United States: Philosophy class examines universal Basic Income whose time has come

United States: Philosophy class examines universal Basic Income whose time has come

by | Sep 20, 2017 | News

A Stanford University class –available on a podcast replays the 1970s Manitoba, Canada, experiment called “mincome,” on the way to rejoicing in Universal Basic Income.

In the U.S., Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, who according to some is preparing to run for U.S. President, are promoting universal basic income.

What does basic income mean, students ask? The contentious subject raises many questions, such as: would society fall apart because everyone would just hang out on the couch?

The Stanford class seeks to separate the argument that robots will replace 47% of jobs, a prediction that fuels much of Silicon Valley’s support of basic income, from the “paradigm of work” dialogue, according to Juliana Bidadanure, Assistant Professor in Political Philosophy at Stanford University, who is teaching the class.

The podcast studies the observations of many “experts” on culture, race and gender in an effort to separate jobs (wage-work) from understanding the true nature of work. Several contributions are under analysis, such as the following:

– Doug Henwood — Journalist, economic analyst, and writer whose work has been featured in Harper’s, Jacobin Magazine, and The Nation, says if robots were really taking over, there would be a strong productivity growth in the U.S., which is not true, so far;

– Rutger Bregman — Journalist and author of “Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders and a 15-hour Workweek” thinks that if basic income were accomplished by the government printing money, that situation would definitely lead to inflation. But no inflation fears would be attached to a taxation process;

– Kathi Weeks — Marxist, feminist scholar, associate professor of women’s studies at Duke University in North Carolina, and author of “The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries” believes that wage-work is not the only meaningful activity. She points to pre-industrial society as a good example of when wage-work took a backseat to the value of non-paid work;

– Evelyn Forget — Economist and professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba and academic director of the Manitoba Research Data Centre, who first reported the “mincome” data. Forget argues that “mincome” made it possible for single mothers to get off welfare and proudly have a profession.

 

A second podcast will be available that discusses whether universal basic income is the end of capitalism or not.

More information at:

Podcast: Universal Basic Income – An Idea Whose Time Has Come

 

 

 

Germany: Interview with German Parliamentary Candidate Felix Coeln

Germany: Interview with German Parliamentary Candidate Felix Coeln

by | Sep 19, 2017 | Opinion

By Jason Burke Murphy

US Basic Income Guarantee Network

Coming up on September 24th, Germany will be holding national parliamentary elections. A new “single-issue-party” will be on the ballot in every state, the “Alliance for Basic Income” (Bundnis Grundeinkommen). If this party gets five percent of the vote or more, they will have five percent or more of votes in the Bundestag.

The party is building on a movement in Germany that has seen steady growth for years. This campaign is inspired by the initiative in Switzerland and the way that movement promoted discussion all over the world.

Germans vote for their district representative and they cast a “second vote”, which determines the percentage a party has in the Bundestag. You will see the word “Zweitstimme” on almost all Basic Income Alliance campaign material.

North American Basic Income activists and scholars got to meet with Felix Coeln, who is a candidate in Germany, at our Congress in New York in 2015. Coeln was then working with the German Pirate Party. He is busy campaigning but took time to answer a few questions.

Campaign banner. “Basic Income Alliance” “Freedom Meets Justice”

Interview

 

Jason Burke Murphy: Why did you decide to join this new political party?

Felix Coeln: I did not join the party. I am an independent candidate on the list for the national parliament. Since I have been a member of the Pirate Party for three years (until August 2015), but needed to withdraw my membership after some terrible internal party decisions. I did not feel like joining another party.

I also felt I could not yet join because the Basic Income Alliance (Bündnis Grundeinkommen) has in its manifesto a paragraph that I cannot agree with under any circumstances. The party will dissolve after introducing a Basic Income in Germany. To me this is absolutely wrong as I believe it is very important to have parliamentarians to pay attention and make sure the laws regarding Basic Income are not corrupted after some while. I also think it would be important to introduce the Basic Income to the whole European Union. Therefore I think it would be crucial to keep the party together even if Basic Income is introduced at least for some more years, maybe ten or twenty.

