by Guest Contributor | Dec 12, 2018 | Opinion
How can a guaranteed livable income help us to live equitably, sustainably, and peacefully? This was the central question explored in an event hosted by Sarah Mah and Thao Hoang of the feminist grass-roots organization Asian Women for Equality on the International Day to Eradicate Poverty on October 17, in Montreal, Canada.
Mah served as the moderator for the evening. She initiated the panel discussion by calling attention to the relationship between environmental sustainability, women’s rights, and a guaranteed livable income.
“We host these panels as feminist platforms for discussions about guaranteed livable income to bring academia, grassroots, and frontline groups together…to bring different fields together and build alliances and shared theory with each other,” Mah said.
In light of the recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on the severity of climate change, she described how rapidly changing climate conditions disproportionately affect the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in society, especially women.
“Women are already vulnerable to male violence and exploitation, and this is made worse in climate-change induced natural disasters,” she said.
The first panelist was Rob Rainer of Basic Income Network Canada. Rainer argued for a paradigm shift in which basic income plays a central and inherent part. Shedding light on the already existing forms of basic income-like programs in Canada such as the child tax benefit and old age security, he drew attention to the emotional and financial security these that these programs already provide for large segments of the population. He argued that a basic income has the potential to promote and encourage citizen engagement in environmental protection.
“By ensuring or improving one’s economic security, basic income decouples such security from attachment to the paid labour market and supports the pursuit of non-market work that actually may be far more important for community well-being, sustainability and survival,” Rainer remarked.
For example, people might engage more in local food production, urban farming, and citizen wildlife monitoring and what about the simple, yet incredibly impactful, act of picking up the tons of plastic on our beaches and in our oceans. Yet, as Rainer pointed out, “it’s difficult to participate in this when you are struggling for survival.” A basic income could allow us to engage more sustainability with our surrounding environment, and pour more of our energy and presence into conserving, caring for, and protecting our planet.
Panelist Cathy Orlando from the Citizen’s Climate Lobby, a non-partisan, non-profit organization, spoke further on the connection between environmental sustainability and a guaranteed livable income. Orlando began by showing how our pursuit for a just, peaceful, and equitable world is inextricably connected to the environment. She zeroed in on the carbon fee and dividend policy as a very promising approach for climate justice, poverty alleviation, and re-distribution of wealth.
A carbon fee and dividend scheme is often likened to a “Robin Hood climate tax” which taxes carbon polluters, and gives the revenue back to citizens in the form of a monthly check (the dividend). It is a way of re-distributing wealth that works to discourage fossil fuel use, spur clean energy investment, and reduce CO2 emissions. The common thread, Orlando argues, is the analogous nature of the carbon dividend and basic income – which are both aimed at redistributing wealth to the poor. This, she remarked, “reduces inequality [as] the poor are more carbon virtuous inherently and the top one percent of earners in Canada consume six times as much as the bottom ten percent.”
After the panelists’ presentations, a conversation took place between the panel and various community respondents including Sean Devine of Revenue de Base Quebec, Vincent Duhamel from Climate Justice Montreal, Paul Clarke from Réfugiés Montréal and Penny Beames, organizer of McGill’s Sustainability Research Symposium. They explored further aspects on guaranteed livable income and a sustainable future. Among the issues raised was the question of how refugees figure into the discussion of a Canadian basic income – an important question in lieu of the millions of people who are, and will be, displaced because of climate change.
For instance, members of the panel agreed that basic income should be granted regardless of immigration status, which Mah noted is a position held by the organization Asian Women for Equality. Another issue brought up was how a basic income would render people less prone to over-consumption. In response, the panelists reflected that a basic income could provide stability, allow self-reflection, and strengthen social networks. They offered this as a possible explanation as to how guaranteed livable income might counteract over-consumption – a central issue in any conversation about sustainability.
In the end, the discussion highlighted the opportunities and challenges of a policy approach that would promote granting people an equal share of the wealth, and perhaps also protect the health of our environment.
