarie van Gaal:
Dutch people want a simpler society. No more complicated rules, no hassle with endless discounts or correct taxes. We want it to be simpler, easier to understand and implement for everyone. The introduction of an unconditional basic income is inevitable over time. Utopia? No, it just requires some guts of our government.
Reviewed by Cameron McLeod
by Guest Contributor | Sep 12, 2016 | Opinion
Basic Income Québec (RBQ) and the French Movement for a Basic Income (MFRB) had been preparing for the World Social Forum (WSF) event for almost a year. Their efforts paid off – the activities organized by the France-Québec team were an unmitigated success. For the first time ever, basic income achieved prominence at WSF, reflecting the growing worldwide interest in the idea.
A successful opening march with basic income robots that did not go unnoticed
The six members of the MFRB delegation teamed up with their counterparts of RBQ in order to organize several initiatives centered on basic income at the WSF in Montreal.
A wild workshop, a prelude to the Create-a-thon planned for Tuesday, August 9th, led to the creation of two robots (a concept developed by the MFRB local group of Lyon) along with signs and ponchos for the opening march taking place that day in Montreal, from Lafontaine Park to the Place des Arts that attracted about 15,000 people.
Marcus Brancaglione, Brazilian guest from the ReCivitas association, joined the jubilant “gang” of dozen-or-so activists who merrily spread the word about the program for the week, inviting passersby to come and take part in the workshops, conferences and debates.
The robots attracted quite a bit of attention. They were a big hit…or as the co-founder of RBQ (Luc Gosselin) put it, they “made a splash,” using a Quebec expression. They served as a rallying point throughout the week.
On the morning of August 10th, the group took possession of the two rooms that were graciously provided by the University of Quebec in Montréal (UQAM), enabling them to welcome more than two hundred motivated participants during the three days (excluding the Grand Conference).
Create-a-thon. Eighteen hours of creation. Fourteen stories from around the world.
The creation marathon was organized by the RBQ team. This two-and-a-half day event began with Lenny Watson’s presentation on the first Create-a-thons organized in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Finland.
Following an exchange between participants, an idea emerged. Inspired by a participant’s story about her mother, they began collecting stories of people they knew and explaining how a basic income would change their lives.
They started filming the next day. Aurélie Hampel handled video while Louise Allaire did the scripting and by day’s end 14 stories had been made, thanks to the many people who dropped by. Each told their story, stories from around the world, in their own language: in English, French or Portuguese.
On Friday, Aurélie and Louise pulled out the key themes and words from these stories. They were grouped into five chapters.
The following themes were chosen:
A basic income… when life is merciless
A basic income… to find one’s place in life
A basic income… in case of extreme poverty
A basic income… freedom to choose your own path in life
A basic income…to provide end-of-life care for loved ones
Teaser: https://youtu.be/wpKPSuSmZT4
All videos will be available on the MFRB YouTube channel, by the International Basic Income Week.
Ğeconomicus
The goal of the Ğeconomicus workshops was to promote the idea of changing our money system to bring about basic income without getting mired in politics and to start changing our debt-money-induced behaviour.
Carole Fabre and Damien Vasse hosted two game sessions, testing different monetary systems through card-playing. To sum up, each player exchanged cards with others to form squares. Each square represented a created value and was accounted for with a piece of candy (a new candyless version is possible. See website).The number of created value was tallied up at the end.
Human lifespan was introduced to test monetary exchange systems while keeping the same markers introduced in the Théorie relative de la monnaie by Stéphane Laborde.
With two and a half hours set aside for each workshop, they changed the rules and reduced human lifespan to 60 years as well as the duration of each round of play. They then played using a monetary system based on debt–today’s current system – and using a monetary system based on basic income and open money. Other systems could also be tested, such as barter and mutual credit, but they were unable to do so due to time constraints.
This game helps us understand how the structure of the monetary system affects our behaviors and exchanges.
