Basic Income Guarantee — The End of Poverty
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A proposed system of social security, that provides each citizen with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on.
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Basic income
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A basic income is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional. Furthermore, there is no means test; the richest as well as the poorest citizens would receive it.
A basic income is often proposed in the form of a citizen's dividend (a transfer) or a negative income tax (a guarantee). A basic income less than the social minimum is referred to as a partial basic income. A worldwide basic income, typically including income redistribution between nations, is known as a global basic income.
The proposal is a specific form of guaranteed minimum income, which is normally conditional and subject to a means test.
One of the arguments for a basic income was articulated by the French Economist and Philosopher André Gorz:
The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet- unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact...
From the point where it takes only 1,000 hours per year or 20,000 to 30,000 hours per lifetime to create an amount of wealth equal to or greater than the amount we create at the present time in 1,600 hours per year or 40,000 to 50,000 hours in a working life, we must all be able to obtain a real income equal to or higher than our current salaries in exchange for a greatly reduced quantity of work...
Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. The present crisis has stimulated technological change of an unprecedented scale and speed: 'the micro-chip revolution'. The object and indeed the effect of this revolution has been to make rapidly increasing savings in labour, in the industrial, administrative and service sectors. Increasing production is secured in these sectors by decreasing amounts of labour. As a result, the social process of production no longer needs everyone to work in it on a full-time basis. The work ethic ceases to be viable in such a situation and workbased society is thrown into crisis (André Gorz, Critique of economic Reason, Gallile, 1989).
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) describes one of the benefits of a basic income as having a lower overall cost than that of the current means-tested social welfare benefits. However critics have pointed out the potential work disincentives created by such a program, and have cast doubts over its implementability. In later years, Basic Income Studies: How it could be organised, Different Suggestions, have made a lot fully financed proposals.
[edit]Examples of implementation
The U.S. State of Alaska has a system which provides each citizen with a share of the state's oil revenues, although this amount is not necessarily enough to live on. The U.S. also has an Earned income tax credit for low-income taxpayers. In 2006 a bill written by members of the advocacy organization USBIG to transform the credit into a partial basic income was introduced in the US congress but did not pass.
The city of Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada took part in an experimental basic income program ("Mincome") between 1974 and 1979.
In 2008, a pilot project with a basic income grant was started in the Namibian village of Otjivero by the Namibian Basic Income Grant Coalition. After six months the project has been found to significantly reduce child malnutrition and increase school attendance. It was also found to increase the community's income significantly above the actual amount from the grants as it allowed citizens to partake in more productive economic activities.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A basic income is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional. Furthermore, there is no means test; the richest as well as the poorest citizens would receive it.
A basic income is often proposed in the form of a citizen's dividend (a transfer) or a negative income tax (a guarantee). A basic income less than the social minimum is referred to as a partial basic income. A worldwide basic income, typically including income redistribution between nations, is known as a global basic income.
The proposal is a specific form of guaranteed minimum income, which is normally conditional and subject to a means test.
One of the arguments for a basic income was articulated by the French Economist and Philosopher André Gorz:
The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet- unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact...
From the point where it takes only 1,000 hours per year or 20,000 to 30,000 hours per lifetime to create an amount of wealth equal to or greater than the amount we create at the present time in 1,600 hours per year or 40,000 to 50,000 hours in a working life, we must all be able to obtain a real income equal to or higher than our current salaries in exchange for a greatly reduced quantity of work...
Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. The present crisis has stimulated technological change of an unprecedented scale and speed: 'the micro-chip revolution'. The object and indeed the effect of this revolution has been to make rapidly increasing savings in labour, in the industrial, administrative and service sectors. Increasing production is secured in these sectors by decreasing amounts of labour. As a result, the social process of production no longer needs everyone to work in it on a full-time basis. The work ethic ceases to be viable in such a situation and workbased society is thrown into crisis (André Gorz, Critique of economic Reason, Gallile, 1989).
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) describes one of the benefits of a basic income as having a lower overall cost than that of the current means-tested social welfare benefits. However critics have pointed out the potential work disincentives created by such a program, and have cast doubts over its implementability. In later years, Basic Income Studies: How it could be organised, Different Suggestions, have made a lot fully financed proposals.
[edit]Examples of implementation
The U.S. State of Alaska has a system which provides each citizen with a share of the state's oil revenues, although this amount is not necessarily enough to live on. The U.S. also has an Earned income tax credit for low-income taxpayers. In 2006 a bill written by members of the advocacy organization USBIG to transform the credit into a partial basic income was introduced in the US congress but did not pass.
The city of Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada took part in an experimental basic income program ("Mincome") between 1974 and 1979.
In 2008, a pilot project with a basic income grant was started in the Namibian village of Otjivero by the Namibian Basic Income Grant Coalition. After six months the project has been found to significantly reduce child malnutrition and increase school attendance. It was also found to increase the community's income significantly above the actual amount from the grants as it allowed citizens to partake in more productive economic activities.
