OPINION: The Citizen’s Basic Income to Help the Transition to Democracy

by | Jan 16, 2012 | Opinion

Essay presented to UN Regional Commissions’ High Level Meeting on Transition to Democracy, Beirut, Lebanon, January 15 and 16, 2012

It is an honor for me to be invited to participate in this “United Nations Regional Commissions’ High Level Meeting on Transition to Democracy”, in this panel on “Balancing Growth and Social Justice”, concerning mainly the Arab Countries, held in Beirut, Lebanon, on January 15 and 16, 2012. This is a highly relevant opportunity to exchange ideas about the experiences of so many countries in the five continents about how we can raise the level of justice in our societies so as to live with a sense of solidarity and peace.

As a Brazilian Senator, member of the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores), author of Law 10.835/2004 that institutes a Citizen’s Basic Income to all residents of Brazil, including those foreigners who are living in Brazil for five years or more, no matter the origin, race, sex, age or socioeconomic condition, and also Co-President of Honor of the Basic Income Earth Network – BIEN – I am happy to bring you information about what is going on in my country, and about the development of this proposal in other parts of the world.

According to the law, approved by consensus of all parties, in December 2002 in the Federal Senate, and in December 2003, in the Chamber of Deputies, and then sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in January 8, 2004, the Citizen’s Basic Income will be an annual monetary benefit, equal to all, sufficient to attend the basic needs of each person. It may be paid monthly, in equal parcels. Its level will consider the level of development of the nation and the financial possibilities. It will be instituted gradually, under the Executive criteria, taking into account those most in need in the first place, such as the Bolsa Família Program does today.

In his “The Idea of Justice” (Penguin Books, 2009), the Nobel Prize economist Amartya Sen tells us about the importance of searching for justice, of building democracy, of the government built by debate, as well as of the nature, the viability and the extent of the demands of human rights. He mentions the sense of perception of clear injustices that could be overcome that characterized the actions of the Parisians in the French Revolution of 1789, Mahatma Ghandi in India and Martin Luther King Jr in America.

Amartya Sen mentions several examples of how democracy, freedom of expression and of the press have contributed for societies to solve their problems including that of severe famines.

Sen asserts that the history of the Middle East and of the Muslin people includes a large number of episodes of public discussions and participatory politics through dialogue. In the Muslin kingdoms centralized in Cairo, in Baghdad and Istanbul, in Iran, in India or even in Spain, there were many defenders of public discussions. He argues that the degree of tolerance with respect to different points of view was frequently exceptional in comparison to Europe in the XVI and XVII centuries. I am sure that Amartya Sen is regarding very well the development of this Meeting in Beirut.

Sen’s starting point is the Theory of Justice as Equity elaborated by John Rawls. In his “A Theory of Justice” (Harvard University Press, 1971), Rawls establishes the principles of Justice that should be put into practice in a society:

  1. Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all (the principle of equal liberty);
  2. The inequalities of social and economic advantages are justified only if (a) they contribute to the improvement of the less advantaged of the society (the principle of difference), and if (b) they are linked to positions that everybody has equal opportunities to occupy (the principle of equal opportunity).

In 2005, I had the opportunity to attend the first lecture given together by Professors Amartya Sen and Philippe Van Parijs, in their discipline, “Justice and Cultural Diversity”, for the graduate students of Harvard University. Van Parijs asked the students who had a mother language other than English among them. About one third raised their hands. He observed that even having different backgrounds – in terms of origin, race, language, religion and so on – we could have common views on our criteria about how to build a just society.

Then, Amartya Sen explained that in that discipline they would examine what are the institutions that would help us in raising the level of justice. For example, when slavery was abolished, it raised the level of justice in society. If we provide a good level of education for all boys and girls in the society, we are raising the level of justice. “In this course we will examine”, Sen mentioned, “to what extent an Unconditional Basic Income, as argued in favor of by Professor Philippe Van Parijs and Senator Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy, who is visiting us today, will or not raise the level of justice in society.” I felt quite happy.

We could think of other instruments that would help in this direction, such as the stimulus to cooperatives, the expansion of microcredit, the agrarian reform, a good public health system, the participatory budget and so on. John Rawls mentions in “A Theory of Justice” that a negative income tax that would guarantee a minimum income to all would help the application of the principles of justice.

According to Professor Philippe Van Parijs, in “Real Freedom for All. What (if anything) may justify capitalism?” (1995, Oxford), much better than the Negative Income Tax to Guarantee a Minimum Income is the Unconditional Basic Income to all, no matter origin, sex, race, age or socioeconomic condition, for the purpose of applying the three principles of justice.

What follows is the development of the paper that I have prepared for the Book of essays for Philippe Van Parijs, “Arguing about justice”, edited by Axel Grosseries and Yannick Vanderborght (2011, UCL, Universitaires de Louvain), because of his 20th year as the responsible for the Hoover Chair in economic and social ethics at the Catholic University of Louvain as well of his 60th birthday.

How Basic Income inspired Brazil’s social policy

In 1966-68, and again in 1970-73, as I was studying for my Master’s and my PhD in Economics at Michigan State University, in the USA, I came across the concept of income guarantee through a negative income tax (NIT). Back in Brazil, I interacted with Professor Antônio Maria da Silveira, who had proposed the institution of such a NIT in our country (Silveira 1975). When I was elected Senator by PT-SP for the first time in 1990, we then worked together on a proposal called the Guaranteed Minimum Income Scheme, PGRM. Every adult person 25 years or older who did not earn at least 45 thousand Cruzeiros per month (at that time, about US$150) should have the right to a complement of 30% to 50% of the difference between that level and his/her disposable income. The project was approved by the Federal Senate, by consensus of all parties, on December 16th, 1991. It went to the Chamber of Deputies where, at the Committee of Finance and Taxation, received an enthusiastic written opinion from Representative Germano Rigotto (PMDB-RS). The proposal, however, was not voted in that form because of several developments that followed.

The debate on the subject then started to flourish in Brazil. In 1991, during a discussion with approximately 50 economists who were close to the Workers’ Party (PT), Antônio Maria da Silveira and I presented the PGRM proposal. Professor José Márcio Camargo observed that the guarantee of a minimum income was a good step, but that it should be granted to needy families only, with children attending school on a regular basis. These children would then not be induced to work in order to help the survival of their families.

