Basic income

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A basic income is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional. Furthermore, there is no means test; the richest as well as the poorest citizens would receive it.

A basic income is often proposed in the form of a citizen's dividend (a transfer) or a negative income tax (a guarantee). A basic income less than the social minimum is referred to as a partial basic income. A worldwide basic income, typically including income redistribution between nations, is known as a global basic income.

The proposal is a specific form of guaranteed minimum income, which is normally conditional and subject to a means test.

A form of basic income dates to Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice of 1795, there paired with asset-based egalitarianism (redistribution of wealth, not simply income).

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[edit] Arguments

One of the arguments for a basic income was articulated by the French Economist and Philosopher André Gorz:

The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet-unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact...
From the point where it takes only 1,000 hours per year or 20,000 to 30,000 hours per lifetime to create an amount of wealth equal to or greater than the amount we create at the present time in 1,600 hours per year or 40,000 to 50,000 hours in a working life, we must all be able to obtain a real income equal to or higher than our current salaries in exchange for a greatly reduced quantity of work...
Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. The present crisis has stimulated technological change of an unprecedented scale and speed: 'the micro-chip revolution'. The object and indeed the effect of this revolution has been to make rapidly increasing savings in labour, in the industrial, administrative and service sectors. Increasing production is secured in these sectors by decreasing amounts of labour. As a result, the social process of production no longer needs everyone to work in it on a full-time basis. The work ethic ceases to be viable in such a situation and work-based society is thrown into crisis (André Gorz, Critique of economic Reason, Gallile, 1989).

The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) describes one of the benefits of a basic income as having a lower overall cost than that of the current means-tested social welfare benefits.[1] However critics have pointed out the potential work disincentives created by such a program, and have cast doubts over its ability to be implemented.[2] In later years, BIEN has made several fully financed proposals.[3]

[edit] Examples of implementation

The U.S. State of Alaska has a system which provides each citizen with a share of the state's oil revenues[4], although this amount is not necessarily enough to live on. The U.S. also has an Earned income tax credit for low-income taxpayers. In 2006 a bill written by members of the advocacy organization USBIG to transform the credit into a partial basic income was introduced in the US Congress but did not pass.[5]

The city of Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada took part in an experimental basic income program ("Mincome") between 1974 and 1979.[6]

In 2008, a pilot project with a basic income grant was started in the Namibian village of Otjivero by the Namibian Basic Income Grant Coalition.[7] After six months the project has been found to significantly reduce child malnutrition and increase school attendance. It was also found to increase the community's income significantly above the actual amount from the grants as it allowed citizens to partake in more productive economic activities. [8]

[edit] Advocates

Many countries have political parties that advocate a basic income, such as the Green Party of Canada, Green Party of England and Wales, Vivant (Belgium), De Groenen (The Netherlands), the Scottish Green Party, and the New Zealand Democratic Party.

Worldwide, supporters of a basic income have united in the Basic Income Earth Network. BIEN recognizes numerous national advocacy groups.

One of the world's outspoken advocates of a basic income system is the Belgian philosopher and political economist Philippe van Parijs.[9] Other advocates include Gunnar Adler-Karlsson (Sweden), Dieter Althaus (Germany)[10], Saar Boerlage (Netherlands)[11], Herwig Büchele (Austria), André Gorz (France)[12], Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri[13], Charles Murray[14] (USA), Keith Rankin (New Zealand)[15], Daniel Raventós (Spain)[16], Osmo Soininvaara (Finland))[17], Guy Standing (UK)[18][19], Eduardo Suplicy (Brazil)[20], Walter van Trier (Belgium)[21] and Götz W. Werner (Germany).

In 1968, James Tobin, Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith and another 1,200 economists signed a document calling for the US Congress to introduce in that year a system of income guarantees and supplements.

In the 1972 presidential campaign, Senator George McGovern called for a 'demogrant' that was very similar to a basic income.

In 1973, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote The Politics of a Guaranteed Income in which he advocated for the Basic Income and discussed Richard Nixon's GAI proposal.

Mike Gravel, a former US congressman and presidential candidate, advocates a tax rebate paid in a monthly check from the government to all citizens.[22]

Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics that fully support a basic income include Herbert Simon[23], Friedrich Hayek[24][25], James Meade, Robert Solow, and Milton Friedman[26].

