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5 Reasons To Consider A No-Strings-Attached, Basic Income For All Americans (Demo)

In March 2015, AlterNet published an article on Salon by  Lynn Stuart:

Half of all Canadians want it. The Swiss have had a referendum on it. The idea’s not as far-fetched as it sounds

What if you could receive a guaranteed basic yearly income with no strings attached? Didn’t matter how much money you made now, or in the future. Nobody would ask about your job status or how many kids you have. The check would arrive in the mailbox, no matter what.

Sounds like a far-fetched idea, right? Wrong. All over the world, people are talking guaranteeing basic incomes for citizens as a viable policy.

Half of all Canadians want it. The Swiss have had a referendum on it. The American media is all over it: The New York Times’ Annie Lowrey considered basic income as an answer to an economy that leaves too many people behind, while Matt Bruenig and Elizabeth Stoker of theAtlantic wrote about it as a way to reduce poverty.

The idea is not new: In his final book, Martin Luther King Jr. suggested that guaranteeing people money without requiring them to do anything in exchange was a good way for Americans to share in prosperity. In the 1960s and early 1970s, many in the U.S. gave the idea serious consideration. Even Richard Nixon supported a version of it. But by 1980, the political tide shifted to the right and politicians moved their talking points to unfettered markets and individual gain from sharing the wealth and evening the playing field.

Advocates say it’s an idea whose time has finally come. In a world of chronic job insecurity, stagnant wages, boom-and-bust cycles that wipe out ordinary people through no fault of their own, and shredded social safety nets, proponents warn that we have to come up with a way to make sure people can survive regardless of work status or economic conditions. Here are five reasons they give as to why a guaranteed basic income might just be the answer.

1. It would help fight poverty: America is the richest country in the world, yet widespread poverty continues to afflict us. Social Security has arguably been the most successful program for reducing poverty in American history, dramatically cutting poverty among the elderly and keeping tens of millions above the poverty threshold. Why not expand it to all?

Matt Bruenig calculated that by giving everybody a mere $3,000 a year, including children (who would receive the money through their parents), we could potentially cut poverty in half. The program would be simple: you get it no matter how much money you make, which would prevent poor people from having to worry about losing the benefit. With everybody in it together, you get a much larger base of political support (one of the reasons means-testing has always been a back-door way of killing Social Security— it reduces support).

In the 1970s, the small Canadian town of Dauphin ran an experiment through a social policy called “Mincome.” Everybody in the town was allowed to get a minimum cash benefit during the duration of the program. Poverty was eliminated, because people living below the poverty line saw their income boosted through monthly checks. But the results were about more than an official line marking the poverty threshold. Mincome positively impacted the horrible conditions associated with the cycle of poverty. When people had a basic income, they were able to better care for their families, stay healthy and improve their education — all the things that help people stay out of poverty in the future.

2. It could be good for the economy: A basic guaranteed income has the potential to positively impact the economy in several ways, which is why economists from John Kenneth Galbraith to Milton Friedman have advocated it.

For one thing, it could help solve the problem of demand. The great driver of the economy in a capitalist system is something economists call “aggregate demand.” The Econ 101 lesson is simple: when ordinary people have money in their pockets, they spend it on goods and services, which in turn allows businesses to thrive because they are able to invest and to hire more people. Proponents argue that a basic guaranteed income would increase demand, which would help the economy to prosper.

But wait, wouldn’t people get lazy if they had a basic income? One of the things the Mincome researchers wanted to know was whether a guaranteed basic income would cause people to stop working. Despite all the dire predictions that had circulated in academic literature before the experiment, the Mincome effect on number of hours worked was actually quite small — hours dropped 1 percent for men, 3 percent for married women and 5 percent for unmarried women.

The decrease in hours was mostly the result of people taking the time to raise newborns, care for family members, and pursue their education — people did not cut back on work just to loaf around. In addition to activities which would serve as economic investments for the future, the experiment also resulted in things like fewer hospital visits and illnesses, all of which reduce public health costs.

Many argue that a guaranteed basic income is also potentially good for entrepreneurship, making it easier for people to start a small business or switch careers.

3. It could have many benefits to society: Clearly, we want policies that help us create a more stable society where more people can reach their potential and fewer people resort to crime and violence. Advocates say a guaranteed basic income does just that.

Researchers found that during the Mincome years, more people in Dauphin finished high school, more adults pursued education