Abstract
Is the introduction of a universal basic income politically feasible? What is there about a universal basic income which generates such negativity? Is there something wrong about getting something for nothing? What problems do selectivity, targeting, means testing and conditionality create? What is so frightening about paying millionaires the same level of guaranteed income as all other permanent residents? Is providing universal income support a radical social idea? Are income support programs which provide an above poverty line assistance to all permanent residents a useful way of creating the good society? Are there possible downsides to moving in this direction? Is there a better way to abolish poverty, destitution, slough, ignorance and intolerance whilst ensuring a socially desirable lifestyle for all permanent residents? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to direct all available funds to those in poverty?
Let’s answer these questions in reverse order.
Clearly it would cost substantially less to provide income support only to those who are poor rather than providing the same level of income support to all citizens irrespective of need. But this is not the full answer. Categorical / selective / targeted / means-tested programs have never in modern history ever reached all the poor and only the poor. There are many reasons for this. Namely: bureaucratic ineptitude, racism, meanness of spirit, favouritism, political interference are obstacles to identifying all the poor and only the poor. Perceptions of stigma, difficulties of applying, lack of knowledge about entitlement are just some of the reasons why people fail to apply for categorical income support programs. The least bureaucratically sophisticated, the most remote, the least educated, and the poorest of our citizens are the ones most like to miss out on some or all of their income support assistance.
One has only to look at the New Start Allowance (which used to be called Unemployment Benefit) to see some of the problems of categorical / selective / targeted means-tested programs. It is hedged around with conditionality, meanness of spirit and bureaucratic bastardry. The regulations controlling Australian welfare administrations are written in poor house ink.
Goodin & Le Grand noted in 1987 that policies which are specifically aimed at addressing the problems of the poor are poor policies. The reason for this is that, even if it were possible to assist every poor person and only poor people there would not be the public support available to sustain such programs, let alone enhance the level of income support provided. In relation to the New Start Allowance the base level of payment has not, in real terms, been raised since 1994. Since that time the severity of conditionality imposed upon recipients has dramatically increased.
A better way.
A universal basic income because it provides, without any demeaning conditions or enforced obligations, an austere but livable income to every permanent resident, is a better way and a more direct way of ensuring a socially desirable lifestyle for everybody. It ends enforced dependency on any other person because it is paid to each and every individual irrespective of any living arrangement or any other social status. It is paid irrespective of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation or lack of it. It does not take account of any other cultural trait. Because the basic income is not taxed and cannot be garnished by any individual, company or government it provides a known guarantee of sustenance above the poverty line. It ensures the government knows the minimum income support available to the citizenry on which it can then build its other educational, health, housing and disability programs.
It ensures the capacity to voluntarily engage in productive activity or pursue education, craft, vocation or artistic endeavour in a way which enhances freedom from domination without impeding freedom to accomplish.
Advantages and disadvantages of providing an above the poverty line income support.
We have long known that letting people live in poverty increases crime, mental health problems, a sense of hopelessness, removes an individual’s sense of agency, causes marital disruption, decreases capacity to find or hold employment and magnifies despair. But what is less well recognised is that how we act to remove people from poverty can enhance or exacerbate their situation.
Neoliberals are fond of trotting out the cliché that any job is better than no job at all. Julia Gillard, Labor Prime Minister, in the run up to the 2010 Federal election spoke about the simple dignity that a job brings (Four Corners 2011). Such attitudes justify enforcing a readiness to work policy, workfare, work for the dole, mutual/reciprocal obligation, and even the workhouse and outdoor relief policies in of mid 19thCentury policies in England. They lie at the heart of the worthy/unworthy divide. I will deal later with the specific argument about the risk of moral turpitude arising out of getting something for nothing embedded in ex-prime minister John Howard’s frequent claim that working age people who receive assistance from the state “must give something back”.
The central disadvantage often identified by neo-liberals and their ilk is that if people are not forced / encouraged / nudged / assisted / helped to get job ready or forced to take the first available job then they will become dependent of the state, perhaps for life. Jocelyn Newman who, herself, received two parliamentary and one military pension in retirement, whilst a government welfare minister,commissioned a report entitled The Challenge of Welfare Dependency in the 21st. Century.
Despite the hullabaloo, no one has been able to identify able bodied people who have been found to suffer intergenerational dependency but the myth is alive and well. Little attention is paid to detailed longitudinal studies which show that being forced to take a poor-quality job does little for unemployed people and, in many cases, worsens their predicament.
