by Cordelia Holst | Feb 22, 2017 | News
In a Fortune Insiders article published last month, Internet entrepreneur Marc Benioff says we “need to look at universal basic income” as a way to stimulate growth.
Marc Benioff is the founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce, one of America’s highest valued cloud computing companies and the largest employer in San Francisco, California. A celebrated philanthropist, Benioff and Salesforce contribute cash, equity and employee volunteer hours to efforts focused around the issues of education, health, and equal pay for women.
In his article for Fortune Insiders, Benioff turns to the broader income inequality issues facing the US and the world. He frames the call to action to business leaders to ensure that change benefits all of humanity, not just stock owners, employees and customers. In passing, he endorses a closer look at Universal Basic Income as a path to stimulate growth.
Benioff outlines the opportunities and dangers in our rapidly developing technology, calling on business leaders to carefully apply this tech to solving our complex problems while protecting society and the planet. There are many small things that can improve business without affecting the planet using technology, this could be things like a business phone system, which uses the internet to provide a better connection and communication between business associates, clients, and more. Those phone systems are becoming a lot more popular for businesses these days. In order to transition over to VOIP phone systems, businesses could always consider contacting an IT support provider London to ensure it’s all set up and working correctly. That way, businesses can continue to communicate with their clients. Especially for startup companies, communication and marketing can play a pivotal role in their growth. They can analyze their competitors and build a content strategy with the help of dedicated public relations firms. The pr agency for startups that have trained copywriters, IT pros, and former reporters who can carry out the right content strategy. He also identifies four pillars for business leaders to evaluate for their company while they move toward an agenda of lessening inequality: build trust, stimulate growth, spur innovation, drive equality.
In his discussion of the second pillar, stimulating growth, he notes that while governments are promising more jobs, job creation is much more challenging for governments than in previous eras, as tech is changing the face of the job market so quickly. Benioff writes the following:
“Either the inequality gap continues to widen, leaving and the world much less stable, or we invest in the creating the policies and education programs that train young people for the jobs of tomorrow and retrain displaced workers. For those who cannot be retrained, and even those traditionally not compensated for raising a family or volunteering to help others, we need to look at universal basic income, where governments would provide citizens additional income beyond what they already earn at their jobs.”
However this is all Benioff says about Universal Basic Income, leaving it unclear how he is defining or envisioning the program. All that is evident is that he calls for business leaders to support governments looking at Universal Basic Income as a way to get income into consumers’ hands, both the stimulate growth and to protect vulnerable populations.
The Fortune Insiders article also contains a video of a panel discussion from Dreamforce, a conference Benioff’s company hosted in October 2016. On the panel, Benioff discusses the changes in tech and the impact business leaders can make in their own communities, as well as expresses a willingness to work with US policy makers, “sitting down with our President, whoever she may be”; however, he does not bring up universal basic income as a solution, as he does in this article, published post election.
Read the article here:
Marc Benioff, “Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: How Business Leaders Can Help Narrow Income Inequality,” Fortune.com Fortune Insiders, January 17, 2017.
Photo CC Kenneth Yeung – www.thelettertwo.com
by Kate McFarland | Jan 3, 2017 | News
Sir Anthony (“Tony”) Atkinson, a distinguished economist best known for his work on inequality, passed away on January 1, 2017, aged 72.
In the words of BIEN co-founder Philippe van Parijs (Professor Emeritus at Université de Louvain), Atkinson was a “great scholar and a wonderful man, to whom the basic income movement is greatly indebted.”
Tony Atkinson (May 2015), CC BY-SA 4.0 Niccolò Caranti
At the time of his death, Atkinson was Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford (previously Warden of Nuffield College). He was a Fellow of the British Academy, and a former President of the Royal Economic Society, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association, and the International Economic Association.
Atkinson began writing on economics in the 1960s, when he published a first book on poverty in Britain and a second on unequal distribution of wealth. Throughout his career, Atkinson’s research focused on issues of social justice and public policy, especially related to income inequality. His recent projects included the World Top Incomes Database and a report on monitoring global poverty for the Commission on Global Poverty of the World Bank.
BIEN co-chair Louise Haagh (Reader at University of York) reflects:
Atkinson was a remarkable figure in the field of economics and in public debate. He is behind the concern with inequality as a threat to capitalism that is now common knowledge. Most important of all, with the likes of Amartya Sen, he made the field of public and welfare economics respectable, showing how the economy cannot function without a strong, well-funded public sector and a combined concern with pre- and redistribution to make equality of outcome attainable.
