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WORK TITLE: Basic Income
WORK NOTES: with Philippe Van Parijs
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Brussels
STATE:
COUNTRY: Belgium
NATIONALITY: Belgian
Professor of Political Science, Université Saint-Louis, Brussels.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Brussels, Belgium.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Economist, professor, writer, and editor. Saint-Louis University, Brussels, Belgium, professor of political science, member of Research Centre in Political Science; Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, visiting professor; Basic Income Studies, associate editor.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Yannick Vanderborght is an economist, professor, and writer who specializes in comparative politics, social policy, social history, trade unions, and unemployment and poverty. He works at Saint-Louis University, in Brussels, Belgium as professor of political science and a member of the Research Centre in Political Science, and at Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium as a visiting professor. He is also associate editor of Basic Income Studies.
In 2017, Vanderborght published Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy with cowriter Philippe Van Parijs, professor of economic and social ethics at the University of Louvain in Belgium. In the book, the authors examine the idea of paying citizens a base, tax-free income, obligation free, whether or not they work. The goal behind universal basic income (UBI) is to combat unemployment, poverty, economic insecurity, social exclusion, and social and political whims. It also encourages freedom in finding work. Philosophers and social advocates like Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill, as well as modern economists Charles Murray and Robert Reich, have also discussed this idea. Using economics, politics, and philosophy, authors Vanderborght and Van Parijs update the concept of a basic, unconditional income for the increasingly globalized and automated twenty-first century. They also address economic and ethical issues, how such a government program can be funded, economic effect, political implications and hindrances, as well as alternative income programs.
Today’s welfare system is under pressure and is unsustainable. A basic income can be accomplished despite the incentive for citizens to get a free ride, while at the same time saving money usually spent on issues addressing poverty. In a review for the book in Library Journal, Lawrence Maxted noted that the idea of a basic income is certainly controversial, but that the authors present “a sober and well-argued study of the basic income concept.” A Publishers Weekly contributor said that “this thorough, thoughtful study will undoubtedly become a much-cited landmark work on its subject,” even though the book is aimed more at academics than lay readers.
In a review in New Statesman, John Harris said Basic Income is “a stereotypically academic, often impenetrable text, which veers through philosophy, politics, desiccated economics and explorations of some of the cases for UBI’s more out-there elements.” On the other hand, Steven Pearlstein remarked in Washington Post that the authors have written “a deep understanding, an enduring passion and a disarming optimism…And while the coming debate over the guaranteed income will inevitably focus on political and economic viability, in the end the authors believe we will embrace it, as we embraced those others, because it is the right thing to do.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Library Journal, March 1, 2017, Lawrence Maxted, review of Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy, p. 90.
New Statesman, July 21, 2017, John Harris, review of Basic Income, p. 36.
Publishers Weekly, January 30, 2017, review of Basic Income, p. 193.
Washington Post, March 24, 2017, Steven Pearlstein, review of Basic Income.
ONLINE
Catholic University of Louvain Website, https://uclouvain.be/ (November 1, 2017), author profile.
Yannick Vanderborght
CHAIRE HOOVER Louvain-La-Neuve
Professor of Political Science at Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles and Guest Professor at Université catholique de Louvain.
Member of the Research Centre in Political Science (CReSPo) at Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles.
Associate editor of Basic Income Studies
Research interests: Comparative Politics, comparative social policy, comparative social history, unemployment and poverty, trade unions, basic income.
E-mail: Yannick Vanderborght
Office: bureau n°5004 (119, rue du Marais)
Address: Université Saint-Louis, Boulevard du Jardin botanique, 43
1000 Brussels Belgium
Ph. UCL: 010 473963
Ph. USL-B: +32 / (0)2 792 36 23
Books
(2017) VAN PARIJS, Philippe & VANDERBORGHT, Yannick, Basic income. A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
(2014) VANDERBORGHT, Yannick & YAMAMORI, Toru (eds.), Basic Income in Japan. Prospects for a Radical Idea in a Transforming Welfare State, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
(2013) WIDERQUIST, Karl, NOGUERA, Jose A., VANDERBORGHT, Yannick & DE WISPELAERE, Jurgen (eds.), Basic income. An anthology of contemporary research, New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 606pp.
(2013) DEFRAIGNE, Jean-Christophe, DE MEULEMEESTER, Jean-Luc, DUEZ, Denis & VANDERBORGHT, Yannick (eds.), Les modèles sociaux en Europe. Quel avenir face à la crise?, Bruxelles: Bruylant, 230pp.
(2011) GOSSERIES, Axel & VANDERBORGHT, Yannick (eds.), Arguing about justice. Essays for Philippe Van Parijs, Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 422p.
(2011) VANHERCKE, Bart, VERSCHRAEGEN, Gert, VAN GEHUCHTEN, Pierre-Paul & VANDERBORGHT, Yannick (eds.) , L’Europe en Belgique, la Belgique dans l’Europe. Configuration et appropriation des politiques sociales, Gand: Academia Press, 231pp.
(2007) Morale et politique de l'enfance , sous la direction de DE BRIEY, Laurent et VANDERBORGHT, Yannick , numéro spécial de la Revue philosophique de Louvain 105 (1-2), février-mai 2007.
(2005) avec VAN PARIJS, Philippe, L'allocation universelle, Paris, La Découverte, Coll. " Repères ", 2005.
- Traduction allemande : Ein Grundeinkommen für alle? Geschichte und Zukunft eines radikalen Vorschlags, postface de Claus Offe, Francfort-New York, Campus, 2005 .
- Traduction brésilienne : Renda Básica de Cidadania, argumentos éticos e econômicos, Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2006, ISBN : 8520006604.
- Traduction espagnole: La renta básica. Una medida eficaz para luchar contra la pobreza. Préface de Daniel Raventós, traduction de David Casassas. Barcelona: Paidos, 156p, 2006, ISBN 84-493-1932-3.
- Traduction italienne: Il reddito minimio universale, Préface de Chiara Saraceno, Milano: Università Bocconi Editore EGEA, 159p., 2006, ISBN 88-8350-081-4.
Research Reports
(2009) Rendre le passage du revenu d’intégration à l'emploi financièrement attrayant?
Rapport pour la Fondation Roi Baudouin, par Greet DE VIL (Bureau du Plan) et Natascha VAN MECHELEN (CSB), avec la collaboration de Yannick VANDERBORGHT (FUSL & Chaire Hoover)
(2009) avec A. Franssen, R. Darquenne, L. Struyven & L. Van Hemel, Un autre regard sur les jeunes enlisés dans le chômage. Recommandations et facteurs de réussite pour l'insertion professionnelle des jeunes peu qualifiés, Bruxelles: Fondation Roi Baudouin, 341 p.