Debt-money is boisterous and full of competition, trickery and knavery. With open money, tensions subside after two rounds, cooperation emerges and the ambiance changes. They were able to set aside over half an hour at the end of each workshop for a post-game discussion and debate. It was very rewarding each time, as people became aware of the debt-money trap and the unbelievable power of banks. With basic income in money creation, people saw that it was still possible to create value, but with a different behavior.
Co-creating our basic income using open money is finally possible, thanks to Duniter, an open money generator that took four years of work by developers and coders to make it fully operational. Now that it has proven successful in computer simulations, it is ready for the real world. The game provides an opportunity to show people that the system works and that it is up to us to make it happen.
Convergence Assembly: From realistic utopia to public policy
The two convergence assemblies were developed and facilitated in cooperation with Pierre Barbès and Gilles Charest, sociocracy experts at l’École Internationale des Chefs. The aim was for these meetings to be as inclusive as possible and to make people aware of the working methods we used by the MFRB, with a focus on sociocracy.
Right, Pierre Barbès,speaker and author, certified in sociocracy and community spirit development.
The conference ended with a round table giving everyone a chance to share what they gained from the workshop.
Convergence Assembly: “Income: A non-medical remedy?”
The idea for the assembly came from the Forum’s Health Space Committee, which two members of Basic Income Quebec took part in. The committee consisted of Quebec health professionals. RBQ wanted to ensure that one of the determinants of health – income – would be discussed and that everyone knew about the proven efficiency of basic income in areas where pilots had been conducted. Committee members were very receptive to the idea, as many of them were already familiar with the concept of basic income.
RBQ considers it as an important strategic step in Quebec. The group would like to see Quebec health professionals adopt a position in favor of basic income, just like their English Canada counterparts, both within their organizations and individually. The English group played a key role in the Ontario government’s decision to launch a basic income pilot, which is currently being developed.
The meeting reflected the keen interest in basic income by people from different countries who are primarily concerned with health, either as professionals or as citizens. Various courses of action were suggested.
Workshop: “On the Equitable Sharing of Wealth: Considering a Universal Basic Income and Maximum Wealth”
Many people pre-registered for this workshop as soon as it was announced, and it drew an at-capacity crowd. Wealth-sharing is an issue that has been addressed in various ways at the Forum. A universal allowance (or basic income) is an often-mentioned way to perform this sharing function in our societies. Maximum wealth has the same goal, but is less present in the public space. As a result, the majority of participants came to the workshop with a better grasp of basic income than maximum wealth. The similarities between the two ideas generated a lot of interest and lively debate with both facilitators, Alexandre Chabot-Bertrand and Christian Jobin. The exchanges continued long after the workshop had ended.
Grand Conference: Basic Income, a Major Social Innovation for the 21st Century?
Watch the conference video: https://youtu.be/tEumE1N1E0Y
The activities were concluded with a grand conference attended by nearly 500 people on the evening of Friday, August 12th. The speakers, each from a different country and approaching the issue of basic income from different perspectives, made quite an impression by their presence, their passion for the issue and their humor.
The conference began with a video from South African partner, Nkateko Chauke, Basic Income Grant Campaign Coordinator for the SADC (South African Development Community, which includes fifteen countries ranging from Tanzania to South Africa)
The conference began with a video from South African partner, Nkateko Chauke, Basic Income Grant Campaign Coordinator for the SADC (South African Development Community, which includes fifteen countries ranging from Tanzania to South Africa), who unfortunately was not able to attend. Watch the video here.
Rutger Bregman, Dutch journalist and author who recently published his book, Utopia for Realists: A Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-hour Workweek, led off the discussion by addressing basic income from a labor perspective
Rutger Bregman, Dutch journalist and author who recently published his book, Utopia for Realists: A Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-hour Workweek, led off the discussion by addressing basic income from a labor perspective. He questioned the moral imperative to work in a world that promotes the creation of what David Graeber calls bullshit jobs, referring to those pointless jobs, both for the people performing them and for society as a whole.