In 1995, taking these thoughts into consideration, Mayor José Roberto Magalhães Teixeira (PSDB), in the municipality of Campinas, and Governor Cristóvam Buarque (PT), in the Federal District, started minimum income schemes linked to educational opportunities. The programs were called Bolsa-Escola. All families with income per capita below half the minimum wage would have the right to receive: a) in Campinas: whatever would be necessary to complete half the minimum wage per capita for the family; b) in the Federal District: a full minimum wage, no matter the size of the family, or how many people in the family were working or not. Those experiments inspired several other municipalities. In the National Congress, bills were presented defining the support level that the Federal Government would provide to municipalities introducing minimum income programs related to educational opportunities.

In 1996, I took Philippe Van Parijs for an audience with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the Minister of Education, Paulo Renato Souza. Van Parijs argued that an unconditional basic income was a first-best, but also recognized that starting with a minimum income guarantee associated with education opportunities was a good step, because it was related to investment in human capital. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso then gave permission to the National Congress to approve a law which authorized the federal government to grant a financial support of 50% on the amount spent by the municipalities that provide a minimum income linked to social and educational opportunities.

In March 2001, again under Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s impulse, the National Congress approved another law authorizing the federal government to conclude agreements with all Brazilian municipalities in order to implement the Bolsa Escola. Later on, the government also instituted the Bolsa-Alimentação and the Auxílio-Gás programs. In 2003, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government instituted the Vale-Alimentação program.

In October 2003, President Lula’s government decided to unify and rationalize these different programs into a single Bolsa Família Program, which had 3.5 million families registered in December 2003. The number increased to 6.5 million families in December 2004, 11 million families in December 2006, and 13.352 million families, or almost 50 million Brazilians, in December 2011.

The Bolsa Familia: A Success Story

Along with other economic policy instruments, the Bolsa Família Program greatly contributed for the reduction of absolute poverty and the level of inequality in Brazil. The Gini coefficient had reached 0.599 in 1995, but gradually decreased every single year, reaching 0.581 in 2003, 0.544 in 2008, 0.530 in 2009, and 0.526 in 2010 [1]. The proportion of families under the extreme poverty line, with income per capita below R$ 93.75 which was 17.5% in 2003, decreased to 8.8% in 2008. The proportion of poor families, with income per capita below R$ 187.50, decreased from 39.4% in 2003 to 25.3%, in 2008. These favorable results can also be shown in the following way. The 20% poorest families had an income per capita increase 47% faster than the income of the richest 20%. While in 2001, the average income of the 20% richest families was 27 times more than that of the 20% poorest families, in 2008 it was 19 times higher, a reduction of 30% in inequality in seven years.

Since June, 2011, when the newly elected President Dilma Rousseff announced the Brazil Without Misery Plan and an adjustment of the program, the Bolsa Familia stated to function as follows: If the family per capita income is below R$ 70 per month, it has the right to receive a basic benefit of R$ 70 per month [2]. All families with monthly per capita income below R$ 140 are entitled to R$ 32, R$ 64, R$ 96, R$ 128 or R$ 160 if they have one, two, three, four, five or more children under 16 years of age respectively, plus R$ 38 for each adolescent between 16 to 18 years of age (up to a maximum of two). Therefore, the average benefit per family has increased to R$ 120 per month, with a minimum of R$ 32 and a maximum of R$ 306 per month.

The average size of the Brazilian family is 3.3 persons. The average is somehow higher, for families that benefit from the program. These families need to meet important requirements. If the mother is pregnant, she has to go to the public health network for prenatal examinations and monitoring. Parents have to take their children up to six years of age to be vaccinated according to the calendar of the Ministry of Health. Children from seven to 16 years of age have to go to school, with an attendance average of at least 85%. Children from 16 to 18 years of age must attend school with at least 75% attendance.

Despite the achieved progress, Brazil is still one of the most unequal countries in the world. While the poorest 40% live with 10% of the national income, the richest 10% live with more than 40%. The income appropriated by the 1% richest is the same as of the 45% poorest. Undoubtedly, the creation and expansion of the Bolsa Família Program had positive effects. However, in order to move towards a more efficient and direct eradication of the absolute poverty, as well as to achieve greater equality and guarantee greater real freedom for all, Brazil should implement a true Citizen´s Basic Income (CBI).

Towards A CBI

During the 1990s, I increasingly interacted with the founders of the Basic Income European Network (BIEN) [3], and took part in its bi-annual congresses. I was then convinced that an unconditional Basic Income for all was much better than conditional schemes or even a NIT. For this reason, in December 2001, I presented a new bill of law to the Brazilian Senate, which called for the institution of the Citizen´s Basic Income (CBI). After having studied the proposition, Senator Francelino Pereira (PFL-MG) argued that it had to be made compatible with the Fiscal Responsibility Law under which it is necessary to secure correspondent revenue for expenditures. He suggested the inclusion of a paragraph saying that the CBI had to be instituted step by step, starting with those most in need, until one day it will be unconditional for everyone regardless of income. It reminded me of James Edward Meade’s recommendation, in the last chapter of Agathotopia. What is important is to have our objectives crystal clear in mind, and to move firmly, gradually, in that direction.

Due to this aspect, the bill of law was approved by consensus of all parties in the Senate (December 2002) and the Chamber of Deputies (December 2003). When it came to the President for his examination, Minister of Finance Antonio Palocci told him: “since it is to be introduced step by step, it is feasible and you may sanction it”. On January 8th, 2004, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sanctioned the Law 10.835/2004 that institutes a CBI, step by step, under the Executive criteria, starting with those most in need, such as in the Bolsa Família program. Later, then, we will have an equal CBI for everyone as an individual right to participate in the wealth of the nation. On this day, the President received the following message from economist Celso Furtado:

At this moment when Your Excellency sanctioned the Citizen’s Basic Income Law I want to express my conviction that, with this measure, our country puts itself in the vanguard of those that fight for the building of a more harmonious society. Brazil was frequently referred as one of the last countries to abolish slave labor. Now with this act which is a result of the principles of good citizenship and the wide social vision of Senator Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy, Brazil will be referred as the first that institutes an extensive system of solidarity and furthermore, it was approved by the representatives of its people.

As I see it, a true CBI should be as high as possible in order to meet each person’s vital needs, and should be paid to all inhabitants of a community, municipality, state, country, or even, someday, to the whole population of a continent or the world. Regardless of his/her origin, race, sex, age, civil, social or economic condition, everyone will have the right to receive the CBI as a right to participate in the wealth of that community, municipality, state, country, continent or the planet. Such a scheme has many advantages. Let me mention a few of them.