(2008) avec A. Franssen, B. Champetier, L. Struyven & L. Van Hemel, Évaluation des conventions de premier emploi rattachées à la Politique des grandes villes , Bruxelles: SPF Emploi et intégration sociale, 157 p.
Articles
(2016) VANDERBORGHT, Yannick & SPIRITUS, Kevin, 'Le revenu de base contre la pauvreté?, in Isabelle Pannecoucke & al., eds., Pauvreté en Belgique - Annuaire 2016, Ghent: Academia Press, 187-202. Also available in Dutch: "Het basisinkomen als remedie tegen armoede? ", in Isabelle Pannecoucke & al., eds., Armoede in België - Jaarboek 2016, Ghent: Academia Press, 187-203.
(2016) VAN PARIJS, Philippe & VANDERBORGHT, Yannick, Basic income : The instrument of Freedom, Christen-democratische reflecties 4(1), maart 2016, 107-17.
(2015) VAN PARIJS, Philippe & VANDERBORGHT, Yannick, Basic Income in a Globalized Economy , in Inclusive Growth, Development and Welfare Policy: A Critical Assessment (Reza Hasmath ed.), New York: Routledge, 2015, pp.229-47.
(2015) VANDERBORGHT, Yannick, Waarom een basisinkomen een goed idee is, Samenleving en politiek, 2015/3, pp.57-63. Also published as Waarom een basisinkomen een goed idee is in VERMEERSCH, Wim (ed.)(2015), Help, de robots komen. Jaarboek Sampol 2015 , Ghent: Stichting Gerrit Kreveld en Samenleving en politiek, pp.54-59.
(2015) VANDERBORGHT, Yannick, Las tensiones en la reforma del estado de bienestar : qué podemos aprender del debate sobre la renta básica ’, in José Luis Rey Pérez (ed.), Sostenibilidad del estado de bienestar en España, Madrid : Editorial Dykinson & Ministerio de economia y competitividad, pp.87-107.
(2014) VANDERBORGHT, Yannick & SEKINE, Yuki, A Comparative Look at the Feasibility of Basic Income in the Japanese Welfare State, in Y. Vanderborght & Toru Yamamori (eds.), Basic Income in Japan. Prospects for a Radical Idea in a Transforming Welfare State , New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.15-34.
(2014) YAMAMORI, Toru & VANDERBORGHT, Yannick, 'Introduction: Income Security and the "Right to Subsistence" in Japan', in Y. Vanderborght & Toru Yamamori (eds.), Basic Income in Japan. Prospects for a Radical Idea in a Transforming Welfare State, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.1-11.
(2014) VANDERBORGHT, Yannick, The tensions of welfare state reform and the potential of a universal basic income, in E. Dermine & D. Dumont (eds.), Activation Policies for the Unemployed, the Right to Work and the Duty to Work , Brussels: P.I.E. Pieter Lang, pp.209-222.
(2014) VANDERBORGHT, Yannick, Droit au revenu et droit au travail. Enseignements du débat sur l'allocation universelle, in L. Taskin & al. (eds.), Transformations du travail: regards multidisciplinaires , Louvain-la-Neuve: PUL, pp.65-72.
(2013) The European social model and the shortcomings of the active welfare state in Javier Ramos and Jose Luis Rey Pérez (eds.), Special issue of ICADE on “The future of the Welfare State”, issue 90, pp. 45-59.
(2013) Lutte contre la pauvreté: la solidarité européenne à l’épreuve de la crise, in Defraigne, Jean-Christophe, De Meulemeester, Jean-Luc, Duez, Denis & Vanderborght, Yannick (eds.), Les modèles sociaux en Europe. Quel avenir face à la crise?, Bruxelles: Bruylant, 2013, pp.113-128.
(2013) Basisinkomen, sociale rechtvaardigheid en armoede, in D. Dierckx, J. Coene, A. Van Haarlem en P. Raeymaeckers (eds.), Armoede en sociale uitsluiting. Jaarboek 2013, Leuven: Acco, pp. 341-353.
(2013) Basic income, social justice and poverty, in Alessandra Sciurba (ed.), Redefining and combating poverty. Human rights, democracy and common goods in today's Europe, Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, Trends in social cohesion No. 25, pp.267-283. Also available in French: Allocation universelle, justice sociale et pauvreté , in Alessandra Sciurba (ed.), Redéfinir et combattre la pauvreté. Droits humains, démocratie et biens communs dans l'Europe contemporaine, Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, Tendances de la cohésion sociale No. 25, pp.291-307.
(2012) Philippe VAN PARIJS & Yannick VANDERBORGHT, Basic Income in a Globalized Economy in Does the European Social Model Have a Future? (Brigid Reynolds & Sean Healy eds.), Dublin: Social Justice Ireland, 2012, pp. 31-60; also in Wege zum Grundeinkommen (Dirk Jacobi & Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn eds.), Berlin: Heinrich Böll Stiftung, pp. 35-56.
(2012) avec MULVALE, James P., 'Canada: A Guaranteed Income Framework to Address Poverty and Inequality?', in Richard K. Caputo (ed.), Basic income guarantee and politics. International experiences and perspectives on the viability of income guarantee , New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, pp.177-201.
(2011) VANHERCKE, Bart, VANDERBORGHT, Yannick & VERSCHRAEGEN, Gert, 'L'Europe sociale en Belgique: emploi et inclusion sociale au prisme de l'européanisation', Revue belge de sécurité sociale, 53 (4), pp.745-774. Also available in Dutch .
(2011) & Vanhercke, B., Verschraegen, G., Reyniers, Ph., Van Gehuchten, P.-P., & Berghman, J., ‘Réfléchir l’européanisation des politiques sociales’, in B. Vanhercke & al. (eds.), L’Europe en Belgique, la Belgique dans l’Europe. Configuration et appropriation des politiques sociales, Gand: Academia, 205-225.
(2010) & VAN PARIJS, Philippe, Justice fiscale, lutte contre la pauvreté et accès à l’autonomie , L'Economie politique, n°47, juillet 2010.
(2010) Universal Basic Income and the Tensions of Welfare State Reform (in Japanese), in Miyamoto Taro (ed.), Activation or basic income? Principles of welfare reform, special issue of Academia Juris Booklet , 2010, issue 30, pp.6-23.