In his final book Full employment regained? James Meade states that a return to full employment can only be achieved if, among other things, workers offer their services at a low enough price, that the required wage for unskilled labour would be too low to generate a socially desirable distribution of income, and that therefore a citizen's income would be necessary.[27]

In his Robotic Nation essays, Marshall Brain argues that the growing amount of automation in the workplace will eventually displace a large percentage of workers, and that in order to be able to maintain the economy, an annual stipend will be needed.[28] A similar argument was made by Jeremy Rifkin, in his book The End of Work.[29]

[edit] Funding

Many different sources of funding have been suggested for a guaranteed minimum income:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ *BIEN: frequently asked questions
  2. ^ Interview with Philippe van Parijs
  3. ^ Basic Income Studies: How it could be organised, Different Suggestions
  4. ^ See Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend; the fund's revenues are no longer only from oil.
  5. ^ "The Rise and Fall of a Basic Income Guarantee Bill in the United States Congress", Al Sheahen, The US Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG), 2008
  6. ^ Story of Manitoba
  7. ^ "NewsFlash of the Basic Income Earth Network", BIEN nr. 49, 2008; BIG Coalition Namibia
  8. ^ Assessment report after 6 months of BIG pilot project
  9. ^ Philippe van Parijs (ed.), "Arguing for Basic Income: Ethical Foundations for a Radical Reform", London: Verso, 1992
  10. ^ "Das Bürgergeld bringt einen Systemwechsel" (Citizen's Income brings a system change), interview, Kölner Stadtanzeiger, 29 March 2007
  11. ^ Saar Boerlage: "Het basisinkomen stimuleert op een positieve manier de inzet van het individu in de samenleving" (Basic income stimulates in a positive way the input of the individual into the society), interview, Vereniging Basisinkomen: Nieuwsbrief Basisinkomen 48, 2007
  12. ^ "Critique of Economic Reason", André Gorz, in: Peter Waterman, Ronaldo Munck, "Labour Worldwide in the Era of Globalisation: Alternative Union Models in the New World Order", Macmillan, London, 1999
  13. ^ EmpirePDF Michael Hardt - Antonio Negri, "Empire", Harvard University Press, 2000
  14. ^ Book review by Conall Boyle, Feb 2007: In our hands: A plan to replace the welfare state by Charles Murray, Washington DC, 2006
  15. ^ "Universal Basic Income: its Core and Essence", Keith Rankin, New Zealand, 1998
  16. ^ "Basic Income: The Material Conditions of Freedom", Daniel Raventós, Pluto Press, London, 2007
  17. ^ Osmo Soininvaara, "Hyvinvointivaltion eloonjäämisoppi" (A survival doctrine for the welfare state), Juva, WSOY, 1994, 298 p, ISBN 951-0-20100-6
  18. ^ Guy Standing and Michael Samson (eds.), "A Basic Income Grant for South Africa", University of Cape Town Press, Cape Town, 2003
  19. ^ Guy Standing (ed.), "Promoting Income Security as a Right: Europe and North America", Anthem Press, London, 2005
  20. ^ "Citizen's Basic Income: The Answer is Blowing in Wind" DOC (computing)DOC, Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy, USBIG 5th Congress, 2006
  21. ^ Walter van Trier, "Everyone a King. An Investigation into the Meaning and Significance of the Debate on Basic Incomes with Special Reference to Three Episodes from the British Inter-War Experience", Katholieke Universiteit Leuven: Fakulteit politieke en sociale wetenschappen, PhD thesis, 1995
  22. ^ "How Mark stands on the issues" Gravel presidential campaign, 2008
  23. ^ Herbert A. Simon, "UBI and the Flat Tax. A response to 'A Basic Income for All' by Philippe van Parijs", Boston Review, 2000
  24. ^ Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Chapter 9, page 124, Routledge, London 1944
  25. ^ Does he support a guaranteed minimum income? Hayek: "I have always said that I am in favor of a minimum income for every person in the country." from Hayek on Hayek: An Autobiographical Dialogue by F. A. Hayek, edited by Stephen Kresge and Leif Wenar (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)
  26. ^ Milton Friedman, "Capitalism and Freedom", University of Chicago Press, 1962
  27. ^ James Edward Meade, "Full Employment Regained?", Cambridge University Press, 1995, ISBN 052155697X
  28. ^ "Robotic Freedom", Marshall Brain, 2003
  29. ^ Jeremy Rifkin, "The End of Work - The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era", Tarcher/Putnam, New York, 1995

[edit] External links

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