The relationship between poverty and the planet is complex, which raised a myriad of questions and concerns, such as the potentially harmful impacts of ‘clean’ energy sources like land loss and displacement of vulnerable peoples, children’s rights, and the broader issue of how this relates to, or challenges, the existing paradigm of economic growth. Nonetheless, the panel discussion helped to shed light on some of the ways in which a guaranteed livable income might help us live more sustainably, addressing issues of climate justice and the protection and empowerment of society’s most vulnerable. Mah noted that Asian Women for Equality “sees it as a fundamental shift away from our culture of maximized profits, consumerism and exploitation, toward a world of mutuality, beneficence, and sustainable living – both for people and for the environment.”
Perhaps, more of us have begun to envision what this peaceful, equitable, and sustainable world will look like going forward.
Authors: Leah Werner
by Andre Coelho | Dec 9, 2018 | News
It started on Tuesday, 13th of November 2018, with a 200 large committee of environmental activists (Sunrise Movement) crowding Nancy Pelosi‘s office premises at the Capitol Building. The activists called upon Pelosi, the Democrats House speaker, to push for a real, ambitious and wide-reaching plan to curb climate change. That alone would probably amount to little as far as media coverage was concerned. However, the event was mediatized by recently elected Democrat MP and young political leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who stepped in and weighted her support, attracting lots of media attention.
What first seemed to be the aftermath of yet another Democrat internal dispute over climate change issues, turned out to be a positive reinforcement between Democratic leaders to start pushing for a deep strategy which can eventually set real policy to solve the climate crisis. Recent Pelosi efforts to revive energy independence and global warming related issues in the Househad turned out inconsequential, which only made the new Resolution presented by Alexandria stand out even more.
This Resolution aims to have a so called “Plan for a Green New Deal” ready by no later than January 1st 2019, and a final draft legislation by April 1st 2019 (with a proviso that it should not be extended, under any circumstance, further than March 1st 2020). This plan, supported by both the Sunrise Movement activist group and the Justice Democrats (a pioneering partnership), ambitiously aims to completely decarbonize the US economy, ramp up renewables to 100% and eliminate poverty in all United States within a 10 year timespan.
The ending poverty part of the plan starts with the provision of a job guarantee, coupled with training and education opportunities for all Americans, to assist in the transition to abetter (for most people), decarbonized economy. The concept of a job guarantee had already been given attention by Democrat “heavy-weights” like former President Obama and his Vice Joe Biden, putting an emphasis on its (alleged) non-monetary advantages (at least in the United States context) – e.g.: dignity, sense of purpose, recognition. However, basic income has appealed to Democrats in the last few years (adding Bernie Sanders and even Hillary Clinton into the pot), and so it appears under number four of Alexandria’s plan, after the taking care of disadvantaged communities affected by climate change, and reducing deep inequalities – racial, regional, gender-based, income and access to infrastructure – within the territory. With climate change impacting the world’s poorest much more than the world’s richest, it’s no wonder that people are turning to social justice lawyers for compensation. Lawtx.com already offers these services, and as climate change becomes more acute, it’s likely that we’ll be seeing more lawsuits in the future.
However, and according to basic income activists such as Guy Standing, Scott Santens and Annie Miller, basic income could have an important role precisely in addressing the issues faced by those who are impacted the most.
The Resolution clearly states that environmental issues cannot be separated from social/economic problems, hence the focus on both. Such deep connection has already been considered and analysed by several thinkers of our time, such as Phillipe van Parijs, André Gorz and Charles Eisenstein. Therefore, the moment in time, the nature of the document and its content seems to be aligned with the demands of today’s crisis, particularly in the United States. Finally, on the financial side of the Resolution, the idea is to use Federal Reserve funds, the foundation of a new public bank and/or theuse of public venture funds to cover for the Plan’s expenses, hence focusing on public finances and asset management. That certainly appeals more to a Commons-oriented solution to environmental and social issues, rather than a private-donor type of approach such as a few coming from Silicon Valley recently.
More information at:
David Roberts, “AlexandriaOcasio-Cortez is already pressuring Nancy Pelosi on climate change“, Vox, November 15th 2018
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez website – Green New Deal
KarlWiderquist, “Obamaspeaks favorably about UBI but stops short of endorsing it (for the secondtime)“, Basic Income News, July 18th 2018
AndréCoelho, “Joe Biden believes thatjobs are the future, rather than basic income“, Basic Income News, September 23rd 2018
Phillipe Van Parijs, “PoliticalEcology: From Autonomous Sphere to Basic Income“, Basic Income Studies, December 2009
Daniele Fabbri, “Douglas Rushkoff Warns That Universal Basic IncomeIs Just Silicon Valley’s Latest Scam“, Basic Income News, November 25th 2018
by Guest Contributor | Dec 5, 2018 | Opinion
By Amy King, in collaboration with Basic Income Waterloo Region
Basic income is currently a hot topic in Canada. From debates across the political spectrum of a basic income and reminders of the success of Manitoba’s Mincome experiment in the 1970s, to the cancellation by the Progressive Conservative (PC) government of Ontario of the previous Liberal government’s basic income pilot, “basic income” is the subject of lively discussion among Canadians.