(2009) & VAN PARIJS, Philippe, Basic Income, Globalization and Migration , in Sustainable Utopia and Basic Income in a Global Era, Seoul National University & South Korean Basic Income Network, pp. 7-29 (in English) and 30-49 (in Korean).
(2009) & VAN PARIJS, Philippe, Basic Income as a way of tackling poverty, ENARgy, Newsletter of the European Network Against Racism, November 2009, issue 30, pp.10-11 (version française également disponible ).
(2009) Basic Income and Human Activity: Three Puzzles, in Gorka Moreno Márquez & Borja Barragué Calvo (Eds.), Renta Básica de Ciudadanía en tiempo de crisis , Bilbao: Universidad del Pais Vasco, ISBN: 978-84-9860-049-0.
(2009) avec Brice CHAMPETIER & Abraham FRANSSEN, Rosetta dans la Grande ville: Une évaluation des premiers emplois de la politique des grandes villes 2003-2007 , in E. de CALLATAŸ (ed.), Quel Etat pour quelles performances économiques?, Charleroi: CIFOP - 18e Congrès des économistes belges de langue française, pp. 307-331.
(2009) & Philippe VAN PARIJS, Das bedingungslose Grundeinkommen: ein Blick auf seine politische Realisierbarkeit in Der Grundeinkommensvorschlag, Manuel Franzmann ed.,Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2009, pp. 329-59.
(2008) Social Justice Through Universal Benefits , Revista de Estudos Universitarios Universidade de Sorocaba, Brazil), 34 (1), juin 2008, pp.71-84.
(2008) avec David Casassas, Entrevista político-filosófica a Jean Bricmont, Sin Permiso, 3, mai 2008, pp.81-108.
(2008) Repenser l’égalité des chances. Présentation critique de l’ouvrage de Patrick Savidan , La Revue nouvelle, juillet-août 2008, n°7-8, pp.62-67.
(2007) Economic Security for All in Canada? Insights from the debates on a guaranteed basic income , Transition Magazine (Canadian Mental Health Association), Fall issue, 2007, pp.7-13.
(2007) & DE BRIEY, Laurent, Morale et politique de l'enfance. Présentation , Revue philosophique de Louvain, 105 (1-2), février-mai 2007, 1-5.
(2006) Negative Income Tax , in T. FITZPATRICK & al. ( ed.), International Encyclopedia of Social Policy, London: Routledge, 2006, pp.913-915.
(2006) Why Trade Unions Oppose Basic Income, Basic Income Studies, Vol. 1: No. 1, Article 5.
(2006) Effets anti-redistributifs des dépenses de protection sociale, in R. PELLET (dir.), Finances publiques et redistribution sociale, Paris, Economica, pp.263-277.
(2005) The Basic Income Guarantee in Europe: The Belgian and Dutch Back Door Strategies , in WIDERQUIST, Karl, LEWIS, Michael & PRESSMAN, Steven (eds.), The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarante, New York: Ashgate, 2005.
(2005) Són els sindicats un impediment per a la introducció de la Renda Bàsica?, La Revista online del CTESC,(Consell de Treball, Econòmic i Social de Catalunya), feb. 2005.
(2004) Universal Basic Income in Belgium and the Netherlands : Implementation Through the Back Door ? , EUI Working Paper SPS No. 2004/4, European University Institute, Florence, 2004.
(2004) & YAMASAKI, Sakura, Des cas logiques… contradictoires ? Un piège de l'AQQC résolu à travers l'étude de la faisabilité politique de l'Allocation Universelle,
Revue internationale de politique comparée, 11 (1), 51-66, 2004.
(2004) El experimento del VIVANT en Bélgica in VAN DER VEEN, Robert, GROOT, Loek, LO VUOLO, Rubén M. (éds.), La renta básica en la agenda: Objetivos y posibilidades del ingreso ciudadano, Madrid: Miño y Dávila editores, 2002, 375-388.
(2002) & VAN PARIJS, Philippe, Au travail!, Regards économiques (Louvain-la-Neuve), 1 (5), octobre 2002, pp.10-11.
(2002) Quelles sont les chances politiques de l'allocation universelle ? Hypothèses à partir des exemples canadien et néerlandais , Raisons politiques: Etudes de pensée politique,(Paris), 6, mai 2002, pp.53-66.
(2002) Belgique : " VIVANT " ou l'allocation universelle pour seul programme électoral , Multitudes (Paris), 8, mars-avril 2002, pp.135-145.
(2001) & VAN PARIJS, Philippe, From Euro-Stipendium to Euro-Dividend, Journal of European Social Policy, 11 (4), November 2001, pp.342-346.
(2001) Le revenu de citoyenneté en Europe : entre débats idéologiques et discussions pragmatiques in BLAIS, François, DUCLOS, Jean-Yves (éds.), Le revenu de citoyenneté : revue des écrits et consultation des experts , Québec : Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Société et la Culture, 2001, pp.85-160.
(2001) La France sur la voie d'un " Revenu minimum inconditionnel " ?, Mouvements. Sociétés, Politique, Culture (Paris - La Découverte), n°15-16, mai-juin-juillet-août 2001, 157-165.
(2001) & VAN PARIJS, Philippe, Assurance participation et revenu de participation. Deux manières d'infléchir l'état social actif, Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique (Bruxelles), Tome XL, n°1-2, 2001, 183-196.
(2000) The VIVANT experiment in Belgium in VAN DER VEEN, Robert, GROOT, Loek (éds.), Basic Income on the Agenda. Policy objectives and political chances, Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, 2000, 229-235.
(2000)& Marie-Pierre BOUCHER, Isabelle DE GREEF, Laurence JACQUET, Philippe VAN PARIJS, Participatie verzekering en participatie-inkomen, Oikos (Bruxelles), 14, 2000, 9-31.
Interventions
(2017) Explorer de nouveaux modes de vie, entretien avec Isabelle Cassiers et Yannick Vanderborght, "Revenu Universel: comprendre le débat", Les dossiers d'Alternatives économiques, juin 2017, numéro 10, pp.28-30.
(2011) Un revenu universel non stigmatisant
Yannick VANDERBORGHT, propos recueillis par Stéphanie Barzasi, Convergence (Mensuel du Secours Populaire français), juillet-août 2011, p.20.
(2010) Lutter contre la pauvreté en garantissant le droit au revenu
Yannick VANDERBORGHT & Philippe VAN PARIJS, in Actes de la 8e journée des insertions "L'insertion s'expose et se débat", Liège 20 octobre 2010, pp.20-23.