First, all the bureaucracy involved in knowing each person’s income in formal or informal market would be eliminated. This would also allow for the elimination of any stigma or shame, since individuals would not need to tell civil servants: “I earn only this much, so I need a supplement of income for my survival”.
Second, perhaps the most important advantage of the Citizen’s Basic Income is that it raises everyone’s level of dignity and freedom. From the point of view of what Amartya Sen says in “Development as Freedom” (1999, New York: Knopf): “Development, to be meaningful, must mean a greater degree of freedom for everyone in society.” Take the case, for example, of a girl who does not have another alternative for her survival than selling her body. Or a young man who, to support himself and his family is forced to work for the drug traffic gangs. If there is a Citizen’s Basic Income, they can refuse those alternatives, and wait for opportunities that match their propensity or vocation.

Third, a basic income allows for the elimination of the dependency phenomena. Conditional programs function as follows: if a person’s income is below a given amount, she is entitled to an income supplement. When she gets a job, she loses (part of) the benefit. Hence, she might decide not to take that job and gets into the unemployment or the poverty trap. With a universal basic income she will have more employment options.

One of the most often-heard objections to Basic Income consists in saying that it would stimulate idleness. The Brazilian Constitution and laws, as well as the laws of so many countries, assure the right to private property. That means that the owners of factories, farms, hotels, restaurants, banks, real estate and financial bonds have the right to receive capital revenues, that is, profit, rent and interest.

Do the Brazilian laws, or of most other countries, mention that to receive those revenues, the capital owners must demonstrate that they are working? No, and they usually work, and many of them also dedicate a good part of their time to voluntary work. Do they need to demonstrate that their children are attending school? No. Nevertheless, their children usually attend the best schools.

So, if we assure those who have more resources the right to receive their revenues without conditions, why not extend to everyone, rich and poor, the right to participate in the nation’s wealth as our right for being Brazilians? If we want to eliminate absolute poverty, becoming a more equal and fair society and assuring dignity and real freedom to everyone in the society, instituting the Citizen’s Basic Income is a solution as simple as leaving home through the door.

Turning Basic Income into reality in Brazil

In Brazil, we could consider the institution of the Citizen’s Basic Income (CBI) as consistent with the values defended by the indigenous, by the fighting “quilombolas” and those for the slavery abolition, and by all those researchers and scientists who fight for the creation of a fair nation.

In the same way as the first minimum income linked to educational opportunities started locally, in Campinas and in the Federal District, it is possible to start the CBI in communities or municipalities.

Take the example of Recivitas – Instituto pela Revitalização da Cidadania, an organization which has created a free library and a free toy center in Vila de Paranapiacaba (Serra do Mar, 1,200 inhabitants). It has recently proposed the creation of a CBI. Recivitas President Bruna Augusto Pereira and coordinator Marcus Brancaglione dos Santos are waiting for the steps of Santo André’s Mayor to carry out the project. While waiting, they started a pioneering experience in another village, Quatinga Velha where, since the beginning of 2009, they pay R$ 30, or US$ 18, per month to 83 persons. This is possible thanks to the voluntary contributions of several citizens.

Another promising experiment is taking place in Santo Antonio do Pinhal, in Serra da Mantiqueira, 177 km from São Paulo, 6.500 inhabitants. There, on October 29th, 2009, the Municipal Chamber, by consensus of its nine councilmen, approved the Municipal Bill of Law for a Basic Income, proposed by Mayor José Augusto de Guarnieri Pereira (PT). Among the 5.565 Brazilian municipalities, it is the first that approved a law instituting the CBI. Its first article declares:

“With the purpose to turn Santo Antonio do Pinhal into a Municipality that harmonizes sustainable social and economic development with the application of justice principles, meaning the solidarity practice among all its inhabitants, and, above all, to grant a higher level of dignity to all its inhabitants, the Citizen´s Basic Income of Santo Antonio do Pinhal – CBI is instituted, consisting in the rights of all registered residents or residents in the Municipality for at least 05 (five) years, regardless of their social and economic status, to receive a monetary benefit.”

Exactly as in the federal law, it also states that the CBI will be achieved gradually, giving priority to the most needed segments of the population. To finance the payment of the CBI, a Municipal Fund will be created.

To turn the CBI feasible for the whole country however, it would be necessary to collect a great amount of resources. If it wants to provide an even modest improvement in relation to the Bolsa Família, Brazil should begin with at least an amount higher than the average paid by this scheme, i.e. R$ 120 per family, which means something like R$ 40 per person for a family of three members. So, if we think about a CBI of R$ 40, it would be R$ 240 per month for a family of six members. In 12 months, the yearly amount would be R$ 480 per person. With Brazil’s population reaching 191 million in 2011, we would need R$ 91,680 billion, something around 2.71% % of the Gross National Product of R$ 3,388 trillion or US$ 2,287 trillion in 2010, about 6.7 times the Bolsa Familia budget of R$ 13.6 billion for 2010, a considerable leap.

R$ 40, or US$ 22, per month is a modest amount, but in time, with the progress of the country and the growing approval from the population, the CBI could turn into R$ 100, then R$ 1.000, and so on. A way to make it feasible is the creation of the Citizen’s Brazil Fund, according to the Bill of Law 82/1999, which I presented to the Senate. It has already been approved by consensus by the Senate, and is in legal procedures in the Chamber of Representatives, where it has been approved by the Committee of Family and Social Security. This Fund is constituted by 50% of the resources generated by authorization or concession of natural resources exploitation; 50% of the revenues from rentals of federal government real estate, which belong to all the population; 50% of the revenues generated by concession and services and public works and other resources. The output generated by the investments of the Fund resources, like the Alaska Permanent Fund, will be used to pay CBI to all the Brazilian residents.

Citizen’s Brazil Fund legislation is now awaiting approval by the Chamber of Representatives Committee of Finance and Taxation. A new reporter has been nominated, Federal Representative Cláudio Puty (PT-PA) (from the Workers’ Party, State of Pará). He will be able to present a favorable report as long as there is a green light from the Executive. This is not so easy, although I always say that I am ready to accept any suggestion to make the proposal feasible, such as to diminish the proportions that are listed in the proposal. It is important to consider that Congress approved in 2010 President Lula’s initiative regulating the proceeds of the oil found in the Pre-Salt area deep in the Atlantic Ocean. The legislation has the eradication of poverty, the expansion of educational opportunities, scientific and technological progress, and better environmental and cultural activities as its main objectives. There is a strong dispute, however, between the representatives of the Federal Units, 26 States and one Federal District, on how to distribute the resources from the exploitation of the pre-salt oil.