Malcolm Torry, BIEN co-secretary and Director of the Citizen’s Income Trust, describes Atkinson’s books, reports, and papers as having always been “packed full of detail, and always with a purpose: to tell anyone willing to listen that poverty and inequality matter, and that changes to tax and benefits systems can reduce them.”
In his last major work, Inequality: What Can Be Done? (2015), Atkinson presented 15 proposals to curb income and wealth inequality in developed nations. These include a national participation income and an unconditional basic income for children. Similar to a basic income, a participation income grants all members of society a right to a secure livable income. However, as its name suggests, a participation income is subject to a participation requirement. On Atkinson’s view, this requirement might be satisfied by not only paid employment but also caregiving, volunteer work in one’s community, full-time education, or other socially valuable activities.
Although he advocated for a participation requirement, Atkinson was an important contributor to the basic income discussion, even participating in BIEN’s congresses. Haagh recounts that, for over two decades, Atkinson was “open about his support for universal grants” at the same time as he also voiced “skepticism about how the proposal would sit with current welfare systems and norms” — a skepticism which, in Haagh’s view, lay behind his suggestion of a participation condition.
“I interpret Atkinson’s concern as not wanting to give up on ideas and practices of cooperation and community in the areas of welfare and economic development. That is why he thought participation was important as a form of legitimacy and for itself,” Haagh says. “Being the mark of honest and curious scholarship, Tony changed his mind on both the form and funding of basic income and participation income over time, explaining his reasons. Tony was critical in making basic income analysis less messianic and part of the wider welfare debate.”
Torry offers a slightly different interpretation of Atkinson’s endorsement of participation income, while agreeing that his work has been instrumental in driving forward critical, evidence-based debate about basic income and welfare policy:
Early in his career he recognised the desirability of Basic Income, but worried that it might be publicly and therefore politically unacceptable to give to everyone an income unconditionally: hence his proposal for a Participation Income. When he first made the proposal in 1992 he privately admitted that it might not be possible to administer a Participation Income: but he never gave up on the idea, and included it in his last book Inequality.
Elaborating upon Atkinson’s scientific approach to these topics, Torry contends that the distinguished economist’s most important legacy might be his development of microsimulation tools for the modeling of tax and benefit reforms:
It is thanks to Tony and his one-time colleague Holly Sutherland that the UK has been a leader in using microsimulation programmes and large survey databases to evaluate a wide range of individual and household effects of tax and benefits reforms. The Basic Income debate in the UK has been as intelligent as it has been because we can use the tools that Tony was the first to develop.
Tony combined a deep desire to reduce poverty and inequality with a social scientist’s pursuit of evidence as to how that might best be achieved. He will continue to be an example to us all.
BIEN co-founder Guy Standing (Professorial Research Associate at SOAS, University of London), a long-time acquaintance of Atkinson, was among the many saddened to hear of his passing. Standing reflects:
I knew him for many years, and was delighted when he accepted my invitation to give an opening keynote to the BIEN Geneva Congress in 2002, where he gave a characteristically optimistic speech about basic income coming in through the back door. Above all, he should have received the Nobel Prize in Economics. His lifelong work on income inequality will be his primary intellectual legacy. It was the real foundation for Thomas Piketty’s influential book. In his final magisterial book, Tony returned to basic income, and his participation income variant of the idea. He was a gentleman scholar.
Note (January 3, 7:30 ET): Since the original posting of this article, van Parijs has contributed an additional short post commemorating Atkinson.
Additional Reading: Sir Anthony Atkinson on Basic Income
A. B. Atkinson, “The Case for a Participation Income,” The Political Quarterly, 1996.
A. B. Atkinson, “Basic Income: Ethics, Statistics and Economics,” revised version of a paper presented at the Basic Income and Income Redistribution workshop at the University of Luxembourg, April 2011.
Citizen’s Income Trust, “Inequality: What Can Be Done? by Anthony B. Atkinson, a review,” Basic Income News, August 26, 2015.
Top photo: Sir Tony Atkinson at Fourth Angus Maddison Lecture on Data, Distribution and Development (Oct 2015), CC BY-NC-ND OECD Development Centre
by Andre Coelho | Nov 30, 2016 | News
(Image: Barcelona, “Queen” of the Mediterranean)
In the Spanish region of Catalonia, serious efforts are being made to reduce poverty and to reduce inequalities. Last week, on the 17th of November, the Catalan Economy and Tax Office presented a thorough study on social policies, which includes the contributions of 30 academics and other experts and technicians.