Press
(2016) Universal basic income. Forward-thinking or wrong-headed, interview with Justin McCurry, Eurobiz Japan, October 2016 issue.
(2016) Le revenu universel: une solution à la crise des Etats providence?, entretien avec Eva Quéméré, Métis - Correspondances européennes du travail, 12 septembre 2016.
(2016) L'Etat social contient des embryons d'allocation universelle, entretien avec Ruben Hamburger, BXL-Bondy-Blog, 10 juin 2016.
(2016) The illusion of Money, interview with Anik See, CBC Radio (Canada), 25 February 2016.
(2016) L'allocation universelle, entretien, Journal télévisé RTBF, 2 février 2016.
(2015) François Blais, le philosophe du concret , entretien avec Simon Boivin, Le Soleil (Québec), 14 mars 2015.
(2012) L'allocation universelle, c'est possible? , entretien avec Aline Goethals et Yannick Vanderborght, Moustique, 21 novembre 2012.
(2009) Con la renta básica se podrían rechazar los empleos indignos, entretien avec Juanjo Basterra (traduction Borja Barragué), Gara (San Sebastian), 26 novembre 2009.
(2009) Les moyens de faire votre projet de vie , Entretien paru dans Le Jeudi (Luxembourg), jeudi 17 septembre 2009.
(2008) Interview à propos des élections fédérales canadiennes, émission "The voice from the North", Radio Canada International (Chinese Section), 27 octobre 2008, propos recueillis par Beijia Lin.
(2008) L'allocation universelle redonne du pouvoir au salarié, Entretien paru dans Le Courrier (Genève), mercredi 20 février 2008, pp. 2-3, partie 1 et partie 2 .
(2007) La sécurité économique au Canada, Radio Canada (Regina, Saskatchewan), 7 juin 2007.
(2007) Hacia la libertad real para todos, Y. Vanderborght, paru dans La Dinamo (Madrid), mai-juin 2007, propos recueillis par Albin Senghor.
(2007) Un enfant, une voix ? Le Vif/L'Express, 13/07/2007
(2007) Pour une allocation universelle. Entretien avec Yannick Vanderborght, politiste, Sciences Humaines, n°183, juin 2007, pp.10-11, pdf partie 1 et pdf partie 2.
(2006) L'allocation universelle: nouvel espoir de l'Etat social, interview parue dans L'émilie (Genève, Suisse), août-septembre 2006, pp.15-16, propos recueillis par Emmanuelle Joz-Roland.
(2006) Bolsa para todos, até para os ricos , Yannick Vanderborght, O Popular (Goiânia, Bresil), 3 septembre 2006, p.14, propos recueillis par Fabricia Hamu.
(2005) & Philippe Van Parijs, L'allocation universelle: utopie ou troisième voie réaliste?, carte blanche dans Le Soir (Bruxelles), 22 juin 2005, p.18.
(2005) & Philippe Van Parijs, "L'allocation Universelle", paru aux éditions de la Découverte, entretien avec Jean Rosoux, RTBF La Première (radio), Arguments, 12 juin 2005.
(2008) avec A. Franssen, B. Champetier, L. Struyven & L. Van Hemel, Évaluation des conventions de premier emploi rattachées à la Politique des grandes villes, Bruxelles: SPF Emploi et intégration sociale, 157 p.
Free money for everyone
John Harris
146.5376 (July 21, 2017): p36.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 New Statesman, Ltd.
http://www.newstatesman.com/
Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy
Philippe Van Parijs and
Yannick Vanderborght
Harvard, 384pp. 23.95 [pounds sterling]
Utopia for Realists
And How We Can Get There
Rutger Bregman
Translated by Elizabeth Manton
Bloomsbury, 316pp. 16.99 [pounds sterling]
Basic Income:
And How We Can Make it Happen Guy Standing
Pelican, 348pp. 8.99 [pounds sterling]
Universal basic income is gaining political airtime. But will it ever happen.
"Times of crisis are also times of great freedom," wrote the French JL social philosopher Andre Gorz in 1983. "Our world is out of joint; societies are disintegrating, our lifelong hopes and values are crumbling. The future ceases to be a continuation of past trends. The meaning of present development is confused; the meaning of history suspended." The words come at the start of Paths to Paradise, subtitled "On the Liberation From Work" and written as a concise manifesto for a new kind of leftism. Its two foundations, Gorz explained, were the embrace of automation and what he called a social income, paid by the state "to meet the needs of the citizen rather than the worker".
Thirty-four years later, the inheritors of Gorz's dreams frame their arguments in the same sense of a sudden break with history, endless economic turbulence, and people blinking into a future without precedent. "We live in a new world, remade by many forces," announce Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, two academics from the University of Louvain, Belgium. In the midst of what they call a "disruptive technological revolution", ecological breakdown and the decline of such collective institutions as trade unions, they insist that the key political imperative is "to rebuild confidence and hope in the future of our societies", and "embrace radical ideas"--starting with a guaranteed income "paid upfront to rich and poor alike, regardless of the income they derive from other sources, the property they own, or the income of their relatives".
Reading across from one text to another, cynics might detect the eternal leftie habit --evident in the work of everyone from Marx and Engels to Naomi Klein--of declaring a historic watershed that only the author's ideas can address: a variety of what some people call "chronocentrism", described by the journalist and author Tom Standage as "the egotism that one's own generation is poised on the very cusp of history". But I'd rather be a bit more generous. Gorz was writing at a time when the postwar consensus around the big state and large-scale industry was breaking apart: in retrospect, the point at which the modernity with which we are all now familiar--of globalisation, financialised capitalism, the rise of information technology and the dominance of consumerism--began to take root, and throw up questions that the mainstream left seemed increasingly unable to answer. In that sense, his work pointed to developments that have snowballed--and though it has taken a long time, intellectual fashion is finally beginning to catch up.
Turn up at any left-leaning gathering these days, and the chances are that the idea of a basic income--abbreviated to UBI, in which the "U" can stand for either universal or unconditional--will be talked about. In theory at least, it answers one of the central problems of our age: the way that the division of rewards between capital and labour seems to be growing ever-more skewed, as a few tech corporations threaten to dominate the planet, and technology polarises the job market between a small number of handsomely paid jobs at the top, and a growing mass of insecure, poorly paid roles at the bottom. If you prefer your economics to be more apocalyptic and believe that the rise of the robots will render most work extinct, the case for UBI is even stronger. But there is one big problem--politics--and some very big questions: not just how to pay for any such scheme, but how to sell the idea to millions of people used to the quaint notion that financial rewards should always be linked to hard graft.
