There are contradictions and tensions imbedded within the concept of a universal basic income at both a national and supra-national level. These tensions and contradictions are tied to the purposes intended for this form of income guarantee.
Some essential questions, contradictions and tensions are considered below. They substantially revolve around the reason/reasons we might choose a universal income guarantee in preference to other forms of income maintenance. If there are readers who think that the central question is simple or straightforward, I would suggest reading Kate McFarland’s 2017 comprehensive summary of “basic income” pilots planned or in-train around the globe; she details some of the complexities revealed by these diverse pilot schemes.
What is a universal basic income?
Many models of basic income have been suggested over the years. Standing (2017, pp.9-10) notes that Sir Thomas More is often mentioned as the originator of the concept of a basic income in his book Utopia, originally published in Latin in 1516: Standing suggests though that the idea stretches back at least to the Plebeians in Athens in 461 BC. Australian Aborigines have lived on the continent of Australia for between 65,000 and 70,000 years, no member of a clan was left without food or shelter as long as there was food to share. Elaborate protocols developed over time designed to ensure no clan member was left without sustenance (Oodgeroo Noonuccal 1963, Rowley 1972). Cunliffe and Erreygers (2004) link the basic income to several European thinkers from the 15thcentury onwards. Others attribute the modern version of basic income to Thomas Paine’s 1797 pamphlet “Agrarian Justice”. In England, Denis Milner (1920) and his fellow Quakers (his wife Mabel and Bertram Pickard in the period 1918-1920) proposed a form of basic income similar to that envisaged by most current basic income advocates.
In 2017, I gave a paper at the Basic Income Earth Network Congress in Lisbon in which I suggested:
The ideological underpinnings of supporters of a universal basic income are not unidimensional. If one were to include all supporters of introducing generalised income guarantees, then it would be a very broad church indeed. It would include supporters of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and all those who want to replace the welfare state with a minimalist income support base. The Atkinsons and Casses of the world who argue for a participation income would be represented. It would extend to those like Phillipe van Parijs who see a basic income as a capitalist road to communism. And there would be many people in between these opposed and opposing ideological positions.
I think it makes more sense to put to one side all who march to the Hayek drum, and their fellow-travelling participation income advocates, and those enamoured with tax credits and negative taxes – in fact all who would impose any obligation on those who receive the income guarantee. We should leave behind those who wish to diminish the generosity of publicly provided social welfare provisions and income guarantees.
We should regard basic income proponents as only those who would provide the income guarantee as a right of citizenship/permanent residency to every individual at the same level, irrespective of whether they work, are willing to labour, have assets or are impecunious, irrespective of whether they live alone or with others and disregarding any other social status.
In late 2016 Troy Henderson stated:
The progressive case for a universal basic income in Australia means providing an unconditional income to all Australians alongside – not as a replacement for – the welfare state… (the progressive case rests on basic income’s) potential to reduce inequality, improve social security and enhance personal freedom through the introduction of a new universal right.
Some tensions / questions / contradictions
It has been suggested that we might move towards a basic income in order to: boost the economy or as an act of justice or to cope with robots taking our employment or to deal with inequality. A basic income would promote social solidarity and avoid income insecurity (or, at least, provide income security as a part of social welfare or social assistance). It could be seen as a component of social sufficiency. Some have suggested that a basic income is an efficient way to supply economic sustainability in the face of the expansion of the gig economy. Latour (2017) and Standing (2011, 2014) sees it as a way of providing the Precariat with stability and a chance to operate in a world of increasingly changing circumstances.
The Canadian Association of Social Workers believes a universal basic income to be a more efficient way of providing a liveable income compared with a negative income tax system. The social workers take as their model the cost of administration of the Old Age Security program; which was 0.3% of the total annual program compared with the 8.1% administrative cost of Employment Insurance – with its high gate-keeping and extensive eligibility criteria (Kennelly 2017).