Felix Coeln

 

But the Basic Income Alliance is willing to accept independent candidates on their election lists. They want to make sure that Basic Income activists can contribute and bring in their experience to the process of introducing the UBI and/or expand the debate around it.

Murphy: What are your chances of getting elected?

Coeln: German election law asks parties to give lists of candidates for each state, then they send people to the Bundestag based on that percentage. I am #6 on the list in North-Rhine Westfalia. This means that if we pass the 5% threshold, I would join the national Parliament, too.

Murphy: What would you consider to be successful in this upcoming election?

Coeln: I already consider the campaign a full success: by now we have more than 40 parties running for parliament. A lot of them propose UBI. But most of those parties do not have a chance to overcome the 5% threshold.

On the other hand, the public debate has already increased. Some of the long-time established parties have also offered to “check out” UBI models as possible political solutions for future trends of digitalization and advanced productivity. To me this is a direct reaction to the founding of the Basic Income Alliance.

Apart from that, if we exceed half of one percent, the party will be refunded for each valid vote. We would get 0.83 € euro each year until the next election.

If we exceed 3% we will gain some significant media attention and the other political parties will make some effort to develop their concepts of UBI. UBI plans are already ready to be presented to the public. I know this, because I have broad contact to members of all parties.

If we exceed 5% we will enter parliament – and I am pretty sure we would gain a lot of (international) attention.

Campaign Banner. “Basic Income is Electable”

Murphy: Felix Coeln, thank you for speaking with us!

 

If you want more information, we have included some links here:
“GERMANY: Basic Income Party Set to Participate in National Elections” by Kate McFarland for Basic Income News.

GERMANY: Basic Income Party Set to Participate in National Elections

(In German) Founding of the party in September 2016
(“https://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendungen/zuendfunk/politik-gesellschaft/buendnis-grundeinkommen-ihr-habt-ne-partei-100.html“)

(In German) Interview with the party chairwoman, Susanne Wiest. (Wiest started a petition in December 2008 that instantly crashed the Bundestags-Server.)
(“https://www.zeit.de/2017/22/susanne-wiest-bedingungsloses-grundeinkommen“)

A 1-minute news article on German national television.

(“https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/drehscheibe/drehscheibe-clip-4-516.html“)

A commercial broadcast by Bundnis Grundeinkommen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=can_Zg-QeeE

Netzwerk Grundeinkommen: A Basic Income Earth Network Affiliate in Germany.

Roosevelt Institute Report: Modeling the Macroeconomic Effects of UBI

Roosevelt Institute Report: Modeling the Macroeconomic Effects of UBI

by | Sep 10, 2017 | News

On August 29, 2017, the Roosevelt Institute released a report where researchers Michalis Nikiforos, Marshall Steinbaum, Gennaro Zezza model the macroeconomic effects of implementing Basic Income. (Marshall Steinbaum is a Research Director and a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. Michalis Nikiforos and Gennaro Zezza are both associated with the Levy Institute.)

Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt

The Roosevelt Institute, following the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, presents itself as re-imagining “America as it should be: a place where hard work is rewarded, everyone participates, and everyone enjoys a fair share of our collective prosperity”, and as building a “new economic and political system: one built by the many for the good of all”.

 

The report presented by the Roosevelt Institute evaluates three different variations of Basic Income, $1000 a month to all adults, $500 a month to all adults, and a $250 a month child allowance. The researchers also analyzed two different types of funding, increasing the federal debt and increasing taxes on households. The model is designed considering an eight year time period and Basic Income is progressively introduced throughout that period.

