Basic Income

[L.J.Solidarity]

The idea of a basic income is quickly gaining support within the left, in Germany at least. A large and growing portion of the Left Party promotes the concept, which was originally confined to small right-wing circles within the party. Also more and more radical left groups have adopted the basic income as one of their goals, and even the PSG (Socialist Equality Party, the German section of ICFI) promotes a basic income of 1500€ (together with a maximum wage of 20000) as part of their EU election campaign.

This development worries me a bit, as I think many, if not most of those who promote the basic income consider it a way to make life in capitalist society "warm and cozy" and think that replacing capitalism with socialism won't be necessary once basic income is introduced. I also consider the idea of a basic income itself fundamentally flawed, because when it's ever introduced while capitalism is still around it's going to:
1. cause massive inflation
2. create a new class of non-working BI recipients who live off the surplus value produced by the (also BI-receiving, but nonetheless) workers, which will have to be taxed much more as the state needs the money to pay people their basic income.
3. be about as hard to introduce as socialism, because if BI is successful and really means that people won't be forced to work any more (as it's fans predict) capitalists will never accept it and try to avoid the introduction of BI by any means.

What do you think about the concept, and is it even talked about within the (radical) left where you live?

[Bitter Ashes]

Is this the same thing as minimum wage in the UK?

[Il Medico]

Is this the same thing as minimum wage in the UK?
No. Think universal welfare (US). Aka don't have to work to get money.

[Il Medico]

The capitalist would never allow it. In my country (US) the capitalist control both major parties and wont even raise the welfare coverage to a reasonable amount. So no BI will not happen as long as there is capitalism. However, if by some magically property it did happen, it would indeed be quite bad for the revolution. It would further push the proletariat into complacency.

[Bitter Ashes]

It seems a pretty good idea so long as prices dont shoot up.

There are a few basic rights that every person should have, regardless of how much the bourgeois value them (in no particular order):

- Food
- Medical care
- A habitable shelter
- Basic human rights to freedom of speech/association/expression/etc
- Education
- At least a moderate ammount of entertainment

Sadly, the bourgeois put prices on most of these things and are willing to deny that these things will be witheld and denied if that price is not met. A step towards bringing an end to that may not nessicary bring class consiciousness up, but the achievement of ensuring that these things are secured for every proletarian, by any means, is a vital end goal of what we hope to achieve.

[Lynx]

It's an alternative to having the unemployed end up homeless or in prison. There are costs related to poverty that can't be eliminated by abolishing welfare.

In Canada, there was a proposal called the guaranteed minimum income, which would let welfare recipients keep part of their assistance even when they work. Canada already has a non-refundable personal exemption of 8000-9000 dollars.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Very recently, various “anti-capitalist” social movements have suggested going past Trotsky’s “transitional” sloganeering (which included threshold demands) and back to Marx, using instead just “directional” or genuinely transitional demands. One post-modernist radical, Ben Trott (the similarity of his surname to Trotsky’s being coincidental), has followed the line of thinking presented by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in their excessively post-modernist book Empire, which is rife with academic jargon. These transformative demands, either combined or even individually, would necessitate a revolutionary departure from capitalist social relations – at least according to Trott. Consider, for example, the popular post-modernist call for unconditional basic income, which should not depend on legal status and which requires global implementation in sufficient monetary quantities “to ensure that income becomes permanently de-linked from productivity.” Undoubtedly this is inspired by the communist axiom “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” that has been raised since 1840 by one Louis Blanc (and not by Marx in 1875), but this demand can – as suggested by the monetarist Milton Friedman – be implemented under any form of capitalism, especially at the expense of privatizing social benefits! Paul Cockshott, a co-author of Towards a New Socialism, criticized this rather lumpen demand (not a proletarian one) from the underrated perspective of wages and salary/contract equivalents:

At present in most capitalist countries unemployed workers get social security payments which are set at around the bare subsistence minimum. This sets a floor below which wages can not fall, since unemployed people are not going to be willing to give up a subsistence dole for a less than subsistence wage.