Nonetheless, the idea is gaining political ground. UBI has been Green Party policy since the mid 1970s. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has talked approvingly of the basic principle, and held out the prospect of UBI appearing in a future Labour manifesto. The Corbynites' in-house theorist and agitator-at-large, Paul Mason, put the idea at the core of his 2015 economic treatise Postcapitalism. In as much as it passed an approving conference motion, the Scottish National Party has also embraced the idea.
Barack Obama says UBI will be at the centre of "a debate we'll be having" over the next two decades. In June last year, Switzerland held a referendum on whether to introduce a basic income of 1,700 [pounds sterling] a month--which was roundly defeated, although the plan's advocates (and they would, wouldn't they?) claimed that backing from more than one in five of those who voted represented a foundation on which to build. Big figures in Silicon Valley--the latest being Mark Zuckerberg--are increasingly fond of the concept. Meanwhile, pilots have either been launched, or are being prepared, in Holland, Finland, California and Catalonia, as people try to put practical flesh on the bones of an idea that dates back at least 500 years, and whose champions have included Thomas More, Tom Paine, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, Martin Luther King, and an array of names on the political right, including Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman.
Now comes the point at which the principle of UBI is not just advocated by academics and politicians, but by people who have their sights set on the bestseller lists. Rutger Bregman is from Holland, and is an example of that group of international hotshots who seem to spend their lives pinballing between airport terminals and TED talks. He writes in a breathless, faux-conversational style built around such verbal tics as "Don't get me wrong" and "Let's get one thing straight", and drops the names of everyone from Thomas Hobbes to John Maynard Keynes, usually with no real sense that he has understood the nuances and complexities of their ideas.
All that said, Bregman has a decent sense of how to structure an argument. Using a technique that probably owes more to PowerPoint than to great literature, he tends to begin with a primary-coloured, counter-intuitive proposition--witness the title of chapter two, "Why we should give free money to everyone"--before rattling through a selection of anecdotes that serve to prove him right. On the latter score, he capably recounts past experiments with UBI-esque schemes in such countries as Kenya, Uganda and Liberia, as well as summarising the effects of a 2010 project in London in which 13 homeless people were given hundreds of pounds to spend as they saw fit--and rather than blowing the money on alcohol and drugs, used it to improve their position, to the point that 11 of them moved off the streets.
He also rehearses a story that will be familiar to anyone who has acquainted themselves with the growing mountain of material on UBI: the 1970s experiment that involved the 13,000 residents of Dauphin, a town in the Manitoba province of Canada, who were temporarily guaranteed the modern equivalent of $19,000 dollars a year. They lived out UBI's emancipatory promise: educational attainment went up, as did the divorce rate, as women were granted a financial independence that suddenly multiplied their options.
The failings of his arguments, however, extend into the distance. He makes too little distinction between UBI as advanced by people on the left, and the very different models conceived on the political right, which has tended to view basic income as a neat way of doing away with the welfare state. Though the fault could lie with his translator, he also writes about the key beneficiaries of a basic income in a register that seems to mix the haughtiness of a 19th century social reformer with a crass tone redolent of MTV's Beavis and Butt-Head. He repeatedly refers to an amorphous bloc of people he terms "the poor"--who, according to one section, "borrow more, save less, smoke more, exercise less, drink more, and eat less healthfully [sic]". The heading for this passage is "Why Poor People Do Dumb Things".
For all his zeal, he also has no real sense of what a difficult political sell UBI remains, and when his self-styled utopia is widened to include completely open national borders, everything threatens to fall apart. "In the 19th century inequality was still a matter of class; nowadays, it's a matter of location," he writes, which is not just banal, but indicative of views that he has perhaps failed to think through. Combining unlimited immigration with a new onus on the state to pay a universal income would surely kill popular consent for the latter idea in a flash. And how plucking the most entrepreneurial, qualified people from half the world's countries is meant to solve geographical inequality remains unclear--but at the risk of sounding like his dad, such is the world as viewed from the perspective of a 28-year-old who should maybe do a bit more traditional journalism before he chooses once again to hold forth.
Guy Standing is a London-based academic who has been making the case for UBI since the 1980s. In a prolific stream of work (by my reckoning, Basic Income is his fifth book in seven years), he has always placed the idea in the context not just of the growing class of insecure workers he memorably termed "the precariat", but of the need for a conception of human rights fit for the 21st century. Standing tends to write in an overly formal way that leads him to present too many of his arguments in the form of lists, but his work is rich enough to take in theology, history, and a range of arguments that are often subtle and unexpected: among them, the idea that UBI might be a good way of managing the eternal tendency of capitalism to strip what it can out of places, before moving on and leaving them bereft.
He makes this latter point using the case of Middlesbrough, the kind of post-industrial English town that stands as a byword for what he calls "the cruelty of history". If other places that once gained from its industry have continued to prosper, "often through inherited wealth and privilege", isn't there a case for a long overdue payback? Standing claims that this is an example of the kind of "inter-generational justice" most politicians dare not talk about, and that UBI is the way to achieve it. In the context of his accounts of many of the same pilots and experiments described by Bregman, the point here is simple enough: that as much as anything, UBI amounts to an ongoing fiscal stimulus, which would give people the kind of foundation they need to move their lives out of the cul-de-sacs into which our Darwinian kind of capitalism has pushed them.
The danger of such arguments is that they stray close to what might be called silver-bulletry, a charge that definitely applies to some of Standing's more hubristic claims. At one point, he claims UBI might even be able to tackle global warming, a contention that seems to revolve around how a basic income might enable governments to lay off coal miners. In the midst of such claims, the question of how to advance UBI politically screams out for an answer, but none really arrives. "Policymakers must secure a broad level of social acceptance of basic income among the public, or at least a willingness to give the reform a fair trial," he writes. "This must mean, among other things, a sensitive campaign to explain the values and principles behind the reform." These truths are self-evident, but beyond the idea that UBI might arrive via "baby steps" (first introducing a limited version, then currying public favour until something more extensive could be implemented), the question of how to deal with the basic matter of public consent is dealt with too briskly.