 

From their models of the three scenarios, the researchers conclude that, if funded by increasing the federal debt, each Basic Income policy would have a result of economic growth, the $250 child allowance would increase the GDP by 0.79%, while the $1,000 per adult would increase the GDP by 12.56%. When the Basic Income is financed by household taxes, the model forecasts no effect on the economy if the program was simply giving “ with one hand what it takes away with the other”. However, if the model is adapted using what the researchers call a “distributional model”, it forecasts a beneficial effect on economic growth. As the researchers describe it, “the distributional model incorporates the idea that an extra dollar in the hands of lower income households leads to higher spending. In other words, the households that pay more in taxes than they receive in cash assistance have a low propensity to consume, and those that receive more in assistance than they pay in taxes have a high propensity to consume.” The general idea is that lower income brackets tend to spend everything they earn, therefore consuming more, and higher income brackets tend to save part of their earnings, therefore, consuming less in relation to their potential as consumers. Therefore, if you take from the rich to give to the poor, the money will be flowing more than when it is simply accumulated by the few, and in this way, the economy will grow. The researchers (and this is the official position of the Roosevelt Institute as well) assume that our economy is “not currently operating near potential output” and this is so partly because of current gaping inequality, which is “one of the main reasons why the US economy faces the prospect of secular stagnation”.

 

Besides assuming that the economy could be preforming better, the model used also incorporates two microeconomic assumptions: “(1) unconditional cash transfers do not reduce household labor supply; and (2) increasing government revenue by increasing taxes levied on households does not change household behavior.” These assumptions have been promptly criticized in the media. However, the researchers themselves are aware that the assumptions are contentious, and have thus sought to establish them with evidence. They base assumption (1) on a survey of experiments done by Ionana Marinescu in a paper entitled “No Strings Attached: The Behavioral Effects of U.S. Unconditional Tax Transfer Programs” that estimates the microeconomic behavioral impact, using several experimental designs, results in labor supply remaining unchanged. Regarding assumption (2), the idea that increasing taxes does not change household behavior, the researchers assume that since the tax increase is progressive, the most affected households are the higher income brackets who tend to save and “hoard” money, so to speak, so they would save less but not change their consuming behavior in a drastic way. In order to justify this assumption, they use data from the Congressional Budget Office.

 

The report concludes that the researchers’ aim is not to have the final word on how to model the macroeconomic impacts of Basic Income but, instead, simply to have applied a valid model, which has done a reasonably good job of explaining macroeconomic effects so far, and used it to predict the effects of three Basic Income variations; on this model, the introduction of a Basic Income with a distributional component would mostly result in economic growth.

 

 

More Information:

 

Michalis Nikiforos, Marshall Steinbaum, Gennaro Zezza, “Modeling the Macroeconomic Effects of a Universal Basic Income”, The Roosevelt Institute, August 29th, 2017

Rakeen Mabud, Felicia Wong, “Starting the Conversation: The Economics of a Universal Basic Income”, The Roosevelt Institute, August 31st, 2017

“The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2013”, Congressional Budget Office, 2016

Ioana Marinescu, “No Strings Attached The Behavioral Effects of U.S. Unconditional Cash Transfer Programs”, The Roosevelt Institute, May 11th, 2017

 

Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, “Basic income and the freedom to lead a good life”

Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, “Basic income and the freedom to lead a good life”

by | Sep 9, 2017 | Research

Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, authors of the new book Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy (Harvard University Press), have contributed a chapter to the book The Good Life Beyond Growth: New Perspectives, a collection of essays published as part of Routledge’s series Studies in Ecological Economics.

Their contribution, titled “Basic income and the freedom to lead a good life,” is based on the first chapter of Basic Income, in which the authors detail the distinguishing characteristics of a basic income (e.g. universality, lack of means test, lack of work obligation, payment to individuals rather than households), providing motivation for each of these features.  

Van Parijs and Vanderborght introduce basic income as a way to address poverty and unemployment without reliance on sustained economic growth. Summarizing their position near the end of the chapter, they state:

Involuntary unemployment is a major challenge. But activation and growth, routinely offered as self-evident remedies, are both unrealistic and undesirable. An unconditional basic income offers a way of addressing this challenge without relying on an insane rush for keeping pace with labor saving technical change through the sustained growth of production and consumption.