Another promising alternative is being pointed out Professor Philippe Van Parijs while quoting Edward Glaeser’s excellent book “The Triumph of the City”, Penguin, 2011, p.221:

“Smart environmentalism needs to embrace incentives (…) Throughout the world, we can adopt a global emission tax that charges people for the damage done by their carbon emissions (…) Opponents of big government understandably worry that this type of policy will just turn into an added source of revenue for the government, but this worry can be reduced with a public commitment to rebating tax to citizens as an energy dividend, much as the state of Alaska pays each of its citizens an annual dividend from all revenues.”

Especially when more people understand how CBI could contribute for the construction of a fair and more civilized Brazil, more voices will be saying to the President of the Republic, to the Governors and Mayors: “It is a good proposal. Let’s put it into practice right away”.

Conclusion: what are the immediate prospects?

During the IV National Congress of the PT in Brasilia, February 19th to 21st, 2010, by the unanimous vote of the 1.350 delegates, the following point was added to the National Program of Dilma Rousseff, who was acclaimed Presidential candidate by consensus:

“The Great Transformation
The accelerated growth and the fight against racial, social, regional inequalities and the promotion of sustainable development will be the axis of the economic development structure.
19) The expansion and the strengthening of the popular consumption goods, that produces strong positive impact over the productive sector system, will be attained by:
a)…
f) permanent improvement of the income transfer programs such as the Bolsa Família, to eradicate hunger and poverty, to facilitate access of the population to employment, education, health and higher income;
g) transition from the Bolsa Família Program towards the Citizen´s Basic Income, CBI, unconditional, as a right of every person to participate in the wealth of the nation, such as set by the Law 10.835/2004, a PT initiative, approved by all parties in the National Congress and sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in January 8, 2004.”

It would be rational that the Bolsa Família and the state social programs become unified since they are quite similar. Both could be increased in value, for more people, in the direction of the CBI.

President Dilma Rousseff was elected in October 31st, 2010 in the second ballot, with almost 55.7 million votes, 56% of the total. On her inauguration day, on 2011, January 1st, she announced that the eradication of misery or extreme poverty in Brazil would be her first and most important priority.
On June 11st, President Dilma Rousseff announced the Brazil Without Misery Plan. The main purpose is to include in the program those 16.27 million people who are not yet being benefitted by the Bolsa Família program, although they are people who, according to the 2010 Census, are living with less than 70 reais per capita. She announced that the government will start making an active search for these people wherever they are. Since many of these people are children up to 14 years of age, the Bolsa Família Program increased the benefit from three to five children up to 15 years of age that may receive the 32 reais per child. This measure is expected to reach 800 thousand families more, up to 2014, and 1.3 million more children.

It will be a tremendous challenge for a 150-year old financial institution like the Caixa Econômica Federal, a Caisse des Dépôts, to administer the unconditional right to all 191 million Brazilians, even more in the future. But for an institution that was able to increase the number of families being benefitted by the Bolsa Família Program from 3.5 million families in December, 2003, to 13 million in December 2011, that corresponds to around 50 million inhabitants, and so efficiently, to manage the Citizen’s Basic Income to all Brazilians is a feasible objective. It is my purpose to help President Dilma Rousseff and her Ministers to take the necessary steps to institute the Citizen’s Basic Income by 2014.

[1] Sources: Study number 30 of IPEA – Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada, First Analysis about the results of the 2008 PNAD – Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, published in September 24th, 2009, plus the 2009 PNAD and 2010 Census results officially published by the IBGE – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística in 2010 and 2011
[2] As of June 1st, 2011, R$ 1,00 was US$0.63, and €0.44.
[3] In 2004, BIEN became the Basic Income Earth Network.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
CASTRO, Josué (1951). Geopolítica da fome: ensaio sobre os problemas de alimentação e de população do mundo. Rio de Janeiro, Editora da Casa do Estudante do Brasil.
FRIEDMAN, Milton (1962). Capitalismo e liberdade. Rio de Janeiro, Editora Arte Nova, 1975.
INSTITUTO CIDADANIA (2001). Projeto Fome Zero: uma proposta de política de segurança alimentar para o Brasil. São Paulo. Instituto Cidadania/Fundação Djalma Gui marães.
LAVINAS, Lena (2001).  The appeal of minimum income programmes in Latin America. ILO Brasil Regional Office – World Bank Agreement. SES (Seeking Distributive Justice – Basic Security for All) n. 7.
MEADE, James Edward (1989).  Agathotopia:  the economics of partnership. Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Press.
RAWLS, John (1971).  A theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
SEN, Amartya (1999).  Development as Freedom. New York: Knofp.
SEN, Amartya (2009). The idea of justice. Great Britain, Penguin Books.
SILVEIRA, Antônio Maria (1975).  “Moeda e redistribuição da renda”. Revista Brasileira de Economia, abr/jun. [Reproduzido em Silveira (1981). Moeda e redistribuição de renda. Rio de Janeiro. Edições Multiplic.]
VAN PARIJS, Philippe (2001).  What’s Wrong with a Free Lunch? Foreword by Robert M. Solow. New Democracy Forum Series. Boston, Beacon Press.
VAN PARIJS, Philippe (1995).  Real freedom for all: what (if anything) can justify capitalism? Oxford, Oxford University Press.
VAN PARIJS, Philippe & VANDERBORGHT, Yannick (2006),  Renda Básica de Cidadania,  argumentos éticos e econômicos,  Rio de Janeiro: Record.

OPINION: Dependency: An ideology chasing its tail

by | Oct 10, 2011 | Opinion

I graduated in Social Work in 1964 and back then, in Australia, we were three quarters of the way through the 23 years of unbroken conservative rule. The prevailing welfare ideology of the time was heavily influenced by the combination of providing assistance to those ‘in need’ whilst sifting out ‘malingers’ and others who could but wouldn’t work. There was a sense of noblesse oblige [nobility obliges one to assist others less fortunate than oneself]. Yet such ‘generosity’ was hedged around by a prevailing view that some people were ‘bludging’ on the system and this meant that social security officials were wary of being taken for a mug. Fortunately, the Labor Party had consolidated the social security legislation in 1947 in one Act and set out eligibility entitlements in clearly defined categories. The ideological biases of social security administrators only came into play at the edges. In church run and other not-for-profit organisations, which supplied many of the ancillary welfare services, such conservative ideologies were very much to the fore.