Van Parijs and Vanderborght's book is a funny old thing: a stereotypically academic, often impenetrable text, which veers through philosophy, politics, desiccated economics and explorations of some of the cases for UBI's more out-there elements. When chewing over how on earth to fund national basic income schemes, they first alight on the idea of the state owning the economy and distributing its imagined profits to the entire population. They then imagine the nationalisation of land, before settling on the case for a "partial limited income", likely to come with conditions--taking part in education or training, caring for friends or relatives, holding down a job, or at least looking for one--which might then be gradually dropped. This is bundled up with their deadpan acknowledgement that their own overview of the balance of forces for and against UBI "does not exactly suggest that the introduction of a generous basic income is imminent anywhere in the world".
Compared with the grand promise of a "radical proposal", the conclusion comes with the slight taste of disappointment, and underlines how far the case for a basic income has yet to go. For now, perhaps, the imperative should be not to get lost in hypothetical figures, or to widen the argument into a catch-all solution to everything wrong with the world, but to make the case for UBI in terms of one big argument: that the economy is rapidly changing in ways that leave the 20th century's combination of complicated welfare systems and secure work behind, with profound human consequences.
If, returning to Andre Gorz, our world is out of joint and the meaning of history is suspended, the best way to make that point might be to hear from more people at the sharp end, one of whom--quoted from a secondary source--suddenly appears on page 78 of Standing's book. He is an unnamed man who has reverted to receiving disability benefits, after falling into the kind of traps now inherent in modern economies. He says this:
"There was a time a number of years ago
when my health improved spontaneously.
Half my brain sought to grab life by the
horns and get out into the working world as
soon as I could. The other half stood
terrified by the bureaucratic difficulties
endemic in the system; difficulties that
forced you either to relinquish your crucial
income in the hope of being able to replace
it, or lie to the Department of Work and
Pensions. As it happened, I did manage to
work for a short while, only to have to push
myself far too hard to replace the benefit
lost, leading to a relapse from which I have
never recovered."
Those 112 words show that in the end, online lectures, endless graphs and accounts of limited experiments do not add up to much of an argument. If the case for a basic income feels unanswerable but has yet to take flight, that might be because of an absence that runs through all three of these books: that of authentic voices, making the case for the future in the midst of the failings of the present.
Caption: John Harris writes for the Guardian
Caption: Young gun: UBI hotshot Rutger Bregman
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Harris, John. "Free money for everyone." New Statesman, 21 July 2017, p. 36+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA500682238&it=r&asid=c72e74d278d6966e801a914d8511f189. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A500682238
Van Parijs, Philippe & Yannick Vanderborght. Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy
Lawrence Maxted
142.4 (Mar. 1, 2017): p90.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Van Parijs, Philippe & Yannick Vanderborght. Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy. Harvard Univ. Mar. 2017.400p. illus. notes, bibliog. index. ISBN 9780674052284. $29.95. ECON
Van Parijs (economics & social ethics, Univ. catholique de Louvain, Belgium) and Vanderborght (political science, Univ. Saint-Louis, Brussels) argue for providing everyone a basic income. By basic income, they mean a regular, obligation-free payment of tax-free cash to every person without eligibility requirements. For example, every adult might receive $1,000 per month. The authors cite as benefits poverty reduction, freedom to choose work, a reduction of unemployment and underemployment, and greater economic equity. They review the historical origins of the idea, objections, alternative methods, funding, economic effects, the political climate, and threats from globalization. They conclude that implementing a basic income policy will come in steps probably through backdoor avenues. The concrete proposal for reducing economic inequality makes it a good complement to Thomas Piketty's best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century. VERDICT This work, while certainly controversial to some readers, is a sober and well-argued study of the basic income concept. Though the authors' use of jargon is kept to a minimum, the depth of their arguments makes this volume best suited to readers with either an academic background or a strong interest in the topic.--Lawrence Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Maxted, Lawrence. "Van Parijs, Philippe & Yannick Vanderborght. Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy." Library Journal, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 90. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA483702155&it=r&asid=0ee93098832365ebd374ac48c636f5d2. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A483702155
A guaranteed basic income
264.5 (Jan. 30, 2017): p193.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Two books discuss a common solution to inequality.
Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy
Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght. Harvard Univ., $29.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-674-05228-4
Van Parijs and Vanderborght, respectively professors of economic and political science, make a sturdy ethical and philosophical argument for the provision of universal basic income (UBI), "a regular income paid in cash to every individual member of a society, irrespective of income from other sources and with no strings attached." Such income, they assert, can deliver on the democratic ideal and help secure basic economic security for all. Their argument rests on several current workforce trends: accelerating automation, slower and narrower economic growth, and decreasing ecological resources. It also rests, later, on a critique of the ultimate effectiveness of welfare programs. The book's first half examines UBI's history in Western thought; the second moves to imagining its practical applications. With diligent care and occasional graphs, the authors examine moral and economic objections to UBI and difficulties of implementing it. They show that discussion of and support for UBI is growing (the Swiss have come the closest in recent years with a 2016 national referendum) but also acknowledge that rightward political shifts in the U.S. and Europe make it far less likely that UBI will take root there. Pitched more toward academics than lay readers, this thorough, thoughtful study will undoubtedly become a much-cited landmark work on its subject. (Mar.)
Utopias for Realists
Rutger Bregman. Little, Brown, $27 (272p) ISBN 978-0-316-47189-3
A universal basic income, a shrunken work week, and global open borders get endorsements from Bregman, a Dutch journalist and historian. He engagingly examines basic income schemes in 18th- and 19th- century England, in Manitoba in the early 1970s, and among the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. His summary of how close the United States came to passing a basic income law under President Nixon is entertaining and intriguing. "For the first time in history we are rich enough to finance a sizable basic income," Bregman proclaims. The other legs of his triangle are explored with a little less focus and heft, with references to futurists' estimates that the typical work week will be 15 hours by 2030 and that increased movement in the global labor market would have dramatic effects on world economic output. For readers on the left, these are appealing notions, presented here in a breezy, TED talk-like style. Bregman isn't being glib when he says those who want to change the world need to be as "unrealistic, unreasonable, and impossible" as abolitionists, suffragists, and marriage equality activists once seemed to be. A more practical handbook, however, is required to make these far-reaching proposals seem achievable. Agent: Emma Parry, Janklow & Nesbit. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"A guaranteed basic income." Publishers Weekly, 30 Jan. 2017, p. 193. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480195233&it=r&asid=400728f81dae21e64df736e4f2bd968c. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480195233
Book World: Could handouts end the 'welfare trap'?
