Utrecht to try with universal basic income

[dez]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dutch-city-of-utrecht-to-experiment-with-a-universal-unconditional-income-10345595.html




The Dutch city of Utrecht will start an experiment which hopes to determine whether society works effectively with universal, unconditional income introduced.

The city has paired up with the local university to establish whether the concept of 'basic income' can work in real life, and plans to begin the experiment at the end of the summer holidays.

Basic income is a universal, unconditional form of payment to individuals, which covers their living costs. The concept is to allow people to choose to work more flexible hours in a less regimented society, allowing more time for care, volunteering and study.

University College Utrecht has paired with the city to place people on welfare on a living income, to see if a system of welfare without requirements will be successful.

The Netherlands as a country is no stranger to less traditional work environments - it has the highest proportion of part time workers in the EU, 46.1 per cent. However, Utrecht's experiment with welfare is expected to be the first of its kind in the country.

Alderman for Work and Income Victor Everhardt told DeStad Utrecht: "One group is will have compensation and consideration for an allowance, another group with a basic income without rules and of course a control group which adhere to the current rules."

"Our data shows that less than 1.5 percent abuse the welfare, but, before we get into all kinds of principled debate about whether we should or should not enter, we need to first examine if basic income even really works.

"What happens if someone gets a monthly amount without rules and controls? Will someone sitting passively at home or do people develop themselves and provide a meaningful contribution to our society?"

The city is also planning to talk to other municipalities about setting up similar experiments, including Nijmegen, Wageningen, Tilburg and Groningen, awaiting permission from The Hague in order to do so.


Pretty cool. I have some doubts about it though, if someone who knows more about the project knows, what happens when people move in and out of of the city?

[Rudolf]

Tbh i think UBI is unworkable if it's at a level where people don't need to sell their labour power to live. An unconditional unemployment benefit would work although it'd inevitably be below the average wage.

[QueerVanguard]

Kewl guise! Next we can elect Bernie Sanders and the revolution will be complete!!1

[Guardia Rossa]

It spreads to the whole Netherlands, then whole system fails and liberals scream "HAHA, we have once more refuted evil communism!" ignoring giving some coins to the poor is no communism.

[RedWorker]

Kewl guise! Next we can elect Bernie Sanders and the revolution will be complete!!1

Truly an intellectual and complete analysis of the topic which furthermore is relevant to the OP's outraging claim that the proletarian revolution will be immediately accomplished when such a reform is enacted.

[Tim Cornelis]

As far as I know, it's not a universal basic income system. I'm not entirely sure, but I think only welfare recipients can apply. So it's basically a simplified, no strings attached welfare system, which is an improvement. Now you have to apply for various exemptions and whatnot with complicated forms and checks for abuse, and in many cases poor people don't even bother applying, making unnecessarily poorer than they could have been. And now that will all be piled in one cheque that you'll receive with no strings attached (no 'workfare' or being monitored). Hardly a universal basic income, but yeah, an improvement.

I'm also guessing Queervanguard is pro-austerity, because "reforms are not revolutionary!1!1". QV is a toxic member, and only does shitposting.

[Thirsty Crow]

And now Utrecht pretends to be "society" in this big laboratory we call life under capitalism. That's absurd on the face of it.

As Tim says, a move forward for the welfare recipients, sure. But it seems this is going to be clouded in layers and layers of mystification - it has already been in relation to the actual universal basic income demand.

[QueerVanguard]

I'm also guessing Queervanguard is pro-austerity, because "reforms are not revolutionary!1!1". QV is a toxic member, and only does shitposting.

guess again, shitbird. I believe these demands of crumbs from the table of the bourgie are pathetic though, just like my LGBTQ comrades jumping around in happiness of the fucking right to marry instead of demanding a end to the whole god damn institution of monogamous marriage and the family. We don't demand a fair days wage for a fair days work, we demand a end to the wage system full stop.

[hexaune]

double post browser playing up

[hexaune]

guess again, shitbird. I believe these demands of crumbs from the table of the bourgie are pathetic though, just like my LGBTQ comrades jumping around in happiness of the fucking right to marry instead of demanding a end to the whole god damn institution of monogamous marriage and the family. We don't demand a fair days wage for a fair days work, we demand a end to the wage system full stop.

Personally I'd quite like a fair days wage for a fair days work for all workers in the mean time and maybe if we're not having to expend all our energy on surviving we'll be better placed and have more time and energy to fight for an end to the wage system.

[PhoenixAsh]

guess again, shitbird. I believe these demands of crumbs from the table of the bourgie are pathetic though, just like my LGBTQ comrades jumping around in happiness of the fucking right to marry instead of demanding a end to the whole god damn institution of monogamous marriage and the family. We don't demand a fair days wage for a fair days work, we demand a end to the wage system full stop.

Yeah sure....but before we get that done...can we make a quick stop at the no strings attached social security...because a couple of my friends fucking need that really bad....and I could have done with it a few years back.

[PhoenixAsh]

Pretty cool. I have some doubts about it though, if someone who knows more about the project knows, what happens when people move in and out of of the city?


If you get welfare, government aid or social security then this is district regulated to an extend. Which means that if you move from one district to another your money is paid through that district and, with some sorts of welfare, some other rules may apply.

This means that if they move they will probably fall under the system of the new district and therefore revert back to the new rules.