Competing welfare ideological circles

In tropical Australia on full and new moons [which create huge tidal flows] currents flow very strongly. Whenever such flows are constricted, for example, by the narrowing of passages between islands, ocean eddies are formed that are so powerful they can force boats off course. Such eddies form patterns which are as unpredictable as the turbulence created in a jug of boiling water. Whenever I listen to neo-conservative economic fundamentalists pontificating about the propensity of social security recipients to sink into the “mire of welfare dependency” I have a sense of deja vu. As I try to untangle the twisted amalgams of ideological thought, I am reminded of the turbulence of these ocean eddies. At the same time in my mind’s eye, I see a gatekeeper of an 18th century Poorhouse berating those who enter with warnings about impending ‘sloth and licentiousness’.

Some of the competing descriptions exhibiting such ideological constructions are:

socially approved/ deserving/ good moral character- including previously adequately supporting ‘his’ family. Married/ widowed/ unmarried mother/ separated/ divorced/ living in sin. Citizen/ permanent resident/ migrant/ refugee/ over stayers / asylum seekers/ boat people/ illegal arrivals. Worthy/ entitled/unworthy. Universalism/ individual/ targeted/ categorical. Able bodied/ disability /sick/ malingerer/ blind/ old/ worker/ unemployed/ skilled/ unskilled/ contributing/ productive/ unproductive/ dependent/ self-reliant/ adequate/ inadequate/ helpless / hopeless/ taxpayer/ dole bludger.

Many of these ideological conundrums and often several other arcane protestations pop up when neo-conservatives discuss welfare issues and they have been doing much the same for many centuries. Joel Handler (2002 p. 56, footnote No. 217) pointed to 1348 Statute of Labourers admonishing the provision of assistance to ‘sturdy beggars’. Guy Standing (2002, pp. 173-174) makes the point that: “the principles of workfare were enshrined in the English Poor Law of 1536 dealing with ‘sturdy vagabonds’, and in the French Ordonnance de Moulins of 1556. The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act in Great Britain, was designed to reach only the ‘deserving’ and desperate poor (italics in original)”. Jennifer Mays (forthcoming) notes that similar ideological constructions prevailed in Australia throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. There is little doubt that those who wish to limit the scope or generosity of income support provisions find the frequent repetition of dependency rhetoric useful. However, it should be noted that the veracity of an idea is not established by its longevity nor by how frequently it is asserted.

The distinctions which neo-conservatives attempt to make in these dependency/ self reliance debates are based on distortions of reality. They are, as Joshua Holland (2006) notes, “a ‘zombie lie’ – no matter how many times you shoot it in the face, it keeps coming back to haunt you.”

Currently, in Australia, the favourite prevailing welfare myths are:

  • Australians pay high levels of taxation compared with the rest of the world,
  • asylum seekers without visas arriving by boat are entering Australia illegally,
  • Aborigines get exceedingly generous welfare payments compared with other citizens, and
  • there is such a thing as a ‘self-funded retiree’.

The reality is that:

  • “Australia has a low tax burden, both currently and historically. In 2003, Australia had the eighth lowest tax burden of the OECD-30 countries and has typically ranked in the bottom third of countries for the period since 1965” (Treasury 2003).
  • Because Australia has signed and ratified the 1951 Convention on Refugees asylum seekers have every right to enter this country to seek protection.
  • As a group, Aboriginal citizens are the least wealthy section of the society, who face the greatest health difficulties and they get less generous assistance than other Australians. This is sometimes because of the rural and remote regions in which they live. But mainly it is often due to Indigenous people’s lack of bureaucratic sophistication coupled with non-Aboriginal racism and governments’ determination to foist their ‘best intentions’ upon Indigenous citizens rather than to listen to Aboriginal peoples’ suggestions.
  • The statement that, unlike age pensioners, ‘self-funded retirees’ don’t draw on the public purse’ is a nonsense – they get exceedingly generous tax waivers on their superannuation and, provided their income is below $50,000 annually, get government subsidised medicines. Some of the recently beatified ‘self-funded retirees’ get more assistance from the government (by way of tax concessions) than age pensioners get from the pension.

The left is left behind

The absence of logic, in many of the arguments propounded by rightwing ideologues about the need to force recipients of social security to meet onerous obligations in return for payment of benefits, should make it easy to destroy their arguments. But in Australia, as elsewhere, this is not the case. As George Monbiot points out:

rightwing movements thrive on their contradictions, the leftwing movements drown in them. Tea Party members who proclaim their rugged individualism will follow a bucket on a broomstick if it has the right label … Instead of coming together to fight common causes, leftwing meetings today consist of dozens of people promoting their own ideas, and proposing that everyone else should adopt them.

Australia in the 21st century

After the economic fundamentalist and thirdwayism of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments in the 1980s and 90s. John Howard came to power, in 1996, promising even more economic fundamentalism coupled with conservative social policies. He set out, with alacrity, to fight the ‘Culture Wars’ it didn’t matter whether it was winding back the Native Title legislation ‘to give pastoralists more certainty’, removing industrial award protection, enforcing individual work contracts, setting up Star Chambers which compelled building workers to give evidence, tightening disability support pension eligibility, enforcing ‘work for the dole’ provisions on ‘job snobs’ (by which he meant people who were unemployed), expanding mandatory detention of asylum seekers, introducing temporary protection visas for refugees (which did not allow family reunion), excising offshore islands from our migration zone, sending those who did not reach the Mainland to be processed on Nauru or Manus Island and launching the Northern Territory Intervention in 73 Aboriginal communities. This Intervention involved suspending the Racial Discrimination Act, compulsorily acquiring leases of town areas, quarantining half of people’s social security pensions and benefits on a Basics Card that could only be used for government approved purchases (Altman and Hinkson 2007).

Monbiot (2010, p.59) quotes with approval Thomas Franks 2004 book What’s the matter with Kansas? whose thesis is that the new conservatism systematically erases economic explanations by blaming the trouble of the poor not on corporate or class power, wage cuts and so forth but on cultural factors. In 2001, Brendon O’Connor argued that George Gilder and Charles Murray’s “central claim (was) that welfare causes dependency and thus unemployment and poverty – and that welfare reform therefore needs to focus on changing the behaviour of welfare recipients rather than providing employment opportunities (p.221).