Steven Pearlstein
(Mar. 24, 2017): News:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Byline: Steven Pearlstein
Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy
By Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght
Harvard. 384 pp. $29.95
---
Over the last three decades, technology and globalization have combined to eliminate millions of jobs in advanced industrial countries, shifting an increasing share of national wealth to those at the top while incomes at the bottom stagnate or decline. And if you believe the talk in technology circles, robots and intelligent software are quickly becoming so sophisticated and so ubiquitous that they are about to take over the work done by millions more. How will we deal with a world where leisure is abundant and there aren't enough good-paying jobs to go around?
To meet this political and economic meta-challenge, the hot new idea is the universal basic income - using some of the wealth generated by all this new technology to guarantee everyone a baseline income, whether they are working or not.
It's not as crazy as it may sound. In recent years, a guaranteed income has been proposed on the right by Charles Murray at the American Enterprise Institute and Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute, and on the left by former labor secretary Robert Reich and labor leader Andrew Stern. Switzerland gave it serious consideration last year before three-quarters of its voters turned down the idea in a nationwide referendum. And beginning this year, well-funded, large-scale, long-term experiments in Finland and Kenya will examine whether providing a guaranteed income is an effective way to relieve poverty and cushion the effects of economic dislocation without encouraging idleness and sloth.
To capitalize on this sudden surge of interest, Phillippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght have reprised and updated their decade-old study in "Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy." The two Belgian academics are charter members of a global network of activists and thinkers who for decades have been trying to build the intellectual and political foundation for the idea.
Guaranteed-income schemes can take various forms, but in its simplest the government sends every citizen an annual check in an amount sufficient to keep the wolf from the door when misfortune strikes but not large enough to satisfy anyone's idea of a good life. Paying for it would require raising taxes in some fashion that would have the effect of clawing some or all of the money back from most households while hitting up the wealthy for even more.
For Van Parijs and Vanderborght, the case for a guaranteed income begins and ends with freedom. There is the freedom from want, despair and psychological insecurity that would come from having income sufficient to provide the necessities of life. But there is also the freedom to choose not to work for a time in order to take care of family members, pursue a passion, acquire education or contribute to a worthwhile community project. There is the freedom to start a new business with an uncertain future, the freedom to say yes to a job that pays little but yields joy and satisfaction - and the freedom to say no to a job that pays too little or is demeaning and unpleasant. Why, they ask, should such freedoms be reserved only for the wealthy?
"Its point is not just to soothe misery but to liberate us all," they write. "It is not simply a way of making life on earth tolerable for the destitute but a key ingredient of a transformed society and a world we can look forward to."
Van Parijs and Vanderborght trace the political roots of guaranteed basic income to England in the late 18th century, when Prime Minister William Pitt proposed to replace the country's poor law, which channeled public generosity through gruesome workhouses, with cash supplements to low-wage workers. Pitt's proposal drew the opposition of the leading economists of the day, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, who predicted that rather than making the poor rich, they would wind up making the rich - and everyone else - poor by reducing incentives to work and invest. And so the economic argument against it has been framed ever since.
Proponents, however, prefer to frame the debate in moral terms. In proposing a national trust fund that would award every American 15 pounds upon reaching the age of 18, Thomas Paine said, "It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for." The British philosopher John Stuart Mill argued for "a legal guarantee of subsistence for all the destitute ... whether deserving or not." Then, as now, schemes that would have allowed able-bodied men to live off the hard work of others were as apt to prompt moral outrage as moral sympathy.
With the growing affluence generated by the Industrial Revolution, however, came the gradual rise of the welfare state, a safety net woven from myriad programs offering cash and services to anyone who was poor, disabled or involuntarily unemployed. Enforcing such conditionality not only required a large and expensive bureaucracy, but created a perverse incentive for beneficiaries to remain poor and unemployed so as not to lose their benefits. It was the desire to free the poor from this "welfare trap" and eliminate the bureaucratic middlemen that revived interest in a universal guaranteed income in the 1960s and attracted support from across the ideological spectrum.
As free-market champion Friedrich Hayek saw it, guaranteeing everyone a subsistence income was the moral precondition for opposing broader socialist schemes to equalize incomes. For Milton Friedman, it was an opportunity to eliminate expensive layers of government bureaucracy.
On the left, a guaranteed income won the support of economists James Tobin, Paul Samuelson and the sharp-tongued John Kenneth Galbraith, who chided the idle rich about their outrage at the prospect of being joined by a new class of idle poor. Among American political leaders, populist Huey Long was first to embrace it, followed later by Martin Luther King Jr. In 1972, Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern proposed sending an annual check of $1,000 to every American but changed his mind after it became the subject of attack ads run by his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, who himself had previously flirted with the idea.
Although their goal is utopian, Van Parijs and Vanderborght aim to infuse it with economic and political realism.
They are strongest when framing the guaranteed income as an economic dividend to which all citizens are entitled. In any country, they argue, only a small portion of the income earned in any year is a result of individual work effort, ingenuity and risk-taking. The rest is explained by the natural resources with which that country is endowed, the physical infrastructure, the collective know-how of fellow citizens, the quality of public and private institutions, and the degree of trust that greases the wheels of commerce, politics and everyday life. This "social capital," as the economist Herbert Simon once called it, was developed by many people over many generations and provides a collective inheritance that is now unequally and unfairly apportioned by markets in setting wages and salaries.
"What a basic income does is ensure that everyone receives a fair share of what none of us today did anything for," Van Parijs and Vanderborght write.
Giving some a fairer share, of course, means taking a share away from others, and these Belgian academics certainly don't shy away from the redistributionist nature of their project. In their ideal setup, every adult would get the equivalent of an annual unconditional allowance from the government equal to one-quarter of the country's average personal income (in the United States, that would be about $12,000). Exactly who would win and lose, and by how much, would be depend on the structure of the tax regime used to finance it.
While this give-with-one-hand, take-away-with-the-other quality strikes some as inefficient, it is that structure that allows guaranteed-income plans to avoid the "welfare trap" caused by today's "conditional" welfare programs. But it also makes them a tough sell politically. The sums involved would be enormous. And the ripple effects - on wages, labor participation and the fate of other social benefits - make it difficult for many people to imagine how it would all turn out. Indeed, after a labored chapter assessing the political challenges, even Van Parijs and Vanderborght acknowledge that it is unlikely any country will adopt a generous, unconditional basic-income plan, at least all at once. The best they can hope for are slow, incremental steps in that direction.
Although not a technical book, "Basic Income" is more academic than most readers would prefer. Americans will not fail to notice the authors' abiding enmity for "the dictatorship of market" or the European left-wing filter through which they view political reality. The more philosophical sections are given to hair-splitting, while those on financing beg for more specifics.
