No, Chuka Umunna, The Left is Not “Washing Its Hands Of Responsibility For The Poor” By Pushing for A Basic Income

It’s The Exact Opposite.

In a speech, on the 14th of November, 2017, at the German British Forum, Chuka Umunna, MP for Streatham, argued that the push by “some on the left” for the basic income amounts to the left “washing its hands of responsibility for the poor.”

It would probably come as a surprise to Chuka that the basic income is not sought only by leftists. As Stewart Lansley has pointed out, figures, from right-wing economists such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman to low-wage paying zillionaires, like Elon Musk, have supported the idea. To be sure, the left and the right support the idea for separate reasons and motives. But the fact remains that it is not only sought by the left.

But the more interesting question from my point of view is, how exactly does Chuka Umunna justify his bold assertion?

The following are excerpts from his speech: I will follow each except with a response. The excerpts chosen are perhaps the most substantive within the parts of the speech that I have seen.

“Some do not believe the new digital economy will produce enough new jobs to replace the old ones. The truth is we do not know what will happen — there is little conclusive evidence.”

No, Chuka, it is quite self-evident that there will be far fewer jobs for humans to do in the new economy. The mark of the digital age of which you speak are artificial intelligence and robots, both of which require minimal human involvement. This is common sense. But in case you need it, there is also amply academic evidence for this. Moreover, do you know who else says there will be fewer human jobs, sir? The very people leading the digital revolution you speak about; the people who know the most about these new digital technologies: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.

In fact, this attempt to shed doubt on the evidence is more sinister than it might first seem. It is a tactic that has been put to good use in the past. Tobacco companies once argued that there wasn’t conclusive evidence that smoking caused lung cancer, at the same time as their own scientists had established that the evidence was in fact as conclusive as can be. Their aim: get government to do as little as possible to deal with the issue.

A similar tactic has been employed by the petroleum industry. For decades they denied that the emission of excessive carbon di oxide caused climate change. Then when it seemed unsustainable to continue to claim that, they pivoted to the claim that the evidence wasn’t conclusive. Meanwhile, they had obtained conclusive evidence of exactly the same thing they spent money spreading uncertainty about.

Of course, I am not suggesting that Chuka’s motives are corrupt (that may well be the case, but I am not claiming it here). It might simply be that the thousands of Pounds in donations he has received from wealthy individuals and sizeable companies (about £137,300 in 2017 alone, according to the parliamentary Register of Members’ Financial Interests) is blinding him to the urgency of the issue at hand, and the need for governments around the world (including the UK’s) to institute policies that mitigate it.

“When people come to my constituency surgeries without work, they want help to get back on their own two feet and to provide for themselves — they do not want to depend on the state for everything.”

The assumption buried in Chuka’s statement here is that if people are given a basic income they would cease to seek work. This is an assumption for which there is no evidence at all. What the evidence actually shows, where it has been tested, is that the basic income has a small effect on willingness to work, and that effect is in the direction of being willing to work. Don’t worry, sir, you’ll still get people coming to your constituency surgery to make you feel good about your job. The thing is, if they had a basic income, they would be much less desperate and deprived than they currently are. Am sure you would agree that that is a good thing.

What Chuka misses, though, is that those without work, are not the only people down on their luck in the UK. 3.8 million people who work live in poverty. In order words, getting a job is not always (at least not for this 3.8 million people) the get-back-on-their-own-two-feet-to-provide-for-themselves certificate that Chuka thinks it is.

Meanwhile, when Chuka says that “they do not want to depend on the state for everything,” does he mean to suggest that, given the option between starving to death and depending on the state, that they would chose to starve to death? Right now, those are their options, and I can assure you that by coming to you (their representative at the state) they have clearly chosen to depend on the state. I don’t know why it is a problem to depend on the state. If people cannot do so, of what use is the state? What then does the state exist for? To give tax breaks to the rich and hand over tax money through privatization to their buddies?

“We will not be able to achieve successful businesses in a failing society. There will be a few who believe otherwise but the headwinds will be against them. We do not want glittering technology in a shabby and run down country. The purpose of technology is to help us achieve human flourishing and the common good. There is such a thing as society so we must therefore protect the most vulnerable and ensure the benefits of these new technologies are apportioned in a socially just way,”

This surely seems like a really good argument for basic income. I am quite puzzled that it was offered against the idea. What you describe here, Chuka, is exactly what a future without a basic income is bound to look like. It has been shown that, as was the case during the first industrial revolution, the digital age, if unmitigated, will occasion inequality that would make our present unequal society look like an egalitarian paradise. Without raising the floor, we are surely headed headlong toward “glittering technology in a shabby and run down country.” The basic income is aimed at specifically mitigating this, and using technology to genuinely improve human life.

Now, having considered the main parts of his speech, one wonders whether Chuka Umunna is not the one who is washing his hand off the poor. I do not know. What is sure, though, is that, contrary to Chuka’s believe, the left’s quest for a basic income shows that they take the plight of the poor rather seriously. More seriously than to sit around and offer platitudes.