A longitudinal study of 1,000 unemployed respondents in the United Kingdom aged between 35-75 recently found that those who obtained low-paying or highly stressful jobs did not enjoy better health than those who remained unemployed. Whereas those who obtained good-quality jobs did enjoy better health outcomes (Chandola and Zhang 2017). This study replicates several of the findings of a seven-year longitudinal Australian study conducted by Peter Butterworth of the Centre for Mental Health at ANU, Canberra, who “found that moving from unemployment to a poor-quality job was actually associated with a significant decline in those people’s mental health and well-being compared with staying unemployed”: Butterworth also found that obtaining a poor-quality job did not increase that person’s chances of subsequently obtaining good quality employment (Long, 2011 p.1).
It would seem to me that what should be taken from these studies and of course the Namibian, Indian, Canadian and other basic income trials is that removing conditionality, abolishing obstacles to employment, providing a secure income and providing opportunities to obtain desired employment, rather than enforcing compulsion, is the best way to proceed.
Is providing universal income support a radical social idea?
Basic income has been around in English speaking circles for more than 500 years since Thomas More’s Utopia was published. Professor Guy Standing, acknowledges More’s contribution before suggesting such ideas proliferated among the Plebeians as early as 462 BC in ancient Greece. Such ideas formed the basis of Australian Aboriginal society and several other non-Western societies for at least the last 70,000 years.
Being old does not ensure that an idea is not radical. But those who would assert that the idea of a universal basic income is a radical idea would have to demonstrate its radical essence and I believe they would hard pressed to do so.
Ensuring every permanent resident has sufficient to sustain a dignified life is an extraordinarily mundane idea. Most leading religious figures have advocated ideas along such lines for the last few millennia.
What wrong with selectivity, targeting, means-testing and conditionality?
The current system of government provided income support in Australia creates many problems for those who receive the “assistance”, those who administer the provision of welfare and the society more generally. Earlier this article considered the fact that the way income support is delivered to the recipient often worsens their situation; as does the failure to provide such support to each and every individual. I am not going to revisit this except to say that in Australia the state fails to convey to recipients that their receipt of such assistance is a right of permanent residence not a handout.
Even bureaucrats with the best intentions will at times exclude some who should be assisted and assist others who don’t have an entitlement. But the bulk of those administering welfare programs designed to assist the poor are not sufficiently trained, are under constant pressure to find reasons not to pay and are forced to operate within extraordinarily tight budget constraints. They are rewarded for rejecting claims and put under pressure if they are seen as generous. Anyone who feels I may be exaggerating the propensity of middle managers and frontline workers to respond to inappropriate incentives should reflect upon the findings of the Banking and Don Dale Royal Commissions and the robo-debt fiasco.
Means-testing creates disincentives to find poorly remunerated casual/precarious employment, poverty traps, and frequently penalises those who do undertake part-time employment by not allowing them to write off the expenses associated with work and/or by clawing back from the welfare benefit anything from 50 to more than 100 percent of the income earned from employment.
But a major problem with selectivity / targeting / means-testing and conditionality occurs at a societal level. Such programs undermine social solidarity, evoke downward envy (Tomlinson 1999), devalue citizenship and undermine generosity of spirit. The entire neo-liberal philosophical emphasis is devoted to enhancing a dog eat dog competitive spirit by not relying on others (particularly the state). Such non-reliance on others which neo-liberals mistakenly term “self-help” is in reality a fig leaf for the neglect of less fortunate citizens. At its most extreme it is a call to glorify the survival of the fittest economic players. The end result is a mean-minded society without a soul.
Funding millionaires and billionaires.
It may come as a surprise to find me arguing that an above the poverty line basic income should be paid to every individual who is a permanent resident in a country rather than directing assistance only to those in the greatest financial need.
The basis of my argument is that a universal basic income is an entitlement of citizenship/permanent residence. Its essential characteristic is that it is an inclusive payment supplied without conditions but as a right. Millionaires and billionaires are citizens and therefore have an entitlement. So, paying them an identical amount as everyone else underlines their identity as an Australian permanent resident with the same rights and obligations as other Australians.