[Tim Cornelis]

"Guess again", then basically confirms what I said: reforms are not worth fighting for. If it were up to QV we'd still have no minimum wage, no 8 hour work day, no social security, because "those are not r-r-revolutionary". QV, objectively speaking, might as well be a right-libertarian zealot.

[Rudolf]

Yeah sure....but before we get that done...can we make a quick stop at the no strings attached social security...because a couple of my friends fucking need that really bad....and I could have done with it a few years back.

Same here. I wouldn't have to spend so much damn time covering my arse so they don't come up with some flimsy excuse to make me starve and get evicted.

I don't see what's bad about demanding food, clothes and shelter with no strings attached.


guess again, shitbird. I believe these demands of crumbs from the table of the bourgie are pathetic though, just like my LGBTQ comrades jumping around in happiness of the fucking right to marry instead of demanding a end to the whole god damn institution of monogamous marriage and the family. We don't demand a fair days wage for a fair days work, we demand a end to the wage system full stop.

While in order to build a movement capable of abolishing the wages system we need to organise around grievances like those over wages always emphasising that whatever concessions we win will be revoked at the first available opportunity. You can't just jump into battle you need arms training first. So too the proletariat needs training in organised class warfare.

It's a bit different to marriage equality. A no-strings attached welfare system would be a massive boost to the proletariat especially if it's enough to live on. It could drastically reduce the desperation of unemployed workers and thus reduce the effects of the reserve army of labour on those in work. Marriage equality, on the other hand, doesn't put the class in any where near as good a position to fight.

[Working Class Hero]

It's a great idea and I think it should be implemented everywhere. It's a small step toward "from each according to ability, to each according to need."

[Q]

guess again, shitbird. I believe these demands of crumbs from the table of the bourgie are pathetic though, just like my LGBTQ comrades jumping around in happiness of the fucking right to marry instead of demanding a end to the whole god damn institution of monogamous marriage and the family. We don't demand a fair days wage for a fair days work, we demand a end to the wage system full stop.
This is quite simply programmatically illiterate. Sure, we all want the maximum goal, we all want communism. The issue is exactly as Rudolf puts it: We need a working class capable of fighting for this. It needs to be politically trained, build up its own organisation, have a massive politicised movement that actually aims for communism. And we build this movement with immediate demands, like a no-strings-attached basic income, yes. It is one thing if such reforms are made by the ruling classes, it is something entirely different if these steps are concessions made by the ruling elite because of worker self-organisation.

Simply yelling the maximum-programme puts you away as an irrelevant ultra-left. On the other hand, solely focussing on the immediate demands of the movements puts you well inside the system (see the union bureaucracy). We need both, an immediate programme and a vision for the future, in order to actually move forward.

As for this initiative: The Netherlands has seen an upsurge of organisation of people on benefit. This is mainly in reaction to the rightwing attacks on people on benefit as being "lazy" and needing to "give back to society", which led to forced labour schemes. So this is a welcome change but further organisation is needed.

[PhoenixAsh]

I did forced labour once. Here is how that works:

I lost my job and started my own freelance company. It failed. I didn't get unemployment benefits because I was apparently self employed. So I received welfare benefits.

In order to get the benefits which were barely enough to pay rent I had to work 36 hours per week in a job center or lose my benefits.

In that 36 hours....rather than being able to apply for a new job....I had to do chores with 1000 other people who were on benefits.

I still needed substantial help from friends and family to do such things as buy food. Because if I lost the house I had nowhere to live and no home adress so would low the benefits. If I moved back with my parents...I would get no benefits.

For 36 hours I had to put stickers on product boxes, fill envelopes, make wheelies for the meat industry, fold gift boxes etc. for private companies who outsourced their work (for free) to the job centers.

So let that sink in.

A thousand regular almost full time Jobs with private for profit companies was outsourced to be done for free so people who are on a gross 2/5 full time minimum wage income could do them for absolutely no charge to the company.

Behind it was the philosophy that it would teach people on welfare structure and discipline...by taking away from their job hunt opportunities and without teaching them skills that may aid them in finding jobs.

This was left to three (!!!) managers who would find jobs for them. When they got an interview for a job they had to accept the offer when the company said yes. The company in the meantime would get the employee at NO wage charge and the employee would get another 2 months at benefit level from the state. Which means they would do a full time job for free.

After the two months the company could rescind the offer for ANY reason. Which meant that it was a revolving door because the company had the option to both not pay wages for two months and after the two months simply fire somebody and hire a new welfare recipient at no charge.

And this went at ALL job levels. So a job that would normally pay 3800 would have to be filled at 600. EVEN when you had to pay your travel expenses to travel to your job in another part of the country.

This almost happened to me. Which would have left me with a 200 travel cost per month which would have meant I would lose my house and would have even more problems eating. The only reason I got out of it is because the company was almost bankrupt and was unlikely to survive the next two months.

People get severe mental problems there. There were overseers who wore pepperspray and walkie talkies and there was a permanent detachment of three police officers to the building.

After three weeks of that shit....I was done. I took it upon myself to organizaton the workforce and efficiently process 3 months worth of work in 2 weeks. Which nearly brought down the system and brought the job center and the city council in trouble.

So I and 300 others were finally kicked out of the center with keeping our welfare benefits.

I found a job three days later.

[Working Class Hero]

That's a pretty crazy story Phoenix. It sounds a lot like Guy Standing's precariat model.

[PhoenixAsh]

That's a pretty crazy story Phoenix. It sounds a lot like Guy Standing's precariat model.

Somewhat it does, yes.