Karl Widerquist, from the United States and co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), then spoke about the three successive waves of basic income in our history
Karl Widerquist, from the United States and co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), then spoke about the three successive waves of basic income in our history. A first wave took root in the twentieth century (although the idea had already been discussed by the likes of Thomas Paine or Thomas More), especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries with advocates such as Bertrand Russell, George Henry and Virginia Woolf. The arguments at the time dealt primarily with principles of social and agrarian justice. The second wave emerged in the 1960s, with basic income being championed mainly by civil rights activists – Martin Luther King being the most eminent example. We are now in the third wave, which calls into question the current system, the conditionality of social welfare and our response to the changing nature of work. These changes have led to a wider acceptance of the idea, with more and more people showing an interest for it, including politicians and journalists.
Marcus Brancaglione, president of the ReCivitas association, presented the project being conducted in the town of Quatinga Velho in Brazil since 2008
Lastly, to demonstrate the potential of basic income, Marcus Brancaglione, president of the ReCivitas association, presented the project being conducted in the town of Quatinga Velho in Brazil since 2008. Marcus Brancaglione views basic income not just in terms of a pilot project but as a fundamental human right because he believes that poverty exists in society only because we allow it to. Brazil is the first country to have it enshrined in its Constitution as a long-term goal. The time has come to implement it.
The three speakers were very well received by the very engaged and enthusiastic audience. Hundreds of hands were raised throughout the discussion, as a lot of people wanted to ask questions and to share their thoughts on what a basic income would mean for them.
All these wonderful, diversified and varied initiatives helped spread the word about basic income throughout the world, clearly marking this year’s edition of the World Social Forum in Montreal.
Thanks to all those who helped make this event a success for basic income around the world!
The MFRB-RBQ organizing team: Aurélie Hampel, Carole Fabre, Christian Massault, Damien Vasse, Nicole Teke, Sylvie Denisse, Luc Gosselin, Louise Allaire, Lenny Watson and Sylvia Bissonette.
Article translated from French into English by Didier Di Camillo.
by Kate McFarland | Sep 6, 2016 | News
The Fabian Society, a prominent left-wing think tank in the UK, has published a book-length report on recommendations for improving the country’s social insurance, especially for non-pensioners (“For Us All” by Andrew Harrop). Among other topics, the report discusses–but not does not endorse–basic income. As an alternative, its author recommends a universal (but not unconditional) “individual credit” for adults.
In a Fabian Society report published on August 31, general secretary Andrew Harrop advises that the UK not replace existing social insurance benefits with a basic income (which he describes as a “single flat-rate payment for each individual”). His main concerns are that a basic income “would create many losers and would not reduce poverty or improve the incomes of those with least today,” unless there were to be a substantial increase in tax revenue, and that it would not eliminate the need for certain means-tested benefits, especially those related to housing (p. xix).
Harrop does, however, propose a type of universal cash payment that he calls an “individual credit”. All adults would be eligible to receive this payment in addition to Universal Credit payments and child credits for primary guardians. Universal Credit, a centerpiece of Britain’s current system of social insurance, is means-tested — and Harrop believes that retaining and supplementing the policy, rather than replacing it, “would significantly reduce poverty and increase low and middle incomes” (p. xx).
It is worth noting here the fact that the individual credit does not replace all means-tested benefits does not, in itself, imply that it is not a type of “basic income”. In principle, at least, basic income — a universal and unconditional cash payment paid directly to individuals — could be distributed in addition to universal credit or other conditional and means-tested benefits. Indeed, Compass, another British think tank, has recently recommended such a “modified scheme” as a way to introduce a universal basic income in the UK.
