Reflection
Features:
Armine Yalnizian
Simon Black
Both progressives, both are sceptical
Universal Basic Income: important questions
Questions:
Black:
What level?
Supplement or substitute?
Universal vs. targeted
Yalnizian:
What problem are we trying to solve?
Socialist case
Capitalism forces us to enter labour market
UBI can delink work and income
Give workers freedom to say ‘no’ to bad jobs
Expands bargaining power
Change the balance of power
Experiment with non-capitalist ways of living
Feminist Case:
Value unpaid care work
Greater economic freedom for women
Resource to exit abusive relationships
Ecological case:
Enhances health and well-being
Provides economic security as we move toward necessary ‘de-growth”
Creates more free time, enabling more ecologically friendly lifestyles
Right Wing Case
Friedman, Murray, Hayek – modern conservative movement
Freedom from intrusive state
Abolish the social welfare state and redistributive policies
Meet our basic needs through the market
Beware of the risks and perils
What is at stake?
What Problem are we trying to solve?
Poverty?
Inequality?
Stigma?
Bureaucratic inefficiency and/or poor treatment of ‘clients’?
Public attitudes: poor bashing narratives?
The welfare wall?
Access to education training?
Other?
The big questions?
Armine Yalnizian, Economist
What is it?
In the eye of the beholder
Saying different things
Focus is on redistribution – also need to talk about predistribution (jobs)
What problem does it solve?
Poverty? red tape? dignity? precarious work?
Not everyone agrees
How much does it cost?
More than what we spend now? less? Will we end up with more or less?
Right wing versions and left wing versions
Ask these questions
How much?
Who gets it?
Who is going to pay for it.
Canadian pilot projects: Poverty elimination?
Mincome (1974-78)
4 pilots
60% of poverty line - not about eliminating poverty
Ontario BI pilot
75% of poverty line (less than CERB)
Other proposals in 1980s
Macdonald Commission – didn’t get off the ground
Newfoundland proposal
Each of these recommended income levels that would not have eliminated poverty
Though we don’t call it a “BI” the CCB provides similar amount to what the Newfoundland proposal recommended for children
Seniors receive more than the proposed levels.
Working age population is the focus
Who are we talking about?
Are we really talking about improving income supports for the working age who are falling through the cracks?
Is this really about welfare reform, and if so, is it really a UBI?
Is it really about raising the floor?
And can we do that with other reforms?
What about conditions? What are the rules?
It is naïve to think we can do this without rules and that we will all agree on the rules
What about decent work and decent pay?
Why not cut everyone a $2k cheque?
$24,000 per year one-person household
$48,000 per year two-person household
Who pays?
The working age cohort pays through taxation
Fewer people working
They will need to pay more
Is this the best approach?
Is there a one-size-fits-all solutions?
Caution: Policy and political power
UBI is currently a policy idea without political power
What is the political coalition
Covid-19 has shown us that we do have power – how do we mobilize the power and what we do we mobilize for? Is UBI "the thing” ? And how do we harness power, where is the momentum? What are the jurisdictional challenges that might influence what we organize around?
Basic Income for All: Dream or Delusion? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rL6gJkdlNU
Topic of discussion at the 2017 World Economic Forum suggests that BI has become main-stream
Panelists:
Guy Standing, University of London Economist and co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN)
Michael Sandel, Professor of Government, Harvard University
Neelie Kroes, former Dutch politician, business person,
Amitabh Kant, CEO, National Institution for Transforming India
Standing:
Although not his focus, the interest is fueled in part by the realization re: automation
Standing argument for BI
Means of social justice – If we have private inheritance, we should have public inheritance
Means to enhance republican freedom
Freedom from domination by figures of authority by using arbitrary power”
Means of providing people with ‘basic security’
Not for eradicating poverty ‘per se’
Pilots have shown: emancipatory value is greater than money value – gives people a sense of control of their time. has contributed to altruism and tolerance
Not a panacea – “part of a new distribution system we should be building”
Standing’s idea of a UBI:
Must be universal
Must be unconditional - no means test and no work requirement
Kroes:
What are we talking about?