A basic income has been proposed as a way of avoiding poverty or at least as a means of alleviating poverty. A basic income has been seen as a way to mitigate political unrest. This is so because, as a universal citizenship right, it would promote social solidarity. It is also a type of social protection which has the capacity to ensure a liveable income for all. A basic income is considered by some as a way to enhance occupation, to promote entrepreneurship, to encourage education and as a way of encouraging people be productive because it frees individuals to choose the type of work they undertake. Yet it can also free people from a duty to labour. A basic income has the capacity to promote freedom because it could, in extreme situations, act as a permanent strike fund (Offe 2008). Some union leaders have opposed introducing a basic income because they fear it will (over time) lower wages by becoming the accepted wage rate. Other union leaders have argued it has the potential to raise wages particularly for those forced to take jobs which are dangerous, socially harmful or demeaning (Tomlinson, Harrington and Schooneveldt 2004). A basic income would avoid the need for charity, social insurance, or any other form of state guaranteed income provision.
A basic income has been described as a minimally presumptuous form of income guarantees (Goodin 1992), by some, such as Van Parijs (1997), as a libertarian freedom from obligation and by others as a communal or republican freedom to accomplish things (Raventos 2007).
Some point to the Alaskan Permanent Fund Dividend (BIEN Alaska), which is paid from a sovereign wealth fund accumulated from oil royalties, as an existingpartial basic income scheme. Others point to the New Zealand government Superannuation (a non-means tested age pension) or the Australian Blind Pension as a form of basic income albeit for specified segments of the population. Yet others argue that the entire concept of a basic income is utopian. To counter them a supporter of basic income, Dutch historian Rutger Bregman’s short title for his 2016 book was Utopia for Realists.
There have been proposals for a basic income for every citizen of the world.They have not suggested that every person on the planet would receive the same amount as every other person because what would be an austere, above the poverty line income, for a person in a rich country like Australia or Britain would provide a person in sub-Saharan Africa with a life of luxury; at least until inflation eroded the value of the income guarantee.
Worldwide universal basic income schemes propose variable amounts for different countries. Initially a substantial part of the funds necessary to provide a global basic income would need to be generated in more affluent countries and from supernational entities capable of imposing Tobin taxes on money transfers (the bulk of which originate in richer countries).
The ethical imperative driving such transfers of funds from the North to the South is based upon the centuries long exploitation of developing countries by developed countries either by way of explicit colonial imposition or by indirect economic exploitation of poorer countries by more financially better off ones.
Some basic income proposals have involved considering different amounts for city and country dwellers within the one country on the basis that the cost of living in cities is usually greater than for those in the country. But engaging in such a system would hardly promote social solidarity. Such arguments fail to acknowledge that the standard of living in cities is often higher than in rural areas. For example, the cost of salad products, green vegetables and other fresh food in many remote Indigenous communities in Australia is many times that paid by city slickers. People living in Australian cities have access to public health, community and transport services which are non-existent in the bush. The real advantage of having one universal payment in a country is that it does not create perverse inducements to move to other regions and it enhances citizenship within the entire nation.
Why are we doing it?
We might introduce a basic income because many people are “in need” (Tomlinson 2003, Chapter 2) or because it is good form – it could be the correct thing to do or because we are obligated to do it (noblesse oblige). On the other hand, we might introduce a basic income to gain, or retain status. Were we in impecunious circumstances we would expect others to do it for us. We might implement a basic income to make amends or because it is a right, a due. A basic income might be regarded as an “entitlement” because of earlier contributions made: prior service in military or civil society, or something flowing from contributions made in previous employment.
Table 1: We might introduce a UBI
| to boost the economy | as an act of justice |
| to cope with robots taking our employment | to deal with gross inequality |
| to promote social solidarity | as a way to mitigate political unrest |
| to encourage education | to free people from taking jobs which are: dangerous, socially harmful or demeaning |
| because it’s an efficient way to supply economic sustainability in the face of the ever-expanding gig economy | to alleviate poverty / avoid income insecurity |
| to assist environmental sustainability | to promote efficient income distribution |
It needs to be remembered that The Devils Dictionary suggests that “a Philanthropist is someone who gives away what he should give back”. Daniel Raventos and Julie Wark (2018) argue that income distribution is not a question of charity but one of justice. Writers like Standing (2017) and Van Parijs (1997)point out that almost every invention and most likely every idea has been built on the back of concepts and ideas which have gone before and are, or rather should be regarded as part of the commons rather than being entirely owned by an individual or organisation.
