Jonny Steinberg, “Idea of jobs for all blinds us to need for welfare”

[Craig Axford]

Jonny Steinberg

Jonny Steinber

Jonny Steinberg, professor of African Studies at Oxford University, argues that South Africa’s failure to provide grants to unemployed young men is shifting the burden of supporting this segment of the nation’s population onto the working poor. This has contributed to the country’s recent labor unrest. Steinberg proposes that South Africa accept there will never be sufficient jobs for everyone, and that by providing a permanent basic income it will produce needed relief to both the nation’s working poor and its unemployed.

Jonny Steinberg, “Idea of jobs for all blinds us to need for welfare,” Business Day (South Africa, 26 July 2013

OPINION: Living Income Guaranteed – A proposal for a Basic Income from Equal Life Foundation

OPINION: Living Income Guaranteed – A proposal for a Basic Income from Equal Life Foundation

If you are searching the internet for ‘basic income’, ‘basic income guarantee’ or related subjects or you are a regular visitor to the various internet-based social networks like Facebook it would hardly have escaped your attention that quite a few of your hits will point to websites or blogs discussing topics like the Equal Money System and recently also Basic Income Guaranteed (previously ‘Grant’), with the acronym B.I.G. (or BIG)., but not to be confused with the Basic Income Guarantee (without ‘d’) of organisations such as USBIG that are affiliated to BIEN.  Even more recently, the name was changed again, this time to Living Income Guaranteed (LIG). The terms are here used interchangeably. All those sites can ultimately be traced back to an organization called Desteni which is based in South Africa and its offspring, an online community of groups in more than 20 countries, called Equal Life Foundation.

According to the Equal Life Foundation, the LIG is considered part of and the first stage in the development of the overall philosophy of the Equal Money System and a human right, an intrinsic part of citizenship. It is to be financed in part by equal access to resources such as ‘mining resources and water resources, electricity, cellphones, telephones’ of which all citizens become ‘shareholders’. Those resources, some of which are already owned by ‘capitalists’, are to be nationalized, the reason being that the shareholders, that is the citizens, ‘should have owned them in the first place’. It is considered a human right that profit from such corporations be shared equally among all citizens as social dividends in the form of a Basic Income because, in the final analysis, natural resources belong to no one but the earth. ‘This way the corporation = becomes government, the shareholder = the citizen, the profit = the Basic Income Guaranteed’. Occasionally, owning property beyond what is reasonable is even referred to as ‘theft’ or ‘treason’.The ‘capitalists’, however, will also profit from a transition to LIG as more people will be able to spend money on products and this will, in turn, boost the general economy.

In addition to the nationalization of resources, financing the LIG may take place through tax on goods and services, that is, sales tax, value added tax or important duty. The philosophy behind is that the value of labor should be directly reflected in the prices of the goods and services: ‘part of the price is another person’s livelihood, and that as you give = you will receive’. Toll tax on roads is also suggested as another form of tax on consumption.  All income and corporate taxes are to be abolished and so will play no part in financing the LIG, as this would allegedly amount to ‘charity, where the rich give to the poor’.

How does the LIG compare with the Basic Income advocated by BIEN and its affiliated organizations? Following one of BIEN’s prevalent definitions, four conditions are to be met for a proposal to qualify as a genuine Basic Income: It must be universal, individual, unconditional and high enough for a decent standard of living.

LIG reportedly complies with the first condition in that it is paid to individuals rather than families or households.

LIG is universal in the sense that everyone including children, in principle, is entitled to receive it. The exceptions to this fall under the category of conditionality, a subject that I will return to next. In a transitional period, children may receive a lower grant, a ‘basic child grant’, but the goal is a full LIG for all and will not be dependent on the parents’ income.

LIG is not unconditional or at least only to some extent. First of all, there are certain limitations (‘Certain Rules‘) to what recipients of a LIG can own. If you are able to sustain yourself through investments or savings or if you have a job, you are not entitled to receive a Basic Income. In other words, prospective recipients are means-tested. From this perspective, LIG is sometimes referred to as a form of insurance in that it is paid out if you are unable to provide for yourself the basic needs. ‘Basic income is a means to an end and not an end in itself’ and ‘there is no point in giving to people who don’t need it because their human rights are already secured’. It is, however, to my knowledge not discussed how to deal with people who are not willing to work even if one is available, but from my own correspondence with members of ELF and this reply it would seem that there are no strings attached to their proposal besides means-testing. If you are willing to live very modestly, with few possessions, you may live exclusively on your LIG and will not be forced to take a job.

LIG seems to comply with the condition of being ‘high enough: ‘The basic income should be ‘sufficient for a person or a family to live a decent life, one worthy of their birthright as a citizen’. However, in order to keep an incentive to work, ELF suggests a fixed minimum wage at ‘double the Basic Income’. For people working part-time, this will only pay off if they work enough hours and/or if they are sufficiently educated or skilled to receive a higher pay than the minimum wage. Otherwise, they might just as well live off their LIG and do voluntary work. However, this part of the proposal does not appear to be fully worked out.

In addition to the LIG, a ‘Subsidy for Homes‘, that is, for building one’s own house, will be provided, to the benefit of both the recipients and the industry.

The system as a whole is characterized as a mixture between capitalism and socialism, in other words, while the proposal is meant to restore justice through equality, it is not directly opposed to capitalism: ‘The Basic Income Guaranteed will function as the medium through which a state is able to remediate the most direct negative effects of a capitalistic system, while still being able to maintain some of the perks that such a system represents and embodies.’ This version of the Equal Money System – actually an intermediary stage before the full implementation of EMS – is also sometimes referred to as ‘Equal Money Capitalism‘, a system that is further characterized by equal wages and joint ownership to corporations. What this means is that workers are to be shareholders in the companies and the profit generated by them will be paid out equally to all workers once the basic costs of running them are covered. Also production will not take place according to a ‘supply and demand’ principle, but only according to what is needed and ecologically sustainable.