In 2007, Kevin Rudd led Labor to victory – promising to wind-back the worst excesses of Howard’s Work Choices legislation and ending offshore processing of asylum seekers but maintaining the Intervention and other conservative social policies such as continuing the suspension of the racial discrimination legislation whilst leaving in place the prohibition of same sex marriage and euthanasia. In 2008-9, almost all developed countries experienced recession. Largely through counter-cyclical spending, Labor managed to avoid it. Rudd tried to introduce substantially increased mining taxes. The billionaire miners launched a massive anti-mining tax campaign that somehow convinced average Australians that the increased mining taxes, which Rudd was proposing, were not in their best interests. Just prior to the 2010 election, his Deputy, Julia Gillard, rolled Rudd. She immediately decreased the amount the mining taxes would add to Federal revenue and limited the types of mining that would attract a tax.

The subsequent election resulted in a hung parliament. Gillard’s minority government rules with the assistance of the Greens and three independents. Opinion polls put support for Labor in the high 20s. Gillard promised 2011 would be the ‘year of delivery’ when what we needed was a year of deliverance. Gone are the days when it could truly be said “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” (such as in the run up to Gough Whitlam’s 1972 electoral victory) when it seemed that grand improvements in social welfare were imminent: or in early 1975, when it appeared that the government was about to introduce a guaranteed minimum income. But, that was before the Dismissal of the Whitlam government by the Governor General on the 11th of November 1975; when progressive Australians realised that “Man always is but never To be blessed” (Pope 1733).

What is on the Gillard government’s agenda is revealed when she speaks about: wanting everyone to have a job ‘for the simple dignity that work brings’, or wanting to process asylum seekers, arriving in Australian waters, in Malaysia, or increasing the hurdles which those with disabilities have to jump-over before they will be considered eligible for a disability support pension, or maintaining many aspects of the Northern Territory Intervention, or moving to be able to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act by extending the quarantining of half people’s social security from just Northern Territory Aborigines to other disadvantaged groups in other parts of Australia (Tomlinson 2011) and at the same time increasing the compulsory superannuation levy from 9 to 12 per cent.

John Howard won the ‘Culture Wars’ and there is no-one in a leadership position within the Australian Labor Party with the ticker to take on the continuing conservative dominance of the of the ideological debate. The Parliament has literally become a coward’s castle. The words: equity, justice, equality, freedom, least restrictive, honour, decency, solidarity and ensuring everyone has an above the poverty line Basic Income have disappeared from the Australian lexicon.

Bibliography

Altman, Jon & Hinkson, Melinda (eds.) [2007] Coercive reconciliation, Arena, North Carlton.

Handler, J. (2002) “Social Citizenship and Workfare in the United States and Western Europe.” BIEN 9th International Conference, Geneva, Sept.12-14.

Holland, Joshua (2006) “Myth of the Liberal Nanny State.” AlterNet, June 8.
https://www.alternet.org/story/36895/myth_of_the_liberal_nanny_state/

Mays, Jennifer (forthcoming) Australia’s disabling income support system: Tracing the history of the Australian disability income support system 1908 to 2007 – disablism, citizenship and the Basic Income proposal. PhD thesis Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.

Monbiot, George (2010) “Bogus, Misdirected and Effective.” The Guardian, June 14.

O’Connor, Brendon (2001) “The Intellectual Origins of ‘Welfare Dependency’”. Australian Journal of Social Issues. Vol.36, No. 3, August pp.221-235.

Pope, Alexander (1733) “An Essay on Man, Epistle I”, Princeton.
https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rywang/berkeley/magic3/paris/singles/eternal_spring.html

Standing, Guy (2002) Beyond the New Paternalism: Basic Security as Equality. Verso, London.

Tomlinson, John (2011) “Needs must when the devil drives.” On Line Opinion
https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11494

Treasury (2003) “International Comparisons of Australia’s Taxes.” Australian Government
https://comparativetaxation.treasury.gov.au/content/report/html/05_Chapter_3.asp

Social Policy Conference to address Sharing Responsibility in Shaping the Future

by | Sep 5, 2011 | News

Social Justice Ireland’s annual Social Policy Conference will address the issue of Sharing responsibility in Shaping the Future.  This one-day conference will be held in Duiblin on September 14, 2011 and will be addressed by a distinguished list of international and national speakers.

Questions concerning responsibility have been widely debated in recent times. Among these are questions on why ordinary people who had no part in the decisions made by banks and other institutions that caused the current series of crises, now have to take responsibility for the consequences of dangerous and sometimes illegal activities of those who played a central role?

The issue of responsibility goes even further. Following from recent crises people’s rights are at risk as are social protection, the welfare state and democracy itself. This situation is exacerbated by many other challenges facing the world today ranging from pandemics to environmental devastation, from nuclear annihilation to mass migration of displaced people.

It is time that responsibility for shaping the future was shared in a meaningful way between all stakeholders in the interests of the common good. But sharing responsibility raises its own series of questions such as:
  • Why should responsibility be shared?
  • How can responsibility be shared in a real and meaningful manner at local, national and international levels?
  • How can people ensure their voice is really heard or that future generations are protected?

More information at Social Justice Ireland

Anniversary Note: BIEN's 25th

by | Sep 4, 2011 | Opinion

Anniversaries are poignant human moments, points on a journey, never an end in themselves. Twenty-five years ago, on September 4-6, 1986, a small group of us held a workshop on basic income, and on September 6 decided to set up a network, BIEN. The memory is blurred; the documentation is scattered. However, this 25th anniversary is a testament to several aspects of BIEN, and it is perhaps acceptable to reflect on the journey so far.

It is intriguing that a core of the group that set up BIEN has remained active in its cause. Many of the original group, including this writer, had written papers advocating and justifying a basic income before we established BIEN. At the time, and for long afterwards, we were regarded by many of our colleagues and friends outside BIEN as quirky, idealistic, stupidly utopian or naïve. I recall the Director of the ILO’s Social Security Department using the expression ‘bad, mad and dangerous to know’. We have always had members who had a talent for giving some credence to that simplistic denigration. But neither they nor the insults have dimmed the light.

I doubt if any of us would have imagined that BIEN would last more than a couple of years, if that. The longevity is a tribute to many in that group, some of whom moved out after playing important roles, some played leading roles before retiring to the ranks, some moved out and then returned, refreshed. Some of the early figures have died; they are not forgotten. Some of the fresh-faced, long-haired youths who were at the inaugural meeting have shamelessly gone on to become grand-fathers and grand-mothers. It happens.

In BIEN, it has always been true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It has always had distinguished social thinkers, some of whom have gone on to become distinguished names in their field. Yet we have always recognised that it is the collective network, not individuals, which makes BIEN special. In a sense, at a personal level, a network such as ours is an exercise in associational freedom, in that the voluntary unpaid nature of what we have been trying to do together has strengthened each of us, to a greater or lesser degree. Would we have held the line if we had worked individually? I doubt it.

