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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.
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Encyclopedia
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.
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 workbased 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. However critics have pointed out the potential work disincentives created by such a program, and have cast doubts over its implementability..In later years,
, have made a lot fully financed proposals.
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, 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 to transform the credit into a partial basic income was introduced in the US congress but did not pass.
The city of Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada took part in an experimental basic income program ("Mincome") between 1974 and 1979.
In 2008, a pilot project with a basic income grant was started in the Namibian village of Otjivero by the . 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.
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.
The world's most noted advocate of a basic income system may be the Belgian economist Philippe van Parijs. Other advocates include Gunnar Adler-Karlsson (Sweden), Dieter Althaus (Germany), Saar Boerlage (Netherlands), Herwig Büchele (Austria), André Gorz (France), Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Charles Murray (USA), Keith Rankin (New Zealand), Daniel Raventós (Spain), Osmo Soininvaara (Finland)), Eduardo Suplicy (Brazil), Walter van Trier (Belgium) 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.
Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics that fully support a basic income include Herbert Simon, Friedrich Hayek, James Meade, Robert Solow, and Milton Friedman.
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.
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. A similar argument was made by Jeremy Rifkin, in his book The End of Work.
Funding
Many different sources of funding have been suggested for a guaranteed minimum income:
See also
External links
- (several articles, some in English)
- , a journal about the future with the main focus on Basic Income in four languages
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