While this widespread attention is welcome, it has also raised the concern that the discussion of a “basic income” often conflates two distinct concepts: a basic income (BI) and a negative income tax (NIT). The result of this conflation is that the concept of BI has been marginalized in current social and political discourse, as the term “basic income” is co-opted to refer to an NIT and not a basic income as advocated for by the basic income movement. This co-optation creates confusion around which concept one is referring to when they use the term, “basic income” and, perhaps more damagingly, leaves the basic income movement without a term to capture the concept they so passionately believe in and advocate for.
NIT is referred to by Parijs & Vanderborght (2017) as a “cousin” of BI. Briefly, a basic income is distributed upfront to all individuals in the same amount, without an obligation to work or otherwise contribute something in return and without income or means testing (Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017). A negative income tax, in contrast, is distributed within an income tax scheme and is determined based on the level of income of the individual or household (Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017). A negative income tax, therefore, differs from a basic income in important ways: It is not necessarily universally distributed; it is not necessarily distributed to individuals; it is not distributed in the same amount to all individuals; and finally, the amount may be determined through income testing.
Distinguishing between the BI and NIT is, therefore, crucial, as each has a clear, and often disparate, vision of the implementation and ends of a “basic income.” Advocates of a basic income push for the implementation of a basic income program that is universally and exclusively individually distributed. Universal distribution ensures that recipients will not be stigmatized or privileged based on income or employment and does not require individual administrative oversight by public employees. Individual distribution allows recipients to manage their own financial affairs. While an NIT has poverty alleviation as its goal and it may well succeed in achieving this, BI has a robust vision of socio-economic justice that aims toward liberty and equality for all.
Ontario’s so-called basic income pilot followed a negative income tax model. Participants were between the ages of 18 and 64, with an income below $34,000/a for an individual, and $48,000/a for a couple (Ontario Basic Income Pilot, 2017). The pilot followed a tax credit model, so that single participants were guaranteed $16,989, less 50 percent of any earned income and couples were guaranteed $24,027 per year for a couple, less 50 percent of any earned income (Ontario Basic Income Pilot, 2017). The scheme implemented during the pilot therefore differed from a basic income in that it was not universal, distribution was not exclusively individual, and it was income tested.
Another example of this co-optation occurs in Mark Gollom’s article for the CBC, “Basic income finds support on right as ‘most transparent’ form of redistribution” (2017, April 25). As indicated by the title, Gollom (2017, April 25) reports support from the right for the Ontario Liberal government’s NIT trial and discusses the championing of the concept of an NIT by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek.
In this article, Gollom (2017, April 25) offers a useful outline of arguments from the right for an NIT, which may be considered by some a “welfare” program more amenable to supporters of left-leaning economic policy. However, it also offers a helpful example of the conceptual blurring that occurs around the term “basic income”. The terms “basic income” and “negative-income tax” are employed often, but the article’s focus is a negative-income tax—there is no mention of support for a basic income. If someone unfamiliar with the distinction between the concepts of a BI and an NIT were to read the article, they would conclude that an NIT scheme is a basic income scheme. This is conceptually misleading—an NIT is not a BI—and it results in the marginalization of the concept of a basic income in the current debate.
It is evident then that there are important philosophical and political differences between BI and an NIT that are obscured when the term “basic income” is employed indiscriminately. Indiscriminate use of the term “basic income” is also problematic because it has resulted in co-optation of the term to refer to an NIT. This marginalization and co-optation of the term “basic income” is problematic for many reasons.