We might introduce a basic income whether or not robots are going to take our jobs (Ip, 2017) because it is a worthwhile thing to do. It might boost the economy or it might result in ecological advantages: through people choosing to work in more environmentally sustainable ways. It could involve more recycling and less extraction or just more efficient ways of achieving what we intend to accomplish. It may lessen environmental damage and boost the economy simultaneously. It is worth remembering that there is no economy without a liveable environment.
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 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).
Specific groups of people who would be advantaged by a UBI
The Australian social security system is categorical, means-tested, and encased in an envelope of imposed obligations which must be met prior to receiving payment. The social security system is based on the fallacious assumption that if one person in a nuclear family has money then that money will be shared equitably with all other members of the family. In 2003, I wrote Income Insecurity: The Basic Income Alternative which documented the way Australian governments act to prevent some of the poorest people in Australian receiving income support. I argued that there are a number of non-affluent communities who would be helped by the introduction of a universal basic income.
Such communities include those asylum seekers who arrived by boat, recently arrived migrants and those with a series of marginal disabilities, which, singly, may not be sufficient for them to be regarded as having a disability sufficient to incapacitate them but when taken together results in their not being able to seek or hold employment.
In Australia, there is one community in particular which would be advantaged were a universal basic income introduced. That community is the Indigenous community.The reason is simple, non-Indigenous Australians have waged a race war for 230 years against the original owners of this land (Cromb 2018, Wilkinson 2018, Dovey 2017, Tomlinson 2005). As Dr Morgan Briggs (2018) says about the foremost piece of Federal legislation designed to recognise Indigenous land title, that “After 25 years of administration the native title regime is predominantly a vehicle for the ongoing subjugation and assimilation of Indigenous peoples, in line with the logics of the settler-colonial state upon which Australian law is built.”
On Friday, the 2ndMarch 2018 John Lawrence Senior Counsel said “Aboriginal people never get justice in this country.” He pointed out that there had been virtually
no consequences for those adversely named in the Northern Territory Royal Commission into Youth Detention. He pointed to many of the senior staff of Corrections still being employed in exactly the same positions as previously. He went on to quote Eugene O’Neill saying ‘There is no present or future there is only the past happening over and over again – now’ and that this has been the situation since 1788.
Dr. Linden Wilkinson (2018) studied Prime Minister Keating’s famous Redfern Reconciliation Speech of December, 1992, and identified:
five persistent narratives that continue to frame the failure to establish new models of co-existence, models that address the past, heal the present and ensure a more inclusive future. These narratives predictably concern land rights and Aboriginality, or the perception of and respect for difference. The remaining three narratives are more subtle but equally potent: the inconsistency of vision in non-Indigenous leadership; the ongoing presence of the past in the now; and the assumed supremacy of non-Indigenous knowledge, which over time contributes to paternalism, arrogance and intractability. … (Before concluding that in Australia) as yet, there is no reconciliation narrative. It doesn’t exist, yet.
As Indigenous woman Natalie Cromb (2018) wrote:
Indigenous people are viewed as a problem in this country. We are a problem that is met by the powerful with “solutions” brandished like weapons to beat us down –from historical solutions such as murder, massacre, sexualised violence and slavery to the historical and continuing practice of child removal, to the contemporary policies of intervention, work for the dole and cashless welfare. The past 230 years has seen systematic annihilation of a population undeserving of the abhorrence of dispersal, dispossession, disenfranchisement and the destruction of the essence of our culture – land, language and lore.
What would a UBI accomplish?
A universal basic income introduced at a level above the poverty line would enhance social solidarity. It would ensure that fewer people could be conscripted to work in socially demeaning jobs. They could not be forced to engage in socially or environmentally destructive industries. It would mean that there was less poverty, less oppression, less exploitation of our fellow residents. There would be less need to engage in criminal activity to survive. When a person came out of jail they would automatically have a liveable income to sustain them whilst getting back on their feet. If nothing else it would diminish recidivism. Our citizenship would be enhanced. It would expand freedom, if for no other reason than that none of us can truly be free when our comrades, neighbours or fellow citizens are incarcerated or impoverished.
Were we to have a basic income we would need fewer prisons. The average cost of keeping a prisoner in jail for a year in Australia in 2013-14 was $292 a day. That works out in 2018 figures at about $110,000 a year for each prisoner, a total cost of approximately $3 billion (Special Broadcasting Service [SBS], 2015). Indigenous people are at least 16 times more likely to be in jail than other Australians.