Whilst the basic income itself is not taxable all other income, from whatever source, is taxable. Those Australians without any other income would not pay income tax but more affluent Australians would be paying tax on their incomes. In financial terms, millionaires would be paying many times more in tax than they received from the basic income. Other working Australians, up to those earning the full time average wage, would find they were receiving slightly more than at present or about the same once a basic income was in place. Less affluent Australians would be the main net beneficiaries following the introduction of a basic income.
Something for nothing.
Neo-liberals are quick to assert that getting something for nothing creates a moral hazard. They suggest it frequently leads to the slippery path of enduring dependency, slough and licentiousness. But it would appear that such temptations are, as far as the well-to-do are concerned, only likely to affect those on low incomes.
Well known basic income advocates, Daniel Raventos and Julie Wark, in 2018 at page 223, ofAgainst Charity, pointed out that “Very rich people tend to push the notion of meritocracy as deservingness, which they equate with justice so, therefore, there is nothing unjust about their wealth.” Earlier at page 138, having discussed colonialism and genocide they write “The rich are quick to point out that we cannot inherit our ancestor’s sin. Indeed. But how can they then be entitled to the fruits of those sins: to their huge inherited advantage in power and wealth” which derive from dispossessing the original owners.
It would appear that getting something for nothing under some circumstances is a good thing so long as such beneficence does not accrue to non-affluent people.
What generates the negativity?
The first generator of negativity is that a universal basic income is an innovation of the existing system. Change brings resistance. Australia is a multicultural nation and the reasons why people from differing ethnic groups might support or oppose the introduction of a universal payment will vary. First and second-generation migrants will have differing reasons to support or oppose a basic income. Indigenous Australians, who are one of the groups, most frequently adversely affected by the current situation are not a homogenous group and won’t express a unanimous opinion.
The age of Keynesian economics has, for the moment, been superseded by the rise of neo-liberal (economic fundamentalist) monetary ideas. The followers of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom and Milton Friedman’s Chicago School economics are the true radicals they have managed to overthrow orthodox social solidarity thinking and in doing so have brought us the global economic recession, precarious employment, declining unionisation, stagnating wages, skyrocketing profits and all the other joys of their dog eat dog world.
Whilst neo-liberal ideas prevail negativity towards generous universal income support systems will continue.
Is the introduction of a universal basic income politically feasible?
For something to be political feasible it needs to be financially feasible and sustainable into the future, able to be explained, reasonably easy to implement and capable of attracting widespread support. Once the people lead the politicians will follow.
Australians have never been as financially well-off as they are at present. An above the poverty line basic income is financially affordable in Australia. It is not a question of affordability but one of willingness to move towards a more equitable society. This does not mean that there would not need to be a substantial rearrangement of the existing tax system. Those earning above the average full time male wage would be required to pay substantially more tax than they do now. Tax avoidance by big business would need to be pursued with alacrity. The black economy engaged in by many small businesses would need to be substantially decreased. Carbon and other pollutants would be taxed. Family trust and other avoidance/evasion mechanisms would need to become a thing of the past. There may be a need to reintroduce death and gift duties. But even taking all this into account the rate of tax on earned incomes would still be far less than the combined benefit claw-back and tax paid by some of the poorest Australians today.
Several Australian writers and activists are making valiant attempts to explain this system to their fellow citizens. There is not currently widespread support for a universal basic income but the ground swell is building. The 2020 Basic Income Earth Network Congress will be held in Brisbane, jointly hosted by the University of Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology. This will bring leading basic income advocates to our shores and generate increased interest in the topic.
Bibliography.
Chandola, T. and Zhang, N. (2017) “Re-employment, job quality, health and allostatic load biomarkers: prospective evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study.” 10thAugust.
International Journal of Epidemiology, dyx150, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyx150
Four Corners. 2011 “The real Julia”. Australian Broadcasting Commission. February 7.
Goodin, R. & Le Grand, J. (1987) Not only the Poor:The Middle Classes and the Welfare State. Allen & Unwin, London.
Long, S. (2011) “Bad job worse for your mental state than no job at all.” ABC, PM. Program, 9thJune. http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3240169.htm.
Newman, J. (1999) The Challenge of Welfare Dependency in the 21st. Century. Department of Family and Community Services, Canberra.
Raventos, D. &Wark, J. (2018) Against Charity. CounterPunch, Chico CA.
Standing, G. (2017) Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen. Pelican, United Kingdom.
Tomlinson, J. (1999) “The politics of downward envy.” Union Songwebsite
http://unionsong.com/reviews/envy.html
Written 2018
Copyright © 2026 John Tomlinson