They contend that a basic income would “mak[e] it easier for people to choose to perform less paid work at any given point in their lives” and “subsidiz[e] paid work with low immediate productivity”. Further, they claim, such lifestyle choices would result in lower material consumption in developed nations. In this way, the “freedom to lead a good life” supported by basic income would promote sustainability goals.  

 

The collection The Good Life Beyond Growth originated with a conference by the same name, which was held in May 2015 at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, and convened by the university’s Research Group on Post-Growth Societies. At this conference, which presented interdisciplinary perspectives on questions of “what a good human life is about, what its subjective and objective conditions are, and how it may be reframed for a post-growth society,” Van Parijs presented “Good Life and the Welfare State” with another founding member of BIEN, Claus Offe.

Van Parijs and Vanderborght’s contribution is the only chapter in The Good Life Beyond Growth to deal specifically or at length with the idea of basic income. Another contributor, the social theorist and political economist Andrew Sayer, mentions the idea, but expresses doubt that it is the best means to achieve societal well-being without growth.

Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan

Photo CC BY 2.0 Giuseppe Milo

Cure health inequality by reducing income inequality

Cure health inequality by reducing income inequality

by | Aug 30, 2017 | Opinion

The relationship between health and social context includes a range of factors influencing overall well-being. Social status, class, lifestyle, education, and environment primarily shape these factors. Age, gender, race, and ethnicity are structural variables of equal importance to health outcomes. Health is being facilitated or inhibited by the socioeconomic, cultural, and political backgrounds, in which one is born and raised. The people that view these data points and makes correlations between socioeconomic status and backgrounds to health issues have an interesting career because they constantly have to adapt to the understanding of new societal groups and focus on why a certain group would make a certain decision, for example.

In the last few decades, we have seen growing income inequality between the poor and rich. Since the 1980’s, the United States of America has seen a shift in wealth from the middle class towards the wealthiest people and transnational companies. The top one-tenth of 1 percent owns as much as the bottom 90 percent. Firebaugh and Beck argued economic growth would automatically benefit the masses, which in hindsight seems questionable.

As health outcomes and life expectations closely liaise to within-country income inequality, policies should aim at finding appropriate actions to address this phenomenon. Meaning, getting basic family urgent care, in terms of medical needs cannot be compromised. Currently, in some countries, those who earn more are able to find medical treatments to treat their injuries or illnesses, whilst those who don’t have as much money are having to cope with their illness or find other treatments. For example, those who suffer from digestive problems would have to pay a significant amount to get their illness looked at, so people on lower incomes will find supplements to help them instead. The bio complete 3 supplement can deliver prominent improvements for people’s digestive systems, so people are able to treat these problems. However, not all problems can be treated with supplements. This is why changes have to be made.

Wilkinson and Pickett found health issues to be strongly correlated to income inequality within a country. To support this finding, they used two different measurement tools. The first index, applied to Western countries, was a ratio of the 20 percent top incomes in relation to the 20 percent of the bottom earners. For different states within the USA they used a second index, the Gini-index, which adopts a different methodology. Where ‘Gini = 0′ represents perfect equality (same income for everyone) and ‘Gini = 1′ is total inequality (if all income goes to one person). The outcome of these results showed that the widening income gap led to an increase of different health issues related to mental disorders, life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity and teenage births. Societal problems that correlated to income inequality included: lower levels of trust, less educational performance, more homicides, higher imprisonment rates and a lack of social mobility. Some authors found Wilkinson and Pickett’s dismissal of poverty in relation to health outcomes incorrect as they did not measure it. On the other hand, research by Beckfield and Bambra confirmed the correlation between life expectancy and health stating that the lagging welfare state in the USA led to an average loss of 3.77 quality life years in comparison to other OECD countries. The USA has an income gap of 8:1 (the average biggest earners have 8 times the wage of those at the other end of the spectrum) leading to a life expectancy of 78.7 years, which is in contrast with Japan reaching an average of 83.0 years with an income gap of 4:1. The same age dependent relation has been found in Scandinavian countries having similar income gaps as Japan.

