by Nicole Teke | Jun 10, 2016 | News
The French Senate rejected a motion calling on the government to introduce basic income, but it still decided to form a parliamentary commission aiming at investigating the idea.
Last week was a busy week for basic income in the French Senate. The National Assembly had already debated the topic of basic income several times in the past few months (amendment to the Budget Bill of 2016 and Amendment to the National Digital Republic); it is now the Senate’s turn to look deeper into the question of a basic income implementation in France.
Jean Desessard, Senator from the Green Party, who had contributed to the organization of a debate in the Senate last year on this same topic, tabled a draft resolution on May 19th that called on the government “to take the necessary steps to introduce a basic income”. This political move lead to almost two hours of debate (see the video here) among Senators from left to right, most of whom declared that they were open to this idea yet needed to dig further.
Most MPs admitted that basic income was an interesting issue that needed to be explored in more of its details, potentially with the funding of feasibility studies and pilot-projects. Only a few MPs were more cautious, fearing that basic income would discourage people to work and would promote laziness.
The resolution was eventually rejected by a large margin. In fact, only the Ecologist group (parliamentary group composed with MPs from the Green parties: EELV and Ecologistes!, and one MP from the Socialist party), and one Conservative MP voted in favor. However, the fact that the Socialist group and the Centrists decided to abstain signalled that they did not oppose the topic in principle, but rather the actual proposal of committing the government to implement it directly. They thus showed that they were open to the debate and willing to study further the possibilities on the topic.
In fact, the Socialist group decided in parallel to support the initiative of its member Daniel Percheron, who proposed to form a parliamentary ‘mission of information’ that will enable MPs to work on “the interest and possible forms of implementation of a basic income in France”. Within this framework, 27 Senators from different political groups will debate the topic and present their results by the Fall. The French Movement for a Basic Income was consulted on the 9th of June on this matter.
Given all these political moves, not only in the Senate but also in the National Assembly as well as from some members of the current government, we can now say that basic income has reached a milestone in the public debate, and will certainly be a key topic in the upcoming presidential and general elections to take place next year.
Picture CC Pierre Metivier
by Philippe van Parijs | Jun 6, 2016 | Opinion
Despite being factually defeated in the ballots, the Swiss initiative for basic income should be regarded as a giant step in the now unstoppable march towards basic income, says BIEN Founder Philippe Van Parijs.
Philippe Van Parijs is Professor at UCLouvain, Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics. Chair of BIEN’s International Board
June 5th, 2016 will be remembered as an important landmark in the worldwide march towards the implementation of unconditional basic income schemes. On that day, all Swiss citizens were asked to express their approval of or opposition to the following proposal:
- The Confederation introduces an unconditional basic income.
2. The basic income must enable the whole population to live a dignified life and to participate in public life.
3. The law will determine the funding and level of the basic income.
The proposal was rejected, with 76.9% of the voters against, 23.1% in favor. Why was this rejection predictable? And why is it such an important step forward?[1]
From 0 to 23%
To answer these questions, a brief historical overview is in order. In 2008, the German film maker Enno Schmidt and the Swiss entrepreneur Daniel Häni, both based in Basel, produced Grundeinkommen: ein Kulturimpuls, a “film essay” that gave a simple and attractive picture of basic income. The dissemination of this film through the internet helped prepare the ground for a popular initiative in favor of the proposal quoted above, which was launched in April 2012. Another popular initiative, which proposed an unconditional basic income funded specifically by a tax on non-renewable energy, had been launched in May 2010, but it failed to gather the required number of signatures. The initiators of the 2012 initiative first thought of specifying that the basic income should be funded by the Value Added Tax, as was suggested in the film, but they dropped the idea for fear of reducing support for the proposal. They also chose not to stipulate a precise amount of the basic income in the text itself. But their website did mention a monthly amount of 2500 Swiss Francs per adult and 625 Swiss Francs per child as the best interpretation of what was required, in Switzerland, “to live a dignified life and to participate in public life”. If an initiative gathers over 100.000 validated signatures in 18 months, the Federal Council, Switzerland’s national government, has the obligation to organize a country-wide referendum within three years either on the exact text of the initiative or on a counter-proposal to be negotiated with the initiators.