There will be some people, irrespective of the type of income support system operating in a country, who are such a danger to themselves or others that they need to be separated from the general populous so the entire $3 billion won’t be available to boost the social provision budget. Many of the people currently in jail have: low intelligence, acquired brain injury, mental health or drug problems and could be more adequately cared for in less restrictive (but more therapeutic and educational) environments and at a much lower cost (Human Rights Watch 2018). Many of them could be assisted to become productive and so contribute to the common wealth if our politicians could relinquish their obsession with various law and order agendas.
The greater social solidarity which a basic income would provide nationally, would free many of us to work to expand the idea of a basic income to other countries and were we, over time, to succeed in ensuring that everyone in the world had sufficient food, adequate shelter, decent health and education services we would substantially increase the social solidarity across the globe. Eventually fewer and fewer people would be drawn towards inter-country or civil strife and the money saved could be put towards increasing the standard of living for all on the planet.
Cooperation between citizens and between countries would lessen and hopefully replace the desire for war. We could bend our minds to eradicating famine, and pestilence and disease in the knowledge that everyone had sufficient to provide for themselves and their families. Military units could be transformed into civic production enterprises until the soldiers, sailors and air force personnel learnt how to utilise the economic security, which a basic income provides, to find their own way to become productive or at least fulfilled. The war museums in countries could be converted into peace museums. Politicians would be freed of the need (desire) to glorify war. They would not need to genuflect before the tomb of the unknown soldier, celebrate the glorious fallen, the lost, the missing in action and the dead. They would be better placed to enhance the interests of the living.
Table 2: Other reasons for promoting UBI
| freedom would be increased / citizenship would be enhanced | people would have a livable income to sustain them in hard times – poor people would have less need for criminality to survive / recidivism would diminish – there would be less need for prisons |
| world-wide basic income would promote greater social solidarity between sections of society and between countries; there would be less conflict | world-wide basic income would promote peace |
| cooperation between people and between countries would hopefully replace the desire for violence and war | we could work on eradicating famine, pestilence and disease in the knowledge that everyone had sufficient to provide for themselves and their families |
Two questions which we need to consider are: “What would it cost to feed house clothe and educate everyone in the world?” and second “How much do we spend on military expenditure each year?” The United Nations calculated that the cost of solving the crisis of global hunger to be in the order of an additional $30 billion a year (Borgen Project). This is a large sum but in 2012 the United States alone spent $737 billion on the military. The National Priorities Project estimated that the world’s military expenditure in 2015 was $1.6 trillion; the United States’ share of which was 37% and was equal to the combined military expenditure of the next seven largest national military budgets.
So, even if the cost of a global universal basic income capable of providing every individual with the wherewithal to feed, house, clothe and educate themselves was three times the cost of just abolishing hunger that is still less than $100 billion. Total annual military expenditure stands at more than $1.6 trillion; so, we could introduce a global universal basic income without affecting the budget bottom line of national budgets provided we just shaved $100 billion off war games. There is so much graft, feather bedding, inefficiency, kick-backs and corruption involved in military purchasing that $100 billion would hardly be noticed.
There is a further question we might ask: “What is the economic cost of unnecessary pollution caused by military adventures each year?” Were we able to avoid the economic cost of unnecessary pollution caused by military forces we could make gains on many fronts not least on the amount money we need to put aside to help stave off climate change, to save the world’s reefs and ecosystems, and meet rising health costs. There are many environmental and health costs associated with the use of depleted uranium, the widespread use of polluting fire retardants and the maintenance of nuclear waste dumps. Extraordinary amounts of greenhouse gasses are produced as a by-product of the fuel expended by military ships, planes and vehicles. The Gerald R Ford Class Aircraft Carriers cost $7 million a day to run (Wikipedia 2017). Just think what such sums could do in remote areas of the world if they were spent to end famine, provide health services or to educate.
Which way will we wander?
I have presented many reasons why we may decide to introduce a universal basic income, I have also provided what I think constitutes sound arguments as to why we should move to introduce a universal basic income. Alongside that I have mentioned some of the arguments of opponents of universal income guarantees in general, and basic income in particular. By now it should be apparent that I consider that opposition to a basic income is based on outmoded thinking.