If a basic income scheme were introduced in a capitalist economy the basic income provided would again be a bare subsistence minimum. Then, however, it would be worthwhile for a worker to take on a job that paid half the subsistence wage since she would still be getting her basic income and would end up with somewhere between 1 and 1 and a half times the subsistence minimum after tax. But if the employers could hire labour at a net cost to themselves of half subsistence, this would be used to drive down the wages of those already in work.

The net result would be to drive wages lower than the minimum to which they can at present be driven.

All in all it is a very dangerous proposition for the working class but makes good sense from the standpoint of capitalist liberalism.



http://www.turbulence.org.uk/index.php?s=fumagali
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/1994m03/msg00330.htm

[JazzRemington]

A basic income won't offset wider inequalities rooted in social structures.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It's an alternative to having the unemployed end up homeless or in prison. There are costs related to poverty that can't be eliminated by abolishing welfare.

In Canada, there was a proposal called the guaranteed minimum income, which would let welfare recipients keep part of their assistance even when they work. Canada already has a non-refundable personal exemption of 8000-9000 dollars.

Comrade, as you already know, the best "immediate" solution for the problem is more comprehensive than this: adjusting unemployment benefits to match living wage levels and "Lassallean" state assistance for workers buying out employers trying to shut 'em out. [I've expanded the co-op buyouts section (http://www.revleft.com/vb/pre-cooperative-worker-t88629/index.html) to mention similar implementation in the Paris Commune.]

[Lynx]

Jacob: I responded to the reasoning contained in the OP *doffing socio-democratic liberal reformist top hat* :blushing:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Sorry, my bad, then. :(

[ckaihatsu]

This development worries me a bit, as I think many, if not most of those who promote the basic income consider it a way to make life in capitalist society "warm and cozy" and think that replacing capitalism with socialism won't be necessary once basic income is introduced.


This is simply a matter of if we, as a political force, want to allow the capitalist ruling class to remain in power or not. A reform, even one as potentially progressive as a basic income, would still not address the fundamental class division.





I also consider the idea of a basic income itself fundamentally flawed, because when it's ever introduced while capitalism is still around it's going to:
1. cause massive inflation


1. This is -- sorry to inform -- *falling* for the capitalist's propaganda bullshit. They love to scream their fucking heads off about goddamn inflation, and people fucking fall for that shit, *** all the time ***, even people on the left.

I'm really fucking sick of hearing that shit, and we need to argue that shit down *immediately* by noting that it's *not* about the money supply for the working class, it's about what political demands of ours are being met by the wealth and economic system currently controlled by the capitalists.

As soon as we hear *any* kind of boo-hoo from them we have to argue that shit down -- here we are, witnessing the handover of $1 trillion+ to the corporations -- *that's* not causing inflation, despite the massive transfer of liquidity into the system. Instead we actually have *deflationary* conditions, and that's because this isn't the '70s anymore -- this is an economic environment of trying to resuscitate a dead horse that ain't going nowhere...! Another metaphor: This is like bringing buckets of water up to the top of a water slide -- you can add the liquidity, but all it does is quickly slide down and accumulate into stagnant pools of private capital. There's no engine anymore, so there's no basic *circulation* going on anymore...! (!!!)

What *matters* to the working class is to what degree *they* acquiesce to *our* demands -- *they* should not even use the "inflation" bullshit to begin with, but if they do we should argue for them to *subsidize*, or *add liquidity* to whatever in order to keep prices *down*.





I've addressed the "inflation" cry in other threads here at RevLeft -- it's crucial that we don't fall into the economic nationalism line that is prevalent in the mainstream -- put forth ad nauseum thanks to libertarians and other nationalist types.