Who is paying for it?
What does it mean for other benefits?
It’s not new
It can shrink the role of the state?
It can also expand?
Flexibility of the concept is why there is interest on left and right
Implement at this moment
A more modest system – low level replacing some welfare placements is most likely
Most innovative and least ideological are being made – in defense of automation and displacement of jobs
Kant:
India as an employment guarantee scheme
High level of inequality
Existing Infrastructure makes BI very possible
Recommends BI be in the form of a “loan”
Sandel:
Two different arguments
Ethical argument
Compensatory argument (automation)
Which of these is driving us matters
2 principles
Not morally entitled in capitalist society. we are mutually indebted for whatever success/troubles. Not all our own doing.
Obligation to contribute to the common good – typically through work
The different arguments are fundamentally different
Ethical argument
Money is not instead of working – not a warrant to be ‘idle’
Whether or not we receive a basic income does not mean that we are not ‘mutually indebted’
Compensatory argument
We’re going to pay you for accepting that your work/contribution is not needed
Cautions
Kroes: Need to be transparent. The left and right do not agree so proponents need to be clear about what they propose
Moderator: Not clear how it would be paid for and potential inequities in design
Standing: argues the way paying for it is simple – redirect spending that is serving to perpetuate inequality. He minimizes the implications for work. We need to reconceptualize what we mean by work.
Sandel: conditionality – suggests we might impose conditions more fairly? eg. conditions for national service? Voting? Sending kids to school – toward a sense of mutual indebtedness and spirit of contribution to the
Is Standing’s proposal possible
Perhaps, but it would require radical reform. He proposes paying for a basic income through “rentierism”
“Rentier capitalism” is, Standing argues, at the heart of inequality.
Based on the idea of “economic rent” - the unearned value within a profit. The term “rentier” is someone who receives profit from some other basis than their own productive activity. ( labour was not involved in the generation of profit)
The ‘rentier’ – owner of property (financial, physical, intellectual) profit
“Rentiers” derive income from possession of assets that are scarce or artificially made scarce.
There is very little need for ‘production’ that comes from labour
The problem?
Governments are spending more of their national income on massive subsidies and tax breaks, both forms of rental transfer.
Multinationals have become rentier entities in their home countries, in that they derive a rising proportion of their income from abroad, with more workers employed outside the country of origin or ownership.
Governments compete with others by offering large amounts to corporations to relocate or remain in their jurisdictions. (eg. Amazon).
The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations calculated that U.S. state and local governments provide over $80 billion a year on incentives and subsidies to companies to relocate or to stay put. This does not raise output or employment in total. It is simply a vast transfer payment to already wealthy corporations.
Tax breaks are another growing form of subsidy, increasingly used in global competition, at the expense of ordinary people.
For instance, in 2013 the United Kingdom introduced a patent box subsidy that provides foreign companies investing in the country generous tax breaks worth over 1 billion pounds annually on all profits derived from patented intellectual property.
Implications for social policy?
Governments funds are spent on things that don’t benefit most people.
They then argue their debt must be reduced by cuts in social spending, so those who depend on social welfare suffer the consequences through austerity.
Unlike welfare claimants, corporations receive these subsidies without any conditions stipulated about their subsequent behavior.
This supports Standings argument that ”conditionality” for income supports is double standard
Can governments reverse this trend and cover the cost of a BI?
Possibly but it would require a mobilized resistance to the status quo
We’ve seen points of hope at various times through the anti-globalization movement (Seattle 1999), and Occupy Wall Street (2011).
Globalization and International trade agreements would make this difficult.
they include clauses that give multinationals a great deal of power
In particular, the globalization of intellectual rights
Patents give a monopoly income for 25years. Pharmaceutical its 40 years.
There are millions of patents owned by multinationals
Note that much of the research that leads to privately owned patents is public funding