However, there are still important differences between Harrop’s individual credits and a basic income. Notably, the scheme that Harrop proposes is not strictly unconditional. He states that “Eligibility for the adult credit should depend on paying direct taxes or on productive participation in society” (p. xx). He elaborates on the “participation requirement” in the section on individual credits:
As a start, it [the credit] should only be available to people who both have a national insurance number and are on the electoral register (or an equivalent register for people without the right to vote). This would promote political participation and reduce the risk of fraud. Except for people with significant disabilities, receipt should also be dependent on either paying a certain amount of income tax or national insurance, or on learning, parenting, caring, job search or work preparation. The policing need not be particularly onerous, but people who refused the offer of a guaranteed job or educational place, after a significant time without working or paying direct taxes, should not continue to receive the credit (pp. 144-5).
Thus, unlike a basic income, the individual credit does carry a work requirement — even if a comparatively lenient and flexible one, which allows exemptions for students, parents, and caregivers.
At the same time, Harrop does not rule out basic income as a potential long-term goal. Indeed, he describes his own proposal as one that might provide a “gradualist, ‘Fabian’ route to creating a full basic income in the distant future”:
It would at least put in place the machinery that would make it possible to make larger universal payments should it be required, becoming an insurance policy in the event of a structural decline in the total hours of work, or of a severe recession which required a fiscal stimulus to support household spending (p. 143).
But paving the way for a basic income is not Harrop’s own goal in proposing individual credits. On the contrary, he goes on to say that “it is better to think of individual credit as ‘child benefit for adults’ not a step towards a basic income – i.e. a universal component in a hybrid system, which also includes contributory and means-tested elements” (pp. 143-4). Elsewhere, he enjoins policymakers to “focus on practical, incremental policy changes which embody something of the spirit of the basic income idea, but make sense as reforms in themselves” (p. 139).
Indeed, Harrop himself seems ambivalent as to whether basic income is a desirable himself endpoint — at one point stating that the case has not yet been settled either way (cf. pp. 137-9). An appendix to the report includes a summary of the reasons for and against a basic income (see Appendix 7, on final page).
In a September 1 interview with The Independent, Labour Party shadow chancellor John McDonnell — a long-time supporter of basic income — referred to the Fabian Society’s report when discussing his intention to continue to push for a universal basic income in the UK:
The Fabian society has just introduced a report today which is looking at reforms to the welfare state and it’s recommending a form of initial basic income for us to explore so we’re going to take that into account. When we look at the experiments that are taking place across Europe at the moment we’ll review those then consider what are options are.
Thus, McDonnell does seem to view Harrop’s proposal as route to basic income — even if Harrop himself deemphasizes this potential facet of the policy. (In the same set of remarks, McDonnell suggests that he also views child benefits, in the form of unconditional cash transfers to primary caretakers, in much the same way — that is, as a type of “initial” basic income.)
The Fabian Society is Britain’s oldest political think tank, founded in 1884. Today, it has approximately 7000 members and 70 local chapters. The society was one of the founders of the UK Labour Party, although it is not organizationally affiliated with the party today.
It summarizes its political mission as follows:
Our commitment to Fabianism means we believe in the fight against inequality, the power of collective action and an internationalist outlook. We believe in social progress, evidence, expertise, rationality and long-termism. We advocate gradualist, reformist and democratic means in a journey towards radical ends. We are a pluralist movement and create space for open debate.
The Fabian Society’s sister organization in Australia (not formally affiliated) recently sponsored a debate in Sydney on the topic of whether Australia should adopt a universal basic income.
To learn more about current basic income schemes proposed in the UK, see the compiled list at Basic Income UK.
References:
Andrew Harrop, For Us All: Redesigning social security, for the 2020s, Fabian Society, 2016.
Ashley Cowburn, “John McDonnell: I will win the argument to give every citizen in the UK a basic income“, The Independent; September 1, 2016.
See also:
Jon Stone, “Tax free allowances ‘must be axed to pay out modest basic income’, radical welfare blueprint suggests“, The Independent; August 30, 2016.
Reviewed by Cameron McLeod
Photo of Fabian Society conference attendees CC BY 2.0 Fabian Society
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