On the 4th of October 2013, the initiators handed in spectacularly 126.406 valid signatures to the federal chancellery. On the 27th of August 2014, after validation of the signatures and examination of the arguments, the Federal Council rejected the initiative without making a counter-proposal. In its view, “an unconditional basic income would have negative consequences on the economy, the social security system and the cohesion of Swiss society. In particular, the funding of such an income would imply a considerable increase of the fiscal burden”. The proposal was subsequently submitted to both Chambers of the Swiss Parliament. On the 29th of May 2015, the Commission of Social Affairs of the National Council (Switzerland’s federal house of representatives) recommended by 19 votes against 1, with 5 abstentions, that the proposal for an unconditional basic income should be rejected. After a thorough discussion at a plenary session on the 23rd of September 2015, the National Council proceeded to a preliminary vote and endorsed this negative recommendation by 146 votes against 14 and 12 abstentions.
On the 18th of December 2015, the Council of States (the Swiss Senate, made up of representatives of the cantons) considered the initiative in turn and rejected it by 40 votes against, 1 in favor and 3 abstentions. On the same day, the proposal was the object of a second and final vote in the National Council: 157 voted against, 19 in favor and 16 abstained. In all cases, all the representatives from the far right, center right and center parties voted against the proposal. All pro votes and abstentions came from the socialist party and the green party, both of which were sharply divided. At the final vote in the National Council, 15 socialists voted in favor, 13 against and 13 abstained, while 4 greens voted in favor, 5 against and 3 abstained. The degree of support thus oscillated between 0% in the Federal Council, 2% in the Council of States and 4, 8 and 10% in the National Council (commission, preliminary and final vote).
For the popular vote on the 5th of June 2016, the national leaderships of nearly all parties, including the socialist party, recommended a “no” vote. The only exceptions were the green party and the (politically insignificant) pirate party, which recommended the “yes”, joined by a number of cantonal sections of the socialist party from all three linguistic areas. Against this background, it was entirely predictable that the no vote would win. The actual results of nearly one vote out of four for “yes” — with peaks at 35% in the canton of Geneva, 36% in the canton of Basel-Stadt, 40% in the city of Bern and 54% in the central districts of Zürich — is far above what the voting record in the Swiss parliament would have led one to expect. We must, moreover, bear in mind that Switzerland is perhaps the country in Europe in which support for an unconditional income should be considered least likely, not only because of the deeper penetration, in Calvin’s homeland, of a Calvinist work ethic, but above all because of the comparatively low levels of unemployment and poverty it currently experiences.
In Switzerland and beyond: broader and more mature
Everyone now realizes, however, that even if the initiative had not managed to gather the votes of more than the 2.5% of the Swiss citizens who had given their signatures at the initial stage, it would have been, thanks to the initiators’ stamina and their impressive communication skills, a stunning success. There is now no population in the world or in history that has given more thought to the advantages and disadvantages of the proposal than the Swiss have done over the last four years. And the effect was by no means confined to Switzerland. Just in the few days preceding the popular vote, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Guardian, and countless other newspapers around the world felt forced to publish substantive articles in order to explain at length — sometimes quite well, sometimes not so well — what a basic income is and what it is about. There is certainly no week in the history of the world in which the media have allocated so much time and space to a discussion of basic income.
Apart from giving a big boost to the spreading of the idea, the Swiss initiative has also greatly contributed to the maturing of the debate about it. For one lesson to be drawn from the experience is that a proposal that stipulates a high amount for a basic income, but no precise way of funding it, can easily gather the required number of signatures for a vote – while still being a long way from convincing a majority among the voters who bother to turn up on voting day (about 46% of the electorate in this case). A shining star that indicates the direction is enough for the former, but visible signposts on the ground marking a safe path in its direction are essential to achieve the latter. Whenever I was invited to join the Swiss debate, I argued that introducing in one go an individual basic income of CHF 2500 (38% of Switzerland’s GDP per capita) would be politically irresponsible. True, no one can prove that such a level of unconditional basic income is not economically sustainable. But nor can anyone prove that it is. Nor will any local experiment performed or planned in Switzerland or elsewhere prove that it is. Moreover, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the economic sustainability of an unconditional basic income at that level will require a number of preconditions currently unmet, including the introduction of new forms of taxation — for example the micro-tax on electronic payments that played an interesting role in the Swiss debate — and effective international cooperation against tax evasion — not exactly Switzerland’s strongest point.
