Why Basic Income Must Become the New Frontier for the Global Labour Movement

What is Basic Income?

A Basic Income is a cash income given to every adult in perpetuity and with no strings attached. It comes with no means test and no work requirement. It is not designed to enable high consumption, but to protect against hunger, homelessness, and a loss of dignity as well as to prevent submission to exploitation for want of a better alternative.

Why?

There are political, economic, social, cultural, moral and philosophical arguments in favour of basic income. All are outlined in the table below. Fundamentally, the goal is to defend and expand human freedom, to shift the balance of power back towards people and workers.

Why Now?

The world has changed. Permanent technological unemployment is a genuine possibility in the advanced economies, unemployment traps are real, and precariousness is the new norm. In the South, widespread persistent poverty contrasts sharply with the unprecedented concentration of wealth in a way that has begun to shame civil society. For these reasons alone, basic income is desirable. It is also politically possible and technically feasible in a way now that it never was before. Cell phone banking provides but one example of a platform that could universalise cash transfers, while a number of important political junctures have opened the door to mainstreaming the idea. What are these? First, the worldwide adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, including their emphasis on reducing poverty and inequality and on expanding social protection; second, the mainstreaming of the Social Protection Floors concept and the growing impetus around it; third, the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda and its focus on economic formalisation; fourth, the rise and influence of modern anti-slavery activists (with their money, research and dynamism around the concept of ‘freedom’); fifth, the crisis in Western welfare systems leading to a spate of basic income pilots. The core point is this: there has never been a more propitious time to advocate a policy as emancipatory as basic income.

How would it work?

The most simple and effective way would be a state-administered grant to all adults and to parents for their children. It would be a plank of the tax-and-benefit system and would be transferred directly into individual bank accounts. It would replace labyrinthine subsidies and tax credits with a flat, universal rate for all people. International funding could also come via a Tobin Tax. Undoubtedly, there will be greater hurdles in countries with large informal economies and narrow tax bases, so a push towards effective formalization will be necessary.

Confronting Objections

Is it feasible? Undoubtedly. All governments already have tax-and-benefit systems – basic income is just more effective and more efficient. Econometric modelling shows it to be affordable, paid for by progressive taxation and a replacement of existing subsidies and benefits. Ultimately the amount is a political decision – higher top-band and corporate tax rates or lower military spending means higher BI for the people.

Won’t the rich get richer? No. BI has to be paid for, hence progressive taxation.

Won’t people just stop working? Some may, but far fewer than are already in unemployment traps. People want to create, collaborate, and contribute: cognitive science shows this. What BI gives people is freedom to choose work on the basis of their own motivations, or to step outside the labour market to learn or give care.

What about minimum wage or healthcare? BI is complimentary to both – it can even support struggles for them. BI must be a part of social protection, additive not subtractive. It is one plank in the fight for greater equality.

Won’t the poor just waste it? Why ever would they? They know best what they need!

How do we argue for it?

We call on the history of the global labour movement and appeal to the angels of its better nature. The labour movement is and must be about defending all people who need to work, which includes those who can’t. The global labour movement is, at its core, about social justice, and about emancipating the weak from the strong. Basic income can do this in a way that no other policy can. It gives everyone a floor to stand on and allows us all the chance to walk away from those who exploit. Historically, labour has been organised defensively: saving jobs, improving conditions, carving out freedom away from work. This always set us on the back foot and divided us amongst ourselves. Basic income changes this; it shifts the balance of power entirely. It unites the entire movement around one horizon goal, giving all people freedom to choose their work, to organise work themselves, and to resist if better conditions are desired. ‘Freedom’ is the core concept of the struggle, and for us the task has to be wrestling ownership of that concept back from those who equate it to the market.

Arguments for BI

Political Economic Social Cultural Moral Philosophical BI reduces the potential for

corruption and patronage, seen often w/ subsidies BI can be cheaper and more

efficient than means-testing and mixed subsidy/tax credit systems BI reduces the stigma

attached to ‘welfare dependence’ or ‘benefits’ BI can challenge

discrimination on grounds of race, caste, gender, etc. as all receive BI

equally BI lets people work and

collaborate in ‘freedom’, rather than under state/ market coercion BI can make social policy

more humane – the poor shouldn’t face conditionality the rich do not face People have more time to

combine and organise; they become more politically engaged It can stimulate economic

re-balancing as supply and demand ensure that tough jobs are best paid Universality promotes social

harmony and solidarity, in contrast to means-testing It de-stigmatises those who

care instead of ‘work’ by affording them what is a ‘social wage’ It can promote

inter-generational justice, making children ‘stakeholders’ and giving the

young time to organise It makes labour truly ‘free’

because contracts are only free when you don’t have to sign them Democratic renewal ensues,

greater accountability can be demanded Creative energies can be

released. No-one stuck in bad jobs

for lack of options. Those unable to work are

protected by BI, none fall through the cracks It challenges gender and

racial imbalances in the workforce It increases ecological justice by promoting

localised production BI contributes to

substantive and not just formal, legal equality BI can reduce the political

tensions pertaining to inequality Data show that BI is

growth-inducing, esp. for small enterprises BI is adapted to the

creative economy and the ‘precariat’ It can afford subordinate

groups time to organise It can end extreme poverty

and suffering It encourages economic

‘formalisation’ as workers open bank accounts It will stimulate the

collaborative and co-operative economy It can support the young to

study for longer and the old to dip in-and-out of learning It can free cultural

expression from the need to chase funding; expands artistic autonomy It can reduce inequality It can contribute to the

SDGs, SPFs and DWA. It can in turn reduce

corporate power BI embodies collective

purpose and contribution

Work and Evidence in Favour of BI

A wealth of research has been conducted examining basic income, its workability and (potential or actual) consequences. Much of this was done during the last major wave of basic income advocacy in the US and Canada during the 1960s and 1970s. The findings from this data are powerful and do not suggest major work disincentives.

Basic income trials in the Global South have also been conducted in Namibia, India, Kenya and Brazil. The results have been exceptional, with consistent reductions in poverty, increases in school attendance, improved healthcare, improved standing of women in communities, reduced forced labour and increased economic activity. These programmes seem cheaper to administer than Conditional Cash Transfers.

An outstanding summary of all known major pilots can be accessed here:

http://thepod.cfccanada.ca/sites/thepod.cfccanada.ca/files/BICN%20-%20Basic%20income%20programs%20and%20pilots%20-%202014_1.pdf

Econometric modelling on basic income (including how to fund it) has been consistently encouraging. It has shown basic income to be more efficient, cheaper and more progressive. An example paper is here:

https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpc/wplist/wp04_10.html

The major philosophical texts in favour of basic income include:

Andre Gorz, Critique of Economic Reason

Philippe Van Parijs, Real Freedom for All

Karl Widerquist, Independence, Propertylessness and Basic Income

Politically, the more important arguments can be found in:

Kathi Weeks, The Problem with Work

Robert van der Veen and Philippe van Parijs, A Capitalist Road to Communism

Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias

Key web resources abound. A few are included here:

http://www.basicincome.org/

https://medium.com/basic-income

http://www.globalincome.org/English/BI-worldwide.html

http://www.bignam.org/

http://www.cpj.ca/infographic-guaranteed-livable-income-canada