Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
One of the persistent criticisms of the Universal Basic Income is that it would either entice people to purchase addictive substances, such as alcohol, or enable existing addictions through the added cash benefit. Dr. Katarzyna Gajewska, an independent scholar researching the UBI, has studied this question in the past. Her unique insights deserve further exploration.
The drive toward a basic income isn’t new. It’s a 100-year-old movement that has gotten stronger each time inequality has returned to the public discussion. Support for unconditional basic income (UBI) has grown so rapidly over the past few years that some might think the idea appeared out of nowhere. In fact, activists have been floating the plan – and other forms of a basic income guarantee (BIG) – for over a century.
In this moment of massive wealth inequality, we urgently need to develop a new model for society to deliver both social and economic equity. The answer may be in the concept of Universal Basic Assets (UBA), which in my definition is a core, basic set of resources that every person is entitled to, from housing and healthcare to education and financial security.
In a stagnant economy, a UBI can create the demand needed to clear the shelves of unsold products and drive new productivity. Robots do not buy food, clothing, or electronic gadgets. Demand must come from consumers, and for that they need money to spend.
UBI is basically an idea that says everybody, simply by virtue of being alive, gets an income that gives them enough to survive, if not thrive, and that’s one of the debates. There are lots of different people talking about it right now from across the political spectrum. This is one of the things that makes it an interesting idea, or an idea that’s worth engaging with right now, because it’s an idea that’s emerging. It’s formulating, so it’s not settled.
Van Bo Le-Mentzel has invented all kinds of useful things, among others, do-it-yourself blueprints for furniture and tiny houses. He has become known for social DIY projects such as “Hartz IV1 Möbel,” the Unreal Estate House,2 and the One-Square-Meter House.3 He is now transferring the concept of these projects – unconditional freedom to use something for one’s own purposes – to his own life and that of his family with a campaign called #dScholarship that he started in 2014.
In the current employment system, work organizations are rarely adjusted to human needs, such as self-fulfillment and meaning. In the article on Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber (2013) observes that the more a job is useful for society and able to provide a sense of meaning, the less it is rewarded in monetary terms.
Brancaglione proposes a very anarchist-sounding agenda of federated local communities bypassing the state to create a counter-economy and appropriate illegitimately enclosed resources to fund a basic income.
Unlike a UBI, a Job Guarantee (JG) is not an untested policy in our country.
But beyond theory and the existence of alternatives that go beyond Keynesian patches, the narrative of the “guaranteed minimum income” (previously known as “basic income”) hides a good part of its moral, social, and political costs.
The people’s voice has taken centre stage once again in recent months, in which a call for sharing is palpable in the many agendas for social justice and true democracy.
From a degrowth perspective, a universal basic income makes perfect sense.
