Hillel Steiner, “A philosopher’s take on Global Basic Income”

Hillel Steiner, “A philosopher’s take on Global Basic Income”

by | Sep 16, 2017 | News

Hillel Steiner. Credit to: Festival 800.

 

Hillel Steiner, Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Manchester and writing on Know It All says that an unconditional basic income (UBI) funded by land value taxation (LVT) may create consensus among Left and Right political parties.

Steiner, author of the prize-winning book “An Essay on Rights” writes:

“Opportunities to link the demands of justice with those of economic efficiency are rare enough, and it would therefore be a great pity to forgo them when they are found.”

 

He argues that UBI is a demand for justice because there is no assessment of recipients’ personal circumstances. He also argues that LVT is economically efficient because the levy, unlike property taxes, disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements to the site.

 

More information at:

Hillel Steiner, “A philosopher’s take on Global Basic Income”, Know It All, July 2017

 

 

Teppo Eskelinen and Johanna Perkiö, “Micro-investment perspective and the potential of the universal basic income”

Teppo Eskelinen and Johanna Perkiö, “Micro-investment perspective and the potential of the universal basic income”

by | Sep 1, 2017 | Research

Teppo Eskelinen and Johanna Perkiö have published “Micro-investment perspective and the potential of the universal basic income” in Development Policy Review (June 2017).

Eskelinen and Perkiö analyze basic income as a tool to promote micro-investments by poor individuals and households, hypothesizing that a basic income would impart to such households a “greater confidence to undertake more risky activities, knowing they will have a minimum income to fall back on.”

As they explain in the abstract, the authors “aim to estimate potential impacts of the BI by synthesising existing knowledge. This estimation will not be quantitative, but rather show likely outcomes of a BI scheme. We will complement existing knowledge by exploring cognate cash transfer policies and other experiences that bear similarity to the BI.”

As a core part of their analysis, the authors examine the pilot studies conducted in the Namibian village of Otjivero-Omitara (2008 to 2009) and the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh (2011 to 2013), looking especially at the effects on “labour, behavioural impacts, psychological impacts, and investment in human capital.” Regarding psychological impacts, they point out that, in the Madhya Pradesh experiment, “households receiving cash grants were three times more likely to start a new business or production activity than control group households,” which appears to affirm their conjecture that “the availability of money combined with a sense of security is what eventually determines the occurrence of micro-investment.” Regarding behavior, they note a “recurring observation” that part of recipients’ additional income was “invested in income-generating activities.”

Eskelinen is a philosopher and social scientist who has published on political theory, political economy, global justice, and development theory. He is senior lecturer at University of Jyväskylä.

Perkiö is a doctoral candidate in the social sciences at the University of Tampere, writing her dissertation on the history of the basic income debate in Finland (see her November 2016 presentation for Kela). Many of her previous articles and blog posts on basic income available online, including the Transform! Network discussion paper “Basic Income Proposals in Finland, Germany and Spain,” the International Solidarity Work report “Universal Basic Income – A New Tool for Development Policy?,” and a response to the OECD’s recent critical report on basic income, published on Kela’s blog.

Reviewed by Russell Ingram

Photo: Store in Madhya Pradesh, CC BY 2.0 Brian Gratwicke

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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The Netherlands: ‘Free Money’ at Studium Generale Utrecht University, October 25, 2017

by | Aug 28, 2017 | News

As the social assistance experiments in several Dutch municipalities will begin this fall, Studium Generale of Utrecht University has organized an event dedicated to ‘Free Money‘.

Studium Generale is a university’s public platform for knowledge sharing and reflection by organizing lectures, seminars and other activities aimed at students and the general public. Entrance is always free and accessible without reservation.

In the Netherlands, municipalities are responsible for the provision of tailor-made benefits to anyone who has insufficient means to support him or herself, and for achieving the purpose of the Participation Act, that is, making recipients independent from social assistance. Several municipalities are conducting two-year experiments, in the context of which they have the option of implementing social assistance regulations in an alternative way.

Each experiment will include at least three treatment groups, who are subjected to various regimes, and a control group. The restrictiveness of obligations between the groups will vary, from a group which has fewer obligations imposed on it to a group which is even more intensively supervised. In addition, participants in a third treatment group may retain a limited amount of their income from work on top of their payments. See the links at the bottom of this article for more details.

Researchers of Utrecht University, one of the four universities that will supervise the experiments scientifically, have been critical about the design of the pilots because of its limited scope and complicated nature.

The experiments, as they are proposed now, raise a number of questions, such as: why don’t we all give a basic income? Is it too expensive, or are there any other objections?

Rutger Bregman (The Correspondent) and Professor Ingrid Robeyns (political philosopher and economist at Utrecht University) will address these issues during the “Free Money” event on October 25, 2017.

Rutger Bregman has written several books on ‘Free Money’ — for instance, Utopia for Realists — and was one of the speakers at TED2017 in Vancouver last April.

Ingrid Robeyns holds the chair in Ethics of Institutions. In her teaching she focuses on normative and applied ethics and (normative) political philosophy. She has been teaching about justice theories and economic ethics at the masters level in recent years. In her own research, Robeyns addresses a number of normative issues related to demography, gender, family, and institutional economy. Robeyns writes for the English-language group blog Crooked Timber and occasionally on her own site Buiten Categorie. She will also be one of the speakers during BIEN’s 17th Congress next September in Portugal.

The event will take place on October 25, 2017. The language is Dutch. Those interested are invited to join the discussion on Facebook event. For more details, see here.

Previous information on social assistance experiments in The Netherlands:

Florie Barnhoorn, “The Netherlands: Amsterdam on collision course over social assistance experiments” (August 5, 2017).

Florie Barnhoorn, “The Netherlands: All that’s left is the action. Where do we stand with the experiments?” (June 2, 2017).

Kate McFarland, “The Netherlands: Social Assistance Experiments Under Review” (May 9, 2017).

Florie Barnhoorn, “The Netherlands: Design of BI Experiments Proposed” (October 26, 2016).

Credit Picture Flickr.com CC Ealasaid.
Thanks to Kate McFarland for reviewing this article.

Basic Income: Tradeoffs and Bottom Lines

by | Aug 21, 2017 | Research

This paper represents a massive undertaking by both University of Melbourne Australia faculty and an independent agency called the the Brotherhood of St. Laurence dedicated to social Justice.  It looks at a collection of BI pilot projects, as well as other projects which can be considered close approximations of a BI, from around the world.  Government projects which have been run in the past as well as private and government projects currently being implemented.

The paper provides a number of graphs and and analyses aimed at comparing and contrasting the examined projects while underlining the incredible number of variables affecting both the design and the outcome of any such project that must be attended to.  But the main focus of this paper is to determine how a BI can ensure equity of income, improved efficiency of governance and an end to the stigma of social supports.

While considering the concept of a BI to be attractive for a host of reasons, not the least of which are equity and the automation of the workplace, the paper is decidedly cautious and suggests careful consideration of “… broader issues and the intersecting domains and policies” which one can only assume refers to the social and economic ramifications of such a project. A very bureaucratic summation of some extremely crucial social concerns.