First, in Canada, as we’ve seen, NIT currently serves as the default against which basic income programs are measured. The argument is made that the differences between an NIT and a BI are negligible, or that they do not make a substantive difference. The argument is also made that an NIT is more politically feasible than a BI. These factors, along with NIT’s support from vocal advocates, has positioned NIT at the forefront of the discourse around a basic income. However, the discourse does not often refer to an NIT as an NIT. Instead, an NIT is referred to as a “basic income”, and even sometimes, a “universal basic income” (for example here). Because the concept of a BI has been absorbed in the discourse into the concept of an NIT, BI advocates struggle to describe and argue their case.
Second, when we envision a just society, where people are not prevented by socio-economic barriers from realizing their potential, where people do not face insurmountable obstacles to breaking the cycle of poverty and where people are not discriminated against, oppressed or stigmatized because of socio-economic factors, it is clear that only a BI holds this transformative socio-political promise. Why not measure proposals against a vision of a society worth striving for, rather than ignoring the differences between an NIT and a BI and limiting our vision to considerations of political feasibility? BI’s transformative potential is obfuscated when NIT-based proposals are referred to as BI proposals and the discourse centres around these NIT-based proposals. The potential of BI is dismissed and marginalized from the discourse.
Third, because the language to describe a BI has been assimilated to an NIT, BI advocates must resort to using clunky and obscure terms such as “demogrant” to describe the concept, or else engage in lengthy explanations to describe what could otherwise be summed up in the term “basic income.”
Fourth, internationally, the term “basic income” is still used to refer to a universal, unconditional and exclusively individually delivered basic income. Because of the co-optation of the term “basic income” in Canada to refer to an NIT, there is a discrepancy between the understanding of the concept in Canada and in the rest of the world. This not only creates confusion, it can create a sense of deception in supporters of a basic income when they learn about a “basic income” pilot in Ontario, where the basic income is not universal, unconditional or exclusively individual. These supporters may question their involvement in the movement when the basic income they advocate for is so different from what is implemented in a “basic income” pilot.
This is not to underestimate the importance of the NIT concept to the basic income movement, nor to set it up in opposition to BI. Because of their appeal across the political spectrum and amenability to current income tax schemes, advocacy for, and implementation of NIT schemes, may be a crucial step toward realizing the aims of the basic income movement. NIT schemes are considered by Parijs & Vanderborght (2017) to be the most appealing of basic income’s cousins because they do not exclude people who do not perform paid work from being recipients, offering a step forward in terms of liberty and equality, while also reducing the stigma against people who do not have paid employment.
Distinguishing between BI and NIT is critical at this time as support for and dialogue around the idea of a “basic income” has reached critical mass. The hope is that clarifying the distinction between the two concepts will unite supporters of both negative income tax and basic income to form an inclusive movement based on their mutual recognition of overlapping aims. The strength in unity is especially critical now as a bulwark against current and future government policies that target and punish the least well-off in society.
References
Gollom, M. (2017, April 25). Basic income finds support on right as ‘most transparent’ form of redistribution. CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/basic-income-ontario-right-political-economic-1.4083630.
Lowrey, A. (2018, July 13). Smart money: Why the world should embrace universal basic income. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-smart-money-why-the-world-should-embrace-universal-basic-income/
Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (2017). Ontario Basic Income Pilot. Retrieved from www.ontario.ca/basicincome.
Parijs, P and Vanderborght, Y. (2017). Basic income: a radical proposal for a free society and a sane economy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP.
by Andre Coelho | Nov 11, 2018 | News
Picture credit to: The Black Detour.
The Magnolia Mother’s Trust is an initiative generated by the Springboard to Opportunities NGO, having been referred to at a recent article on the production of the documentary “Inherent Good“. This initiative aims at supplying to poor families headed by black American women in Jackson, Mississippi, the extra cash they systematically are in need of. Since black women in the United States earn much less, on average, than white, non-Hispanic men (37% less), an inequality that is even more acute in Mississippi (44% less), the experiment is aiming at helping these very disadvantaged families, while studying the effects of supplying unconditional cash.
This cash transfer project, financed by the Economic Security Project, will deposit 1000$ per month, for 12 months, in 16 low-income single black mothers bank accounts. No questions asked. The women in question will be randomly selected from a set of black female adults with children who are considered to live in poverty, in the Jackson area. Projects such as this cash transfer project are supported by establishments like nonprofit organizations in cleveland ohio, who invest in talent and finance. The complete list of names will be known before the end of this month, with payments starting in December 2018. An important feature of this program is that some of the potential beneficiaries have helped to craft the initiative, bringing crucial input that brought, for instance, leadership training, psychological counseling and community service to the package (hence it will not be only a cash transfer program). However, participants will not be forced to uptake these auxiliary aspects of the experiment.