Discussion Forum
Comment Wall
Comment
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Comment by Ole A. Seifert on February 17, 2009 at 4:35am
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I know many people see the line between the waste of money for weapons and the military contra BIG, and Dave, I like your input as well! Though I haven´t read the book of Werner Götz, just a small review, I think he advocate the spirit of economical free people as a major positive input to the whole society, also in the matter of progress, as the thinking is free and would benefit all. Cooperation before competition, the new path.
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Comment by lotusalivelight on February 16, 2009 at 7:55pm
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Thanks Nicolette for your graph. It is a question of what we value. Is there a way we could maintain a sense of security for life, without having to kill for it, and value only that aspect of "the machinery?" The lives that are battered in America, often go unnoticed... The subleties of ones humanity, are relegated insignificant to 'the machine,' that has only 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number' in mind...
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Comment by Dave Streater on February 16, 2009 at 6:56pm
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Definitely an idea whose time has come. "How to pay for it?", ask the jokers...
--with "EFA fees", may be the answer- special taxes on activities that f(oul) up the eco-system, especially those activities that generate or swindle large incomes.
Extra allowance should be give for those who lessen there "footprint" through sustainable transport, for example.
Those who live at a minimum level rarely have anywhere near as high as the average negative ecological footprint. The should indeed be paid for that alone!
On my wall I have a picture of a homeless person pushing a shopping cart containing everything he owns, fwith the caption, " "He probably does more for the environment than you do"
DaveS
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Comment by Nicolette on February 14, 2009 at 4:29pm
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I think this is a very good idea... It lets each human being know they are not forgotten, nor need they fear being left alone and unsupported, regardless of what has gone on in their life... Thanks Ole.
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Hi and yes Kelly, I'm sorry I was mostly responding to you. I hesitated and wasn't sure how to comment personally on this comment wall since it is not particularly a discussion thread..anyway, my apologies.
Ole, I have heard it mentioned a few times by Dutch friends, "everyone has the right to a basic income". For some reason it resonates here and is supposedly a right but I don't know any more about how it's implemented in practice. I saw that there are 16 countries with basic income groups..
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As this is not a new idéa, known as far back as from and by Jean Luis Vivres´ time ( 1492-1540), I would say that every possible way to spread the idéa, is a good way. Especially amongst media and politicians. Martin Luther King Jr. talked about it, Milton Friedman (!) talked about it (Negative Tax Income), they write about this in the book "Talking with God"…. I think most of the Green parties in Europe, have the BIG-idéa implemented in their programs, even so some other parties as well, at least in Norway. But things take time, so keep on the goodwork, all of you!
With Love
Ole
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Comment by Kelly on February 11, 2009 at 6:04pm
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Hi Nicolette, I'm not sure if you were responding to my comment. But what I meant is that my work is to implement socio-economic improvements on a global scale, through business. So I'm talking about something on the scale of the basic income initiative idea. However, in contrast to approaching the situation through efforts to convince people and politicians about how government (tax) money should be directed (which could be a lifetime of effort, while the idea may always remain unimplemented), what I'm doing is something I and others can roll up their sleeves, and get to work implementing.
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Yes it does seem easier to have individuals do it themselves. I don't see how that can help someone though who has lost everything and has nothing after a natural disaster, for example, or maybe a Madoff ponzi swindle. There have been quite a few suicides over terrible economic losses. Violence against the homeless in the US was on the rise last year too.
And even in trying to ward off bankruptcy, the laws in the US require now 6 months of working with a financial counselor before you can even get it declared for protection. A lot of bad can happen in 6 months..
I am curious about this initiative and its merits, because of Alaska for example. The Netherlands pays its retired citizens 2 % (of some final determined life income) for every year they lived in their country, that's on top of what they may have saved or paid in individually. My friend's mother collects it while living in the US. We don't have this free gift idea in the US.
I'm not sure of their rationale completely yet. But the safety net vs hammock dilemmas about welfare in extremely rich countries, countries that give out lots of money to foreign countries, seems strange. Why is aid abroad a duty but aid internally considered a waste?
I'd like to believe it counts somehow to simply be a citizen and part of a group, not just someone who earns money and pays taxes. No one's saying they can't be asked to do something in return for the basic income I think.
I'm not quite comfortable with government turning into a business and citizens only having monetary value as taxpayers..
My thoughts anyway..
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The issue with this idea is that wide spread implementation requires a lot of political negotiation and agreement. The nice thing about business approaches is that they can be implemented immediately, starting from the individual. For example, Mohammad Yunus started micro lending right out of his own pocket, and it has grown to a world wide phenomena, with $34billion in circulation. My work is designed to establish a higher lowest standard of living, while offering everyone at every level the opportunity to raise their living standards, through business, starting immediately, giving each individual unlimited opportunity to help themselves and others.
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