What Van Parijs and Vanderborght bring to this topic is a deep understanding, an enduring passion and a disarming optimism. It is no more utopian, they argue, for us to imagine the liberation that a guaranteed income would deliver than it was for earlier generations to imagine the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage or adoption of progressive income taxes. And while the coming debate over the guaranteed income will inevitably focus on political and economic viability, in the end the authors believe we will embrace it, as we embraced those others, because it is the right thing to do.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Pearlstein, Steven. "Book World: Could handouts end the 'welfare trap'?" Washington Post, 24 Mar. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA486938199&it=r&asid=1cc533acc3a28b2f0442210a760f76bd. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A486938199
Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy, by Philippe van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght
Book of the week: Danny Dorling lauds an exposition of the benefits of obligation-free income and how to attain them
March 16, 2017
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By Danny Dorling
Twitter: @dannydorling
Source: Alamy
This is a book about multiple emancipations. What would it take for all women to be free – by unshackling the countless numbers who are financially dependent on men? What action would free up enough people, men and women, to care for others who might otherwise live in fear, especially in countries where much more social care will be needed in the very near future?
Philippe van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, an economist and a political scientist, respectively, explain how the academic arguments for a basic income have been growing in strength since they were first made in the late 1700s. Since then, it has become clear to a still small (but growing) group of people that with so many of us no longer able to earn a subsistence income from the land, and with growing automation and ecological limits to sensible consumption, social progress without a basic income cannot be sustainable. Today the vast majority of our food is grown and harvested through automation, and robots make more and more of our goods; but we cannot use machines to care for each other. Not yet – and, if we are to stay sane, hopefully never. A concern with sanity in a book on economics is refreshing.
A basic income would allow people to care for each other more and to work for others (for whom they would rather not work) less. However, say the authors, “we very much doubt that a generous unconditional basic income will ever be introduced anywhere as a result of a big triumphal revolution. It is more likely to enter through the back door.” By the back door they mean the gradual adaptation of existing complex benefit regimes, via thousands of adaptations following hundreds of experiments.
The authors agree with the late Sir Tony Atkinson, the economist and inequality studies pioneer, that a basic income is likely to be introduced gradually, by compromising primarily on the payment being unconditional. In one such scenario, anyone working in education, or caring for children, the sick or the elderly for 35 hours or more a week (which includes so many current working-age adults) would receive a basic income proportionate to their length of contribution in any tax jurisdiction. It would later be extended to all adults, not least because this approach so dramatically cuts administration costs.
The introduction of basic income would result in less production within firms and more within households. As production within the household is not included in gross domestic product, GDP volume would thus appear to fall, although entrepreneurship should rise as more people would be free to dabble. Van Parijs and Vanderborght explain all this patiently, providing argument after argument as to why its introduction would be “economically clever” and why it is the next logical step to take in a long history of social policies aimed at reducing poverty and inequality. Their proposals are not only clear but also extremely pragmatic.
Van Parijs and Vanderborght suggest that after the introduction of basic income, payments should rise to £740 a month in the UK, or about £25 a day, and eventually be given to all adults. For the rich this amount is nothing, but for most people it is a significant sum and for many people it would represent emancipation. The immediate effects would be greatest for those currently navigating the hoops of claiming benefits. And for people on low incomes but no benefits, the income would offer a huge boost to both their standard of living and their freedom to choose what paid work to do, rather than being obliged to take any work they could find.
A basic income must be paid in cash, and it must be paid to individuals, in order not to dissuade people from living together. Because it is not means-tested, it is much better for the poor than the benefits that are currently aimed at them and intended for their benefit. To date, this is a paradox that has been hard for many to understand. The value of this book is that, more comprehensively than any other study yet, it explains why an obligation-free income for all would be so beneficial, and it also charts how this could be incrementally attained.
A basic income would replace only those benefits of a lesser financial value. There will always be a small minority whose disabilities are so great that the cost for them of a minimally decent life will be higher. Moreover, a basic income is no substitute, warn the authors, for the “public funding of quality education, quality health care, and other services”, which in any decent modern society always includes the public provision of housing.
The strongest argument against a basic income is that work is good for you and any discouragement from taking any paid work is morally objectionable. A weaker form of this argument is that it is not fair that people should be able to choose not to undertake paid work. However, for centuries we have tolerated many of the very rich not working. More importantly, a basic income makes it possible for people to choose to do the paid work they wish to do, and not have to take only that which is offered. If some people are willing to simply subsist on what the basic income provides, then they help all the rest of us by consuming the least. Ecologically, we cannot carry on consuming more and more material goods.
Taxing wealth more and labour less would fund basic income. However, for the minority of people on high incomes, income tax would have to rise. That in itself has a social benefit, as it discourages avarice among a small but very greedy minority. The authors of this study rule out consumption taxes as a means to fund basic income, other than eco-taxes on fossil fuel use, because of their inefficiency.
If I have one complaint about this book, it is that it misses out the growing demographic case for a basic income. While children do not stay children for long, the elderly can be in need of care for many years, even if they are healthier in old age than their parents were because they will likely live so much longer. The demographic transition we are now experiencing is only just beginning. It is changing what we will need more of in future – namely, people with more time.
Very few babies were born in the UK and similar countries in the 1920s and 1930s. The baby boom came in 1946. Most of those babies have just turned 70. There are 7.1 million people in their sixties today in the UK, and 8.5 million in their fifties, but fewer in their thirties than their forties. We have not yet had to deal with an ageing population – but we are about to. The introduction of a basic income could be one of the ways in which we deal with this new change.
The first trials of a basic income in the UK will begin in Scotland this year. Many other trials are already under way elsewhere in the world. But for their results to be assessed and for such initiatives to spread, in “addition to visionaries, activists are needed – ass-kickers, indignados, people who are outraged by the status quo or by new reforms or plans that target the poor more narrowly, watch them more closely, and further reduce the real freedom of those with least of it”. The road to a basic income for all may well be paved with unholy political alliances, but eventually it will lead to a fairer, more sustainable society. Although the aim is utopian, the means proposed in this book are pragmatic, and even, by the authors’ own admission, Machiavellian.
The case for basic income has become serious politics. Ask yourself: who will willingly and happily care for you in your old age without it?
Danny Dorling is Halford Mackinder professor of geography, University of Oxford, and author of A Better Politics: How Government Can Make Us Happier (2016).
Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy
By Philippe van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght
Harvard University Press, 400pp, £23.95
ISBN 9780674052284
Published 30 March 2017