In this region of the United States, economic, social and racial (all aspects intertwine) inequalities are particularly severe, a problem that has not been solved by previous cash transfer programs. These, being conditional, namely on work uptake and income, “leave little room for single black mothers to create opportunities for themselves”, according to Aisha Nyandoro, the executive director of Springboard to Opportunities. Nyandoro adds that “the project is about changing the narrative and dispelling the myth of the Welfare Queen and allowing African American women to show what is possible when we trust low-income individuals”.
More information at:
André Coelho, “United States: “Inherent Good” documentary starts fund-raising campaign“, Basic Income News, November 6th 2018
J. Gabriel Ware, “The First Guaranteed Basic Income Program Designed for Single Black Moms“, Yes!, November 6th 2018
by Sandro Gobetti | Nov 4, 2018 | News
Roberto Ciccarelli (journalist, writer and member of the Basic Income Italy) has published an article on the proposal of the Italian government’s citizenship income.
In the article Ciccarelli talks about the poverty benefit misleadingly called a “citizenship income”, proposed by M5Star government. “What has been included in the soon-to-be-approved budget law” he says “is nothing but a sham and a deliberate misuse of words”. A real “citizenship income” is not tied to an obligation to work and has nothing to do with the “disciplining and punishment of beneficiaries which prominently feature in this M5S-Lega version of “workfare,” which apes the worst features of the Hartz IV German system”. “This benefit”, Ciccarelli writes, “doesn’t have any of the traits of universality, justice, equitability and unconditionality. It is neither a “universal income” nor a “citizenship income.” It is a workforce reintegration benefit of last resort for the unemployed, temporary workers and the poor, part of the authoritarian turn of the welfare state aimed at the creation of one or more parallel labor markets”. Ciccarelli also recalls that “They are talking about a new category of so-called “citizenship crime,” with up to six years in prison in case of fraud. The benefit will be tied to eight hours of unpaid work per week, to compulsory training. The duration of the benefit is also unclear and uncertain. It was said at first that after the first twelve months, the so-called “income” would gradually diminish to zero”.
Ciccarelli also writes that “The idea of this “income”— as repeatedly explained by Pasquale Tridico, an advisor to Di Maio — in just a short time, the person in “absolute poverty” will start buying “Italian products,” will get employed (in a permanent position, Tridico seems to imagine—not in small temporary jobs, as is most likely), and will contribute to the “wealth of the nation.””
The many problems of the M5S proposal, however, should not divert the attention from the political fight that has been waged over the past five years, a confrontation which has naturally intensified during the election campaign ahead of the latest 4th of March elections.
Ciccarelli also speaks about “the Democratic Party fighting against the proposal that has been (grossly misleadingly) called a “universal income.” Disingenuously pretending to believe the dishonest characterization of their own proposal by the Five Stars themselves, Renzi and his followers have spent at least four years attacking the very principle of an income that would be provided to all without asking them to do any work in return”.
What the M5S was actually proposing was not a universal income at all, but a significant extension of the “social inclusion income” (REI), a flagship proposal of the Democratic Party, approved during the 2013-2018 legislature.
Ciccarelli concludes that “A universal income is truly needed—this fact is absolutely clear. This so-called “citizenship income,” and other schemes such as the French “universal working income,” are marred by the tension between giving people the possibility to choose how they live their own life and an authoritarian discourse of penalties and obligations. Welfarism clashes with dirigism: one is not allowed to sit on the couch all day, nor to take any break between unpaid community work and a training course. This project shows clearly the present tendency to demand a lot from those who have little in order to justify granting them a benefit of last resort that will not work towards overcoming poverty, but towards making the regime of full precarious employment a reality.”
More information at:
Roberto Ciccarelli, “The linguistic scam of Italy’s ‘citizenship income’”, Basic Income Network Italia, October 24th 2018
(In Italian)
Roberto Ciccarelli, “La società della piena occupazione precaria: il “reddito” secondo Macron e Di Maio“, il manifesto, September 14th 2018
Reviewed by André Coelho