The document points out that current restrictions on the Catalan regional government public policies are stalling necessary changes, such as the implementation of more redistributive measures. This is due, in part, to the fact that the main tax revenue is managed by the Spanish State. The Catalan regional government is making attempts to address poverty and inequality, with the 2017 regional budget considered to be “the most social ever”. Under the new budget, more tax will be collected from both large property transfers and non-productive assets, and put into a budget that surpasses all other previous budgets in terms of social spending (education, health and social affairs). Despite this, Catalan officials recognize that the government should do even more to reduce poverty and tackle inequalities.
Although Catalonia’s poverty rate (19%) is lower than the Spanish average (22,1%), it is still above the European Union’s average poverty rate (17,2%). Catalonia also faces a persistently high unemployment rate (11,2%), despite the economic recovery in recent years.
The document presented by the Economy and Tax Office in Catalonia recommends profound changes to the regional social benefits scheme, which has been inadequate in poverty alleviation and prevention. At one point, it refers to basic income as a possible solution to this structural social problem. The regional basic income would amount to an unconditional allowance of 7471 €/year for every adult citizen, plus a 1494 €/year for every child (under 18 years of age) in Catalonia.
According to the study, replacing all current benefits which are valued below the basic income amount would save around 90 thousand million euros per year, in 2010 numbers. The study also states that basic income would reduce inequalities and allow young people to enjoy a larger degree of freedom and emancipation.
Pere Aragonès, the regional Secretary for Economy in Catalonia, a region with 7,5 million inhabitants, said at the 17 November meeting that his department and the Tax Office and Employment, Social Affairs and Families one are working on the development of a new set of social progress indicators, which can complement the economic variables (such as GDP).
More information at:
Catalan News Agency, “Catalonia not able to fight poverty within the “autonomic framework”, report finds”, 17th November 2016
by Andre Coelho | Sep 18, 2016 | Opinion
(image credit to: The Economist)
IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) Deputy Director for Capacity Development Andrew Berg, Research Department Senior Economist (at IMF) Luis-Felipe Zanna and Edward Buffie, a Professor of Economics at Indiana University Bloomington, just published an article articulating an analysis revolving around technological development and its implications on society, particularly regarding labor, capital and (in)equality. At the end of the article they refer to basic income as a possible solution, in order to redistribute the excess capital brought by the computerization of production.
But what do we have here? A miracle conversion of hard-core capitalist economists into soft-hearted left-wing liberals? Can we, after all, turn lead into gold? No, of course not. What we have here is textbook capitalist economy, with a new ingredient: basic income.
So their logic goes like this: We have inequality, but that is fine. Inequality is merely a result of market forces; we can live with that because we belong to that fortunate group of people who have not experienced poverty and cannot imagine experiencing poverty. But there are a couple of challenges with too much inequality: people revolt and cannot buy all these wonderful things corporate capitalism churns out daily. You see, this humanity thing has one big problem: it is full of humans. And humans, unlike machines, have two amazing features, which these brilliant economists have just discovered: they tend to fight back if pressed too much and cannot survive without their basic needs met.
The reason for this sudden, latent, realization has to do with the one thing all capitalists share: they are not entirely human. They hold this strange belief that there’s nothing wrong with trying to extract more water from the well than the amount that exists there. It is like writing a three-thousand-page essay and drawing this sole conclusion: 1+1=3.
But back to the logic. So, inequality is tolerable, but not too much. The solution? Give these poor people a basic income and, all of a sudden, they stop being such bad loser crying babies and resume buying enough stuff to maintain this completely absurd system of domination, privilege and exploitation. Shut them up, so we can keep doing our thing without distraction. Note that I have not, until now, said a single thing about robots, computers or automation. Because at bottom it has nothing to do with that. With robots or not, the capitalist mind just wants to extract wealth. How they do it is irrelevant, or relevant only to the extent as it is efficient in doing so.
What these enlightened IMF economists, and possibly other IMF officials do not realize is that basic income is a complete game changer. It will allow people to say “no”, to enjoy enough freedom to completely turn the capitalist system on its head. And these people will start doing much more bizarre things, like volunteering for causes close to their heart, or starting their own businesses (refusing to be slaves to some capitalist boss), and enjoying more leisure time, and time to care for family and friends (go figure out why). Living out their own lives, for a change.
