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:
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
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
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.
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in February 2010.
This issue, Volume 11, Number 55, marks the tenth anniversary of the USBIG Newsletter. The USBIG Network began over breakfast at the Kiev dinner in New York City in December 1999. Five people attended the first meeting: Fred Block (a sociologist at University of California-Davis), Charles M.A. Clark (an economist at St. John’s University), Michael A. Lewis (sociologist, then at State University of New York-Stony Brook, now at Hunter College), Pam Donavan (sociologist then at City University of New York-Graduate Center, now at Bloomsburg University) and me, Karl Widerquist (then an economist at the Levy Institute of Bard College, now a philosopher at Georgetown University-Qatar).
Pam Donovan, Michael A. Lewis, and I had been graduate students together at the City University of New York. We used to meet weekly to discuss our work. Usually, we ended up arguing about politics. One day we discovered that the one policy we could all agree on was the basic income, and so Michael Lewis and I decided to write a paper about it. We gradually got involved with the Basic Income European Network (BIEN), which had been providing a forum for dialogue on basic income in Europe. There were several natural networks in Europe at the time, but there was no equivalent in the United States. Through BIEN we got in touch with Fred Block and Charles M.A. Clark, who had both been doing research on basic income in the United States.
When Fred Block was in town for a conference, we all decided to meet for breakfast. There was no agenda or anything, but the next thing I knew we had decided to create a network, and I had volunteered to write its newsletter. Ten years later, I’m still writing that newsletter. It began with a circulation of about 30 people, including the five of us from the meeting. Since then it has grown to nearly a thousand people.
We called the new organization “the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network,” (The USBIG Network or just USBIG for short). We chose that name partly because “basic income guarantee” (BIG) as a generic term that includes various specific versions, such as “basic income,” “negative income tax,” and “guaranteed income.” Also, it makes a nice acronym and the domain name www.usbig.net was available. We took on only one goal: to increase discussion of the basic income guarantee in the United States.
We started the network with a small seminar series in New York City in 2000, and in 2002 we began holding yearly conferences. We are now preparing for our ninth conference, which will be our first joint conference with the new Canadian basic income network, known as BIEN Canada.
Over the last ten years, interest in the basic income guarantee has grown steadily around the world. The Basic Income European Network expanded to become the Basic Income Earth Network, and USBIG became one of its first non-European affiliates. More books and articles on BIG are published each year. Basic Income Studies has become the first academic journal focusing entirely on basic income. Palgrave-MacMillan is now preparing an entire book series on BIG. The first books in the series are expected to be released in 2011 or 2012.
The USBIG Network has chosen to remain a nonpartisan discussion group, but there are political action groups in the United States that are pushing for basic income as part of their agenda.
BIG occasionally springs up as a live political issue in surprising places. The only existing BIG in the world, the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend, continues to be an enormously popular policy. Two members of the U.S. House of representatives signed on to the idea in 2006; several other members of Congress have endorsed it in roundabout ways—by endorsing a cap-and-dividend or an oil dividend for Iraq. There are senators pushing for it in Canada and Brazil. More than two-dozen members of the German Bundestag are committed to the idea. A Namibian organization has just completed a two-year pilot project on BIG. And so on. And so on.
Writing the USBIG Newsletter has been an interesting experiment. At first I didn’t think there could possibly be enough news about BIG to report in regular issues, but instead I quickly became overwhelmed by how much activity is going on in the world. Somehow, I’ve managed to condense a significant portion of it into the Newsletter. Thanks to the miracle of the internet I’ve been able to work on the USBIG newsletter in New York; New Orleans; England; the far north of Sweden; Hong Kong; Brazil; Qatar; and I can’t even remember where else.
On the whole I think I’ve kept my reporting accurate, but I can recall a few embarrassing errors—such as the time I identified a British MP as being from Australia. I’ve enjoyed reporting on the progress of BIG movements around the world. I’ve enjoyed meeting all the interesting who work on this issue. I’ve suffered through writing obituaries for friends I’ve gotten to know in the movement.