The "sky is falling" mantra that we hear from them is based on a strict money-supply orientation to economics that is chanted so repetitively that it comes across as being the din from either religious pilgrims or mindwashed marketing minions.

Yes, there are plenty of historical examples of inflation rampant to the point where the physical currency itself has a higher value than its own face-value, but the present economic situation does not resemble that kind of scenario. Probably the most recent and memorable historical example was the '70s -- I think of it as being a very *specific* case of inflation, or stagflation, which was particular to the U.S. taking a tumble down from its vaulted perch.

In that case the U.S.'s imperialism and adventurism -- expansionist warmongering -- reached its widest extent -- driven by the mythology of American capitalism being superior to Eastern communism. The cost of waging its decades-long offensive in Southeast Asia finally caught up to it, and the bills came due.

In that case that meant that over-extended caches of U.S. dollars -- foreign reserves -- stopped being so popular, and so the U.S. had to officially re-define its currency, down a solid peg from the Bretton Woods gold-standard of gold convertibility, and forced to float as a typical, everyday currency among all others in the world's markets. The U.S.'s manufacturing competition caught up with it as well, throwing the U.S. economy into the malaise of stagflation -- this is the archetypical example of inflation that is usually evoked when it's used as an political scare tactic against the working class.

[...]







2. create a new class of non-working BI recipients who live off the surplus value produced by the (also BI-receiving, but nonetheless) workers, which will have to be taxed much more as the state needs the money to pay people their basic income.


2. This is the same kind of political defeatism as the first point -- instead of getting twisted into the bullshit political superstructure labyrinth fiction that the ruling class media has created for us and drummed into our heads through education / conditioning, we need to simply ask ourselves: Are we thinking glass-half-empty or glass-half-full?

There's *more than plenty* of wealth to subsidize Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even a Basic Income, for every country's populations in the world, without even making a *dent* in the *existing (surplus) wealth* that society has.





The Obama administration has shelled out hundreds of billions, no strings attached, to the biggest financial institutions, under the false rationale that this would “kick-start” lending and generate jobs. All told, between direct cash infusions, loans, and guarantees on debt, Washington has handed over around $10 trillion to Wall Street in less than a year. In comparison, Medicare would need $13 trillion and Social Security $5 trillion over the next 75 years to remain solvent, according to the report. In other words, retirement benefits and healthcare benefits for several generations of the elderly could be secured at the cost of one year’s bailout of the financial aristocracy.

http://wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/ssmd-m14.shtml






3. be about as hard to introduce as socialism, because if BI is successful and really means that people won't be forced to work any more (as it's fans predict) capitalists will never accept it and try to avoid the introduction of BI by any means.

What do you think about the concept, and is it even talked about within the (radical) left where you live?





The capitalist would never allow it. In my country (US) the capitalist control both major parties and wont even raise the welfare coverage to a reasonable amount. So no BI will not happen as long as there is capitalism. However, if by some magically property it did happen, it would indeed be quite bad for the revolution. It would further push the proletariat into complacency.


3. I agree that the capitalists would not allow it if we *asked* them for it -- but then they're continuing with war-mongering in the Middle East *and* refusing to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, any kind of women's reproductive rights, or release the torture photos -- this isn't even *liberalism*, much less *radical reform*, so, as usual, we have to *fight* and *demand* what we know we need.

Anything less is automatically political defeatism, or being glass-half-empty -- what if the people on a Basic Income used their freed-up time to be more political, instead of sinking into a moribund complacency, as you're suggesting?





Consider, for example, the popular post-modernist call for unconditional basic income, which should not depend on legal status and which requires global implementation in sufficient monetary quantities “to ensure that income becomes permanently de-linked from productivity.” Undoubtedly this is inspired by the communist axiom “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” that has been raised since 1840 by one Louis Blanc (and not by Marx in 1875), but this demand can – as suggested by the monetarist Milton Friedman – be implemented under any form of capitalism, especially at the expense of privatizing social benefits!