I predict that, after basic income is implemented, in part following up these economists’ recommendations, capitalism will hardly resemble its own shadow in 10 to 20 years. Society will barely recognize itself, when looking back at today’s world. Mark my words.
More information at:
Andrew Berg, Edward F. Bufie and Luis-Felipe Zanna, “Robots, Growth, and Inequality”, Finance & Development, vol. 53 nº3, September 2016
by Andre Coelho | May 11, 2016 | Opinion
So the basic income implementation process in Namibia was halted1. Is that surprising?
After an amazing effort by minister Zephania Kameeta to get a basic income implementation program for Namibia up to the (minister) council, it was just swept away and replaced by a program intended to alleviate poverty through economic growth. The progressive approach was replaced by the traditional economic orthodoxy of endless growth and continued inequality. This program, named “Harambee Prosperity Plan”, also includes the creation of a food bank and grants for young people conditional on participation in this food bank and a few other community activities.
Let’s not forget that Namibia was one the few places on Earth where a basic income experiment was actually carried out (at Otjivero), and with excellent results. Among the positive results were better nutrition, clothing, and transportation, more savings and a rise in entrepreneurship. You could now be thinking: Ok, so they tried basic income in a pilot project with excellent results, and they had a minister who was a champion of the basic income who could take it on to national-level implementation. So what’s stopping them now? The answer seems simple, but it is also hard to deal with.
The answer is this: big corporate interests need poverty. And it so happens that Namibia has plenty of poor people2. In a recent essay, a tentative connection was established between poverty (in economic terms) and the refusal/denial of the South African government to test for basic income, let alone implement it at the national level. Basically, the argument entails that government officials deny the proven advantages of basic income, delaying its development, to protect corporate interests. These interests profit massively from the cheap labour that a mass of helpless poor people can provide.
The economic structure of Namibia, as related to income, is not much different from the South African, as can be seen in Figures 1 and 2. The similarity is striking, hence the same unwillingness of the Namibian political elite to try out the implementation of basic income, despite all the theoretical and proven practical advantages it provides for the people.
Figure 1 – The spread of households within the income distribution in South Africa, 2008
Figure 2 – The spread of households within the income distribution in Namibia, 2015
A clear image starts to appear. In these countries, poverty is an asset for big industry, which has, to a great extent, bought political power. So what can be done about it? Well, two things can happen: poverty-dependent corporations automate up to a great extent3, and/or Namibians put pressure on their elected officials – through democratic processes – to get basic income implemented, despite the corporate grip on regime politicians. The first one is highly probable, and so we will be watching a fading interest of corporations in financing political power, since with mechanical machines and Artificial Intelligence they can get their way even without resorting to poor human labour. The second one, less likely but entirely possible, may grow from the first one, when political leaders get less engaged with corporate power – and although remaining eager to please them, no longer have the same financial incentive, thus becoming more susceptible to democratic pressures.
Anyway, automation may actually not be a deterrent but rather a spark for some sort of basic income implementation. We seem to be facing a win-win situation for basic income: automation and/or democratic pressures will guarantee that basic income becomes a reality in the next few years in Namibia, and elsewhere. At this point, only ruthless autocratic power can dismiss it and keep it away for much longer. The time for change has come.
More information at:
Claudia and Dirk Haarnann, 2015. “Relief through cash: impact assessment of the emergency cash grant in Namibia”, July 2015
Claudia and Dirk Haarnann, 2015. “Piloting basic income in Namibia – critical reflections on the process and possible lessons”, Paper delivered at the 14th Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Munich – 14-16 th September 2012
André Coelho, “On why basic income has not yet been deployed”, Basic Income News, 17th March 2016
Notes:
1 – At the beginning of April 2016, the Namibian president presented his state of the nation address as well as the “Harambee Prosperity Plan”, which focuses on combating poverty by the creation of jobs through economic growth, plus the introduction of a food bank.
2 – According to the Republic of Namibia National Planning Commission “Poverty and deprivation in Namibia 2015”, the account for poverty is that 26,9 % of the population lives under the official poverty line.
3 – According the report “Technology at work v2.0”, it is estimated that in countries like Ethiopia the risk of job automation covers 85% of all jobs in the coming decades (other examples like China and India rate at 77% and 69% of automation risk, respectively).