Goda and Torres Garcia looked at the rise of global inequality and confirmed previous results by stating that within-country inequality is responsible for 70 percent of the global inequality, suggesting 30% is due to in-between country inequality.

Taking national and local figures into account for the UK, the Office for National Statistics observed a life expectancy for new-born baby boys to be 83.3 years in the Kensington and Chelsea area. Meanwhile, the life expectancy for the same cohort in Blackpool is merely 74.7 years. Nationwide, the female life expectancy is 86.6 years in Purbeck and the lowest in Glasgow City with an expectancy of 78.5 years. The authors conclude that inequality has increased over the last two decades despite improvements in these local areas.

Medical technology has improved greatly over the past two decades, with many illnesses that were fatal twenty years ago proving simple to treat now. Simple technological breakthroughs such as RFID labeling and instant messaging have meant that medical practices can be streamlined, saving time and money which can then be invested back into treating patients. With all these improvements in technology, why is there still little improvement in life expectancy in some areas? The answer lies again with income inequality, with areas that suffer from low income also suffering from lower government funding. This directly impacts the access local hospitals have to new technology, meaning they have fewer new technologies to utilise for their patients.

We may assume a strong relation between income inequality and health outcomes on a global scale as Dorling in recent research concludes there are overarching arguments. Dorling (2007) confirmed a strong relation between income inequality and negative health outcomes on a global scale after an observational study performed in 126 countries.

The academic world has provided alternatives to deal with the widening gap between poor and rich. Reformed minimum wages, living wages, basic income or a global ‘fair tax’ and redistribution are only a few austerity counter-proposals to ensure overall well-being by reaching or transcending the poverty line. Minimum wages have proven insufficient and a basic income is still globally debated. An international fair tax may even prove more challenging as this requires global political support.

Minimum wages and living wages have the same aim; raising income for the least fortunate to reduce the impact of a growing income gap. A minimum wage is defined as a minimum market valued income, imposed by law and paid by employers. A living wage is a locally liaised and negotiated pay rate that a fulltime employee needs for a household of four to reach the poverty line. For the latter, societal context is important, as living in a metropolitan area is more expensive than living in the countryside. The Basic Income Earth Network defines basic income as “a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means, test or work requirement”.

A locally implemented living wage project in the UK, facilitated by the General and Municipal Boilermakers Union in 400 councils, has proven to be successful in reducing (health) inequalities as well as being beneficial for government tax income. Awareness within the community influenced policy in a way that living wages became accepted as a benchmark for society. In this regard, a living wage clearly will contribute to individual well-being and social cohesion – both factors improve health within communities.

Proposals for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) are slowly reaching the minds of global policymakers, but this process will take more time in achieving broader support. In developing a short-term response tackling inequality, a living wage appears to be a possible solution for developed countries yet remains a huge challenge for developing countries.

Emerging new technologies will demand economical strategies that are able to cope with less job certainty and keeping up with growing demands in healthcare.

A redistribution of capital, as proposed by Thomas Piketty in his book ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, in combination with a UBI may prove to be the best strategy in the long-run to counter income-related health inequalities on a global scale. We must urge politicians to finally face transnational companies and the top one percent in order to obtain a globally acceptable taxation rate.

About the author:

Sam Brokken hails from Belgium and lives near the city of Leuven. He studied physiotherapy, sports physical therapy and manual therapy practicing these areas for years in private practices within local communities. He lectures in musculoskeletal disorders in relation to manual handling and ergonomics for healthcare service providers.
He is currently engaged in postgraduate work at the Robert Gordon University (Aberdeen – Scotland) within the MSc Public Health and Health Promotion course.

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