There are many people who work in the social welfare system who argue that there is or even that there can only be a finite amount available in any one country to be spent on income support. They propose therefore, that the entire amount should be directed towards those most “in need” (Tomlinson 2003, Chapter 2). They suggest that providing money to every individual permanent resident of a country must mean that those most “in need” will receive less than if all the available funds were directed to those “in need”. Superficially this is a very attractive proposition.
If I look at the Australian system of income support then it is immediately clear that that system does not provide the most financial support to those in the direst financial circumstances. Age pensioners are provided with an above the poverty line income adjusted in line with rises in average wage rates. Unemployment payments are loosely tied to Consumer Price Index rises. Pensioners have all sorts of write-offs on assets, particularly privatised superannuation, which are not available to those who are unemployed. Pensioners are allowed to earn much more than the unemployed before means tests come into effect.
The level of payment for people who are unemployed has not substantially increased in real terms since 1996 (Fact Check 2017). Young people who are unemployed can receive as little as 40% of the poverty line. Aborigines, the poorest peoples in Australia, particularly those living in remote regions are the least likely to get any assistance and when they do it is hedged around with many more obligations than imposed upon unemployed people living in cities and towns. Many severely disabled individuals and the least bureaucratically sophisticated citizens seldom get their full entitlements. The existing Australian system does not provide income support commensurate with the extent of a person’s financial need.
Robert Goodin and Julian Le Grand demonstrated, in 1987, that universal systems of income support are likely to be much more generous than targeted systems; and because they are paid to everyone, they generate much stronger community support. The levels of payment are more likely to increase over time because of that support.
The suggestion that, there is a static pool of funds available to provide income support and that it is a finite amount, is an absurd proposition. In Australia, over the last decade, successive governments of Labor and conservative persuasions, have cutback and/or abolished various types of income support payments particularly those directed towards assisting people who are unemployed and lone parents. The conservative Turnbull Government attempted to provide $50 billion in tax concessions to companies and tax cuts to those receiving salaries in excess of $100,000 a year whilst simultaneously increasing education, pharmaceutical, and health charges and reducing some forms of income support. Rather than assistance in Australia being provided to those “in need” assistance is provided to those “in favour”.
There are some writers such as those in the trickledown brigade and other neoliberal proponents who are never going to be convinced by the basic income trials in Holland, Finland, Scotland, Namibia, India, Kenya, Uganda, Brazil, Dauphin in the 1970s (Lum 2014) or other parts of Canada in 2018. This is because, they believe it is not in the economic interests of the affluent to adopt arguments in favour of increasing assistance to those in necessitous circumstances.
The suggestion that “the presence of a basic income would discourage work willingness” or more commonly “people would leave work in droves” is attractive to reactionaries. It is a hard idea to dislodge because the idea of sharing of “their” wealth with anybody else is an anathema to them. Their philosophical outlook and their psychological makeup predisposes them to accept only “evidence” which allows them to exploit their fellow citizens and keep their ill-gotten gains to themselves. Ideas about humans being cooperative or contributing to the common wealth is beyond their ken.
There is an obvious reasons the rich and super-rich and even the better off members of the middle classes are likely to oppose a basic income; namely, it would substantially improve tax compliance. There are two reasons for this:
first, a basic income (because of the simplicity of its eligibility requirement) frees the State from chasing diddly squat amounts from people defrauding social security; this, in turn, allows the tax authorities to concentrate upon pursuing tax avoidance and evasion.
Second, (because everyone receives the same payment) downward envy is avoided; consequently, permanent residents are reinforced in the idea that everyone is entitled to a liveable income and everyone should pay their fair share of tax.
This is not to suggest that the well-off are insincere. I am sure that many believe the neoliberal mantra they spout. It is a convenient yet happy coincidence that the views they hold justify being self-serving, egotistical or even just plain mean. It is easier to get people to accept new ideas than let go of old ones. It is almost impossible to get people to relinquish an outmoded idea if all the economic and psychological rewards to which they are preprogramed are supportive of their existing ideas.
But there are enough people in the world ready, willing and able to promote caring, sharing and the cooperative pursuit of putting the interests of the many ahead of those of the few. Our job is to help them form a movement powerful enough to do just that.
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