Right! This is much more to the point -- even the capitalists' main apologist admits that a communist-like reform could be managed by the material capacity of the current system.





If a basic income scheme were introduced in a capitalist economy the basic income provided would again be a bare subsistence minimum. Then, however, it would be worthwhile for a worker to take on a job that paid half the subsistence wage since she would still be getting her basic income and would end up with somewhere between 1 and 1 and a half times the subsistence minimum after tax. But if the employers could hire labour at a net cost to themselves of half subsistence, this would be used to drive down the wages of those already in work.

The net result would be to drive wages lower than the minimum to which they can at present be driven.

All in all it is a very dangerous proposition for the working class but makes good sense from the standpoint of capitalist liberalism.[/i]



So then let the worker receive a basic income *and* the *full* income from a regular job, if they so choose -- that would avoid complications and profiteering in the jobs sector, as you're outlining.


---


Finally, I'm personally interested in a basic determination of what we, as revolutionaries, would consider to be a baseline, modern, subsistence standard of living. This is a vital component of the labor theory of value, so that we can determine the definition of what a 'surplus' is, at the individual and societal levels. Please see:


communist supply & demand -- Economic balance sheet

http://tinyurl.com/c6wzw9


Chris







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-- Of all the Marxists in a roomful of people, I'm the Wilde-ist. --

[NecroCommie]

It seems a pretty good idea so long as prices dont shoot up.

There are a few basic rights that every person should have, regardless of how much the bourgeois value them (in no particular order):

- Food
- Medical care
- A habitable shelter
- Basic human rights to freedom of speech/association/expression/etc
- Education
- At least a moderate ammount of entertainment

Sadly, the bourgeois put prices on most of these things and are willing to deny that these things will be witheld and denied if that price is not met. A step towards bringing an end to that may not nessicary bring class consiciousness up, but the achievement of ensuring that these things are secured for every proletarian, by any means, is a vital end goal of what we hope to achieve.

Agreed! These are all human rights, and in no way priviledges for the "productive".


All real left parties in Finland too have taken basic income into their agenda. It all started from the initiative of the green party, and spread into the left like wildfire. Social democrats proved their true allegiance by denouncing the whole idea.

[NecroCommie]

A basic income won't offset wider inequalities rooted in social structures.
True also, and this is exactly why I dont think it will extinquish class struggle. The idea is good to tighten the income gaps though, and is therefore good in the short term interests of the opressed.

[Paul nollen]

It's an alternative to having the unemployed end up homeless or in prison. There are costs related to poverty that can't be eliminated by abolishing welfare.

In Canada, there was a proposal called the guaranteed minimum income, which would let welfare recipients keep part of their assistance even when they work. Canada already has a non-refundable personal exemption of 8000-9000 dollars.

Hello,

the only state, for the moment, with a basic income is Alaska. There are some other states and countries who are moving towards a basic income in some form (Negative income tax and so on).
In Europe, and Belgium where I live, we have all sorts of social security but it takes a lot of administration to handle it.
If we talk about basic income it is important to ask what amount we have in mind. Lets say 11 US $ a month/ person, like the project in Namibia bignam.org , or the Alaska amount pdf.state.ak.us 3,269 a year or the amount asked by some European groups (1100 € / month/person)
It also relevant to know if the basic income grant is taxable income. As far as I know there is no income tax in Alaska but there is an income tax on Federal level. In the case the Basic income is taxable it is a sort or Negative income tax system but with a "prebate".

[Lynx]

I'm quite certain the Canadian proposal was for a guaranteed minimum income, to work in concert with minimum wage laws. It was designed to encourage people to return to work, and avoid the typical welfare trap of deducting a dollar for every dollar earned.
I don't believe the GMI would be taxable. They might impose deductions at source but you would be able to receive a refund when you file your taxes.

The negative income tax is too ambitious for politicians in Canada. Changes in tax policy always seem to involve an increase in complexity.