I hope when I look back ten years from now, I’ll remember reporting on the introduction of the world’s second basic income guarantee, somewhere in the world.
-Karl Widerquist, in flight over the Atlantic, February 24, 2010 (revised, March 15, 2010, Doha, Qatar)
David Calnitsky has recently published a paper analyzing the impact of basic income on the labor market, on the Socio-Economic Review Journal. The Abstract reads as follows:
“How do firms react when the whole labor force has access to a guaranteed income? One view argues that the guaranteed income is an employer subsidy, facilitating low wages and a ‘low-road’ industrial strategy. The second view suggests that in providing an alternative to work, the guaranteed income tightens labor markets and pulls wages up. This article examines the impact of an understudied social experiment from the late 1970s called the Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment, or Mincome. This research focuses on Mincome’s ‘saturation’ site, the town of Dauphin, Manitoba, where all residents were eligible for unconditional payments. Using an archived survey of local firms that inquires into wage rates, applications, hiring, and work hours, I find support for the second view. I close by examining the mechanisms behind the employer subsidy argument and considering the conditions under which a variety of income-support policies might increase or decrease wages, and more broadly, foster compromise or conflict in the labor market.”
Calnitsky concludes in this article that it is unlikely that business organizations will come to support basic income, if it can be shown to increase the bargaining power of workers. However, dependent on certain implementation details, basic income can be made to facilitate exploitation by employers, rather than obstruct it. For instance, if it replaces some welfare state functions, leaving people less economically safe as a result, and hence more vulnerable to (economical) abuse. At the very end, he also reminds readers that support for basic income may be more efficient if made upon “the policy features themselves, rather than a generic proposal suffering from overly malleable and mutable definitions.”
The India Network for Basic Income recently released two new YouTube videos aiming to highlight issues around universal basic income (UBI). The first, which lasts slightly over one minute, addresses the payment of UBI to women, and makes the argument that, as women frequently do unpaid work such as childcare or housekeeping, providing them with a regular income does not count as giving them “free money”, but rather as recognising the work they already do. The second video, which is somewhat longer at over six minutes, deals with a research project on UBI which took place from 2011 to 2013, and with a recent follow-up to this which aimed to look at the long-term effects of the original experiment.
The India Network for Basic Income is the Indian affiliate of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN).
The Democratic Party in California is supporting Universal Basic Income (UBI). It is now public that people like Elon Musk have supported the initiative, mainly justified through job losses due to automation.
However, this of course leads to questions about the source of the influence that is supporting a basic income in the California Democratic Party, which has adopted on the 25th of February its official 2018 Platform.
In the Californian Democratic Party scene, UBI is mainstream, apparently, since it now features in the Platform, but not in the US as a whole. Since politicians with a Democratic label have to read and support the party policies, one may conclude that the UBI concept has gained traction in the Californian state, at least.
A growing cohort of young political activist leaders have been adopting UBI in their political campaigns. One such examples is 27-year-old Michael Tubbs, the present mayor of Stockton, California. He has promoted and launched a pilot project in Stockton municipality (funded by the Economic Security Project).
Region 5 (a congressional district) Director for the California Democratic Party, Rocky Fernandez, said that he has been talking about UBI for several years. Bob Wieckowski has also played an important leadership role in having basic income become concrete and part of the platform. The UBI platform proposal went through and “was passed,” in the convention by “thousands of party delegates”.
UBI has now a main statement in the Economic Justice section of the California Democratic Party platform. However, the same platform reinforces traditional Democratic values, which focus on jobs to further economic mobility for all Americans. The Party platform justifies the UBI in order to eliminate poverty, while simultaneously supporting efforts to establish government guaranteed jobs, that will “help people climb the economic ladder.” This could be interpreted as being willing to secure basic economic conditions for all people, while not trusting that these people will work if they get to be economically secure.