What has also been invigorating is that BIEN has always been ecumenical. Many who have added to its vitality have been profoundly religious and spiritual, many others have been atheists or agnostics. Politically too, we have avoided sectarianism. Some have been on the political right, others have been solidly on the left. It is testament to our charter and the many individuals who have steered the network that BIEN has always been a ‘broad church’. Nobody has been turned away or been subject to insults or disdain because of their personal views. If they have wanted to join the conversation, they have been welcome.

From the outset, there has been at least two lines of thinking that have dominated our conversation, one that is broadly philosophical and libertarian, stressing the appeal of a basic income as a right and as a stand-alone matter, the other that basic income should be seen as one component of a redistributive political and economic strategy. A third line has always been there as well, but has become increasingly important, the potential of a basic income as a means of enhancing a more gendered and ecologically viable future. Perhaps it is this third line that will prove decisive in the next few years.

In sum, a fundamental defining feature of BIEN members is that they have been and will remain inherently non-conformists, in the great tradition of thinking that defines humanity. We all believe there is an alternative.

That leads to what has been the primary means by which BIEN has flourished, our national networks and our Congresses. Those networks have tended to fluctuate, sometimes depending on the energies of one or two people, to the extent of making them fragile as their leading lights move through busy lives. But it has been particularly invigorating to see how new networks have emerged in recent years.

This has partly been associated with the great change we made to our name, going from BIEN to BIEN in Barcelona in 2004, when after some background wrangling, we opted to formalise reality by changing the “E” from Europe to Earth, recognising that an increasing proportion of our members were from outside Europe. Looking back, it seems obvious that the name change should be made.

For some in our ranks that was not obvious at the time. Some worried that we would lose our focus; some worried that if, as was felt appropriate, we alternated our Congresses between a European city and one outside Europe that members would only be able to afford to go to one Congress every four years. The former fear has proved unfounded; the latter fear has meant we have a greater responsibility to raise funds to enable as many people as wish to come to be able to do so.

As for the networks, it has been impressive that the second generation have been daring and invigorating. It is invidious to single out particular networks, but besides our wonderful members in Brazil and Argentina, it has been exciting to see the emergence of BIN-Italia, BIKN in Korea, BIJN in Japan and USBIG in North America. My dream at the moment is to see one in India. In this huge and wonderful country, the debate about income security has suddenly become very topical.

As for our Congresses, I am sure many of us proverbially pinch ourselves from time to time in wondering how we have done them. Every single one has started with a sense of trepidation among the nominated organisers. Who is going to do the work? Where are we going to obtain the money? What should the themes be? Who will be our plenary speakers? Will there be enough quality papers?

Practically every Congress has had its moments of crisis during the organisational phase. And yet all have taken place, and an assessment of their evolution and contents would make a fascinating topic, perhaps for a Ph.D. Let me just recall the places where we have held our Congresses since our inauguration in Louvain-la-Neuve in September 1986. In chronological order they have been held in Antwerp, Florence, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin, Geneva, Barcelona, Cape Town, Dublin and Sao Paolo. The names trip off the tongue as great cities. In each case, those who did the incredible amount of preparatory work deserve tremendous credit.

In every Congress, there were wonderful contributions, often from newcomers, sometimes from distinguished politicians or personalities. Who could forget the moving speech made by Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Cape Town Congress? Of course, no BIEN members had anything to do with the content of his speech. It was the delivery and the commitment shown by him that moved us. It is almost unfair to single him out, since over the years there have been numerous fascinating contributions.

At the Sao Paolo Congress, I recall a private chat with a fellow founder member in which we both remarked how extraordinary it was to find that we learned new ideas and interpretations at every Congress. Only a small fraction of the papers presented over the years have ever been published; I have a volume from the Geneva Congress in front of me now. However, probably over 600 papers have been presented at the thirteen Congresses.

What then of the cause? Twenty-five years is a long time to have been refining our thinking without success. Well, progress has been substantial. In an early paper in the 1980s, I predicted that social policy would drift to workfare before an unconditional universal basic income became part of mainstream thinking, essential for responding to the growing inequalities and insecurities. Regrettably, workfare has been ushered into reality, in the United States, in the UK and in various ways elsewhere. It runs counter to any legitimate idea of freedom, and is divisive. It may grow uglier before there is a revolt against it. Then, I believe, our time will come.

In that regard, we might reflect on three quotations that have stayed with me during the twenty-five years. The first is a nice aphorism from Barbara Wootton:

“It is from the champions of the impossible

rather than the slaves of the possible

that evolution draws its creative force.”

We all know the feeling of being told a basic income is an impossibility. Usually, it is said by people who either presume it is impossible because it has never been done or do not wish it to be possible, because it might mean less for themselves or for their kind.

The second comes from William Morris, one of the early advocates of a basic income in his News from Nowhere. It was not from that book that the saying comes, but seems hugely relevant today.

“I….pondered how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.”

Those words were written in 1886. What is in a name? Probably, most of us in BIEN have toyed with terms that might work better than the familiar basic income – ‘social dividend’, ‘citizen’s income’, ‘basic income grant’ (BIG), and so on. In the UK at the moment, the government’s new universal credit is not a basic income, but could be seen as a major step in creating a basis for moving towards what we might regard as a basic income.

The third statement is from a stranger fellow traveller. In 1947, a small group of 36 mavericks, led by Friedrich Hayek, convened a meeting in Montreux and set up the Mont Pelerin Society. Their ideology would not appeal to most BIEN members. However, for the best part of thirty years they met and wrote and lobbied, mostly ignored or regarded with disdain by conventional circles. In his preface to his 1982 edition of his famous Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman, who had been a young economist at that 1947 meeting, wrote:

“Our basic function is to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the political impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”

Perhaps he was being a little cute, since his thinking had become part of the Washington Consensus by then. None of us think we are analogous to the overtly political Mont Pelerin Society, but after decades of neglect, no less than eight of its 36 founders went on to receive Nobel Prizes in economics. My nominations go in on Monday!

More generally, the view that ideas go from being disregarded to being mainstream only after 30 years has, not surprisingly, appealed to me during the past 25 years. One could say that basic income is one of those ideas that Albert Hirschmann had in mind in saying that whenever a new progressive idea comes up it is subject to three reactions – the claim of futility (that it would be ineffectual), the claim of jeopardy (that it would endanger other goals), and the claim of perversity (that it would have unintended consequences). We have certainly faced those claims, and still do. But fewer people are being convinced by them.