Some, or maybe in due course all, welfare benefits such as pensions will be phased out, at least gradually, as it is suggested that the LIG recipients invest part of their grant in private companies and the revenue from this will eventually make them ‘self-sufficient’. This type of investment appears to be on a voluntary basis however.

One peculiarity of the proposal is that teachers at all levels will be receiving an LIG, meaning they will not get paid, the reason being that teaching is a ‘calling’ and teachers are not supposed to be in it for the money. The educational system as a whole should be entirely free.

In order to prevent corruption, it is stressed that the distribution of the Basic Income is to take place electronically with as few people involved as possible.

In due course, LIG is to be distributed globally.

References:
Basic Income Guaranteed
https://equalmoney.org/

Desteni
https://desteni.org/

Equal Life Foundation
https://www.facebook.com/EqualLifeFoundation

Equal access to resources
https://equalmoney.org/wiki/BIG_Proposal_Basic_Lay-Out#Nationalized_Resources_as_Every_Citizen’s_Birth_right

Nationalized resources
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/basic-income-and-nationalized-resources/

Natural resources belong to the earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4eKv6KDxgvE

Basic Income can save Capitalism
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/basic-income-can-save-capitalism/

Basic Income Guaranteed and Taxation
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/basic-income-guaranteed-and-taxation/

Basic Income Guaranteed with Labor as Interest
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/basic-income-guaranteed-with-labor-as-interest/

Abolishment of personal Tax
https://basicincome.me/discuss/t/63-how-do-you-feel-about-the-abolishment-of-personal-tax

BIEN’s Criteria for an Unconditional Basic Income
https://basicincome2013.eu/

Universality of LIG
https://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.dk/2013/09/day-248-q-on-living-income-guaranteed.html

Individuality of LIG
https://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.dk/2013/09/day-248-q-on-living-income-guaranteed.html

Basic Income Guaranteed and Conditions
https://equalmoney.org/wiki/BIG_Proposal_Basic_Lay-Out#Pensions

No Obligation to Work
https://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.dk/2013/09/day-248-q-on-living-income-guaranteed.html

How BIG will stabilize your Economy
https://equalmoney.org/wiki/BIG_Proposal_Basic_Lay-Out#How_BIG_will_stabilize_your_Economy

Working part-time in a LIG economy
https://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.dk/2013/09/day-248-q-on-living-income-guaranteed.html

Subsidy for Homes
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/basic-income-can-save-capitalism/

Equal Money Capitalism
https://marlenvargasdelrazo.wordpress.com/equal-money-system/

Equal Wages and joint Ownership
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4eKv6KDxgvE

Phase-out of Pensions
https://equalmoney.org/wiki/BIG_Proposal_Basic_Lay-Out#Pensions

Teachers on Basic Income Guaranteed
https://basicincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/basic-income-guaranteed-and-teaching/

Schreiber, Leon – Time to think BIG again?

Wolfgang Müller – BI News

As many other countries, South Africa struggles to provide effective social assistance policies in tackling poverty and inequality. Any proposed reform has been determined by ideology according to Leon Schreiber in an article on Politicsweb, February 26, 2013. They still ignore social reality, that many people are not able to find employment. This dominance of ideology also affected the public discourse about a proposal for a Basic Income Grant (BIG) by the Taylor Committee on Comprehensive Social Security for South Africa. Despite of positive examples such as Alaska or the Basic Income Grant Coalition in Namibia, the BIG has faded. In order to overcome this ideological driven discourse in South Africa and alleviate poverty and inequality, Schreiber urges to simply relay on the Constitution, which grants everyone the right to social security and social assistance.

Schreiber, Leon “Time to think BIG again?” Politicsweb, February 26, 2013
https://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=360521&sn=Detail&pid=71619

Opinion: A report on the BIEN Congress 2012, Munich, 14th to 16th September

BIEN now stands for ‘Basic Income Earth Network’. Once every two years BIEN holds a congress, and this year’s showed just how appropriate the name now is and how inappropriate it would be to still call it the ‘Basic Income European Network’. There were participants from South Africa, Namibia, India, Japan, South Korea, the United States, Canada, Latin America, and numerous European countries. Over three hundred in all gathered for forty-eight hours of plenary sessions, workshops and panels: often six different workshops and panels at one time, with three or four speakers each, to enable all of the papers to be delivered and discussed.

The congress was titled ‘Pathways to a Basic Income’. There was a sort of pattern to the timetable. Friday’s sessions were largely on the current state of the debate, Saturday on routes towards implementation of a Citizen’s Income, and Sunday on a Citizen’s Income’s relationships with such vital themes as ecology, rights, justice, and democracy: but nothing is that tidy, and each day contained a wide diversity of presentations and discussions touching on all of those areas.

The high point was a set of presentations by Guy Standing and representatives of India’s Self Employed Workers Association on the Indian Universal Cash Transfers pilot project and on some of the interim results. Of all of the sessions that I attended this one got by far the longest applause. The other high point, though a rather lower key presentation, was the significant story of Iran’s Citizen’s Income told by Hamid Tabatabai during one of the panel sessions.

The Congress was a quite inspiring mixture of the visionary and the realistic, of the broad-brush and the detailed, of the theoretical and the practical, and Germany’s Netzwerk Grundeinkommen (Basic Income Network) is to be congratulated on organising such a highly successful event.