In the immediate future, however, it should now be clear that more modest but significant steps forward can and must be worked out and debated. They must involve an individual unconditional basic income at a lower level (say, 15 or 20% of GDP per capita) that would still need to be topped up by means-tested social assistance benefits or housing grants, certainly for urban single-adult households. It is not because in many cases the unconditional basic income would not suffice, on its own, to “enable the whole population to live a dignified life”, that it would not make a big difference to the security, bargaining power ad freedom of choice of many of the most vulnerable among us. Even in the short run, introducing such an unconditional basic income is definitely sustainable economically. It is up to us to make it politically achievable.
The totally unprecedented Swiss initiative has not only made many people, in Switzerland and far beyond, far more aware of the nature and size of the challenges we face in the twenty first century and of how a basic income might help us address them; by triggering countless objections, some naive and some spot on, it has also helped the advocates of basic income to sharpen their arguments and to better see the need for realistic next steps. For both of these reasons, the Swiss citizens who devoted a tremendous amount of time, energy and imagination to the “yes” campaign deserve the warm gratitude not only of the basic income movement worldwide, but of all those fighting for a free society and a sane economy.
[1] Many thanks to Nenad Stojanovic (Zurich and Princeton) for reliable information and insightful comments.
by Stanislas Jourdan | May 22, 2016 | News
The first EU-wide opinion survey on basic income finds a great majority of Europeans know about basic income and are supportive of the idea.
While it is no surprise that basic income has gained a lot of popularity over the past few months, it is difficult to grasp exactly how mainstream basic income has begun. That’s where opinion polls can help.
In Europe – where most of the political developments are happening in Finland, the Netherlands, and France – a new poll survey shows the magnitude of the trend – and it’s very encouraging.
According to the preliminary results (pdf here) from a survey carried out in April 2016, about 58% of the people are aware of basic income, and 64% would vote in favour of the policy if there was a referendum about it.
The survey was produced by the Berlin-based company Dalia Research, within the framework of its research programme called e28TM, a European-wide survey, to find out “what Europe thinks.” The e28TM is conducted every 6 months within a sample of 10,000 people, representative of the EU (28 countries) population. The respondents were invited to an online survey via their smartphones, tablets or computer desktops without knowing in advance the topics of the poll. Last April, the survey included basic income.
In the questionnaire, basic income was defined as “an income unconditionally paid by the government to every individual regardless of whether they work and irrespective of any other sources of income. It replaces other social security payments and is high enough to cover all basic needs (food, housing, etc.).”
Only 24% of the respondents said they would vote against it, while 12% would not vote. More interestingly, though, the results show a correlation between the level of awareness about basic income and the level of support. In other words, the more people know about the idea, the more they tend to support it:
According to the survey, countries where basic income is most popular are Spain and Italy (with 71% and 69% of respondents, respectively, inclined to vote for a basic income).
However, those results are not entirely accurate as they do not show results for smaller countries where the population being interviewed was too small for the results to be statistically significant.
Respondents were also asked about their biggest hopes and fear if a basic income was to be introduced. It turns out the most convincing arguments in favor of basic income were that it would “reduces anxiety about basic financing needs” (40%) and improve equal opportunity (31%). Perhaps the most surprising result is that the downsizing of bureaucracy and administrative costs was considered the least convincing argument (16%).
Only 4% of the people would stop working.
On the other hand, the most frequent fear or objection was that basic income would encourage people to stop working (43%). However, the survey also provided evidence that this would not in fact be the case — with only 4% of the respondents saying that they would stop working if they had a basic income. Moreover, only 7% said they would reduce their working time, while another 7% said they would look for another job. About 34% of the people surveyed said basic income would “would not affect my work choices” while another 15% said they would spend more time with their family.
This confirms the result of a previous poll conducted in Switzerland in January that a great majority of people want to work, despite having their basic needs met anyway.
Besides the apparently unfounded concern that people would stop working, other objections considered convincing were that people would massively immigrate (34%), that basic income is not affordable (32%) and that only the needy should receive assistance (32%).
Overall, those results are very positive for basic income. They finally provide evidence that basic income has become mainstream and is likely to be supported by a majority of the population – at least in the EU.
While a number of national polls have already found a good level of support for basic income in France (60%), Catalonia (72%), and Finland (67%), Dalia Research is the first to have produced a European-wide survey on the popularity of basic income.
by Stanislas Jourdan | Apr 26, 2016 | News
A report commissioned by the government to Member of Parliament Christophe Sirugue recommends a complete revamp of the French welfare system. This could constitute a major stepping stone towards the introduction of a basic income.
In October 2015, the French government commissioned the Socialist MP Christophe Sirugue to conduct a review of the welfare system in France and formulate a proposal for improving and simplifying of the existing social benefits schemes.
The report entitled “Rethinking Social Minima” was released on April 18th and remitted to the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. The report (available here) suggests three possible ways to revamp the welfare system:
- Simplify the architecture of the existing system by implementing 12 measures to reduce its complexity and make it more fair.
- Reduce the number of social minimas from ten to five by merging them.
- Create a “common protection floor”, which would in effect be a complete revamp of the current system, by ultimately replacing all of the ten social minima.
The last proposal, which is favoured by the author of the report, is distinct from a universal basic income. In fact, although the report comprehensively reviews the idea of basic income and stresses some of its merits, it excludes its implementation for now. One of the arguments put forward is that basic income is a bigger issue than the scope of the report, which only aims at improving the welfare system while basic income is implicated with other societal debates, such as the changing nature of work.
The French Movement for Basic Income, which was consulted by MP Christophe Sirugue, notes three main points of progress in the conclusions of the report:
- Opening the minimum income scheme to people from 18 to 25 years old.
- Making social benefit payments automatic.
- Partially individualizing the minimum income.
The Prime minister Manuel Valls welcomed the report, which is seen as “both pragmatic and ambitious” and has already asked all his ministers to work as fast as possible to implement the proposed reforms.
Confusing statement from the Prime Minister
In a confused statement on his Facebook page, Valls claimed that his government was opening the debate on “universal income” in order to implement it by 2018, while immediately making it clear he meant something very different than a universal basic income:
“Not a benefit paid to everyone including those who have sufficient income – it would be too costly and meaningless – but a targeted grant to all of those who really need it.”
“Unfortunately, the debate seems to be poorly started if the terms of the topic are not well defined,” responded the MFRB in a column in the newspaper Le Monde to clarify that universal basic income must indeed be universal, while debunking the idea that a full basic income was not affordable.
Many other media outlets and politicians – including Socialist MP Pascal Terrasse – reacted similarly, revealing once again the rapidly growing interest and support for the idea in France. Earlier this year, a report by the Digital Council also recommended running a basic income experiment.
Picture Credit CC Parti Socialiste
by Sandro Gobetti | Apr 17, 2016 | News
Founding members of BIN Italia attended the hearing of the Commission of Labour and Social Affairs of the Italian Parliament, on March 14, 2016.
The hearing had been requested to BIN Italy, regarding the examination of the draft 2016 Stability Law, which is about inequality, poverty, reorganization of social services and welfare system.
BIN Italia reminded the Commission of the importance of, and the reasons for, introducing a guaranteed income in Italy – one of the countries with the highest rate of risk of poverty and youth unemployment in Europe, and yet one that has not provided any universal income support scheme.
You can watch the video of the hearing here.
More information at:
In Italian:
Sandro Gobetti, “March 14th: BIN members at the Italian Parliament basic income audition [14 marzo: reddito minimo audizione in Commissione alla Camera del BIN Italia]” March 12th 2016