As for the 30 years before an idea comes into its own, I feel quietly optimistic that we are ahead of the curve.

Why is that? First, in the so-called rich countries social policy is in disarray, while insecurity and inequality have become pervasive and threatening to the social stability of society. In this, the precariat has become pivotal, growing angrier and more alienated by the day and filling the squares of cities in numerous countries.

Second, we have seen a remarkable development in developing countries in the past decade. Here we have to admit that back in the 1980s we did not anticipate the extraordinary progress the debate on basic income would make in the near future. Yet in the past decade in particular, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, forms of non-contributory cash transfer have become hugely popular. We have seen the spread of so-called conditional cash transfers in Latin America and elsewhere.

These are not basic income schemes, being selective, targeted and conditional. However, they have legitimised the payment of cash in monthly payments as a vehicle to overcome poverty and insecurity. The task now is simpler – to show conclusively that targeting, selectivity and conditionality are profoundly wrong. Each day one can find more evidence and each day one can find that prominent policymakers have lost their confidence in one or other of the three. Conditionality is the worst of the challenges before us. It is pervasive and part of the new orthodoxy among politicians and some international financial agencies, notably the World Bank.

While the struggle goes on to show that conditionality is paternalistic, divisive and contrary to ideas of freedom and equality, a quiet revolution is taking place – basic income has been accepted as a legitimate option in development discourses. And we are seeing several countries where something like it is ‘on the cards’ or being tried. All BIEN members know of the law of 2004 in Brazil committing its government to a basic income. All BIEN members have been thrilled by the Namibian experiment. Now, we are in the middle of a pilot scheme in villages in India and in part of Delhi. Others in Brazil and elsewhere have lifted our spirits.

At national level, what amount to short-term basic income schemes have become integral to relief programmes following ecological and social shocks. And we are seeing national moves towards our goal in some unexpected places, including Mongolia and Iran. We should not be carried away by these. However, they may turn out to be harbingers of a breakthrough. The evidence piles up that if the financial constraints are lifted, people everywhere act rationally in the interest of their families and their communities. The essential optimism that lies in the heart of all BIEN members is being supported in wonderful ways.

All of this is for more considered analysis on later occasions. A point on a journey is one for lightness, for reflecting on what drives us. At core, it is a sentiment that goes back thousands of years – a sense of social justice. In that regard, I am reminded of Aristotle’s wondrous words about philia. As I look back at our modest efforts, I can only think right now that BIEN has been, is and will remain a tribute to the virtues of friendship. For what has kept it together is a spirit of philia cemented by a common bond of wanting to make the world of inequality and exploitation a little better for all those who are economically insecure.

La lotta continua!

BIEN’s very modest birth. Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), September 6th, 1986:

OPINION: Thinking About Ethical Leadership: An ethical response to poverty in Canada

by | Jul 18, 2011 | Opinion

By Janet Keeping

I often wonder why concern about poverty in Canada is not more intense and widespread. 

Are Canadians really as indifferent as we seem?  Or is some of the failure to react a function of ignorance? Certainly many people seem not to appreciate that there is acute poverty in Canada.

For example, in Calgary – one of the wealthiest cities in Canada – over 100,000 people, or about 10 percent of the population use food banks annually.  This fact is not widely known, even in Calgary, although it is publicized from time to time in the media.

As an aside, I note that ignorance itself has ethical dimensions. As good citizens we should keep ourselves apprised of what is going on in our community, especially what is going on with our society’s most vulnerable members. Ignorance may be bliss, as the old saying goes, but it isn’t ethically defensible.

In any event, ignorance can’t entirely explain the failure of Canadians to react to the poverty in our midst.  There is more to our apparent apathy about poverty; namely a profound failure of imagination. Knowing something – such as that many Canadians are poor – is one thing. Understanding the significance of being poor is quite another.  If you can’t picture the suffering, you aren’t going to appreciate the imperative to help.

When told the people were starving for want of bread, Marie Antoinette – the last Queen of France – famously replied “Well, then, let them eat cake.”  The phrase “let them eat cake” has become synonymous with a callous disregard for the lot of the (much) less fortunate.

But the anecdote also connotes an inability to picture how life goes for people in very different circumstances from yours. If Marie Antoinette’s bread supply had ever been low, there would have been many other foodstuffs to keep hunger at bay, primary amongst them cake.  This wasn’t true for the masses.

In contemporary Canada the demeaning grind of poverty looks very different than it did in 18th century France, but poverty remains dispiriting and painful.

It looks like the parent who has always to say “no” to a child’s desire for what others all around have. It looks like the degradation of having to tell your child’s principal that you can’t afford the school trip and ask if a subsidy is available, and like the guilt of feeding your family what you can afford rather than the more nutritious foods you know they need to thrive.  And if your poverty is caused by being out of work, then it looks like the agony of knowing you are providing a poor role-model and as a   result the cycle of poverty may well be repeated in your child’s adult years.

Canadians have to have the relevant information – that there is significant poverty in our country – and they have to have some way into understanding what it means.  Only with that kind of understanding will we insist that collectively – through public policy reform – we address the issue in a robust way.

The precise policy solution to poverty is not our concern here. It is instead:  how do we get to the point that the suffering around us caused by poverty becomes intolerable and we insist upon action?

Our failure to reach that level of motivation is even more disconcerting now that the gap between rich and poor is growing in Canada (as it is in many countries).  There is ever stronger evidence of the connection between that gap and the incidence of serious social ills, such as teenage pregnancy, lower life expectancy and crime.

A growing body of evidence suggests that the bigger the income gap in any society, the worse the conditions for everyone in that society, not just the relatively poor. So even if you are not moved by the injustice of poverty and the stressful unhappiness it causes, you should be stirred to action by your own self-interest. Yet many people remain indifferent.  So, what is going on here? I think it is this: we do not see our interconnectedness.

The notion that our individual well-being is strongly connected to the well-being of the broader society flies in the face of one of the strongest myths of our place and time: that you make it or don’t almost exclusively on the strength of your own  effort.

We persist in believing we are personally responsible for our poverty or wealth, as though what is going on around us has no relevance. Increasingly it looks like this is far from the whole story and in important ways simply not true.

Greater knowledge, imagination and understanding of our interconnectedness seem needed to spur an ethical response to poverty alleviation.

Janet Keeping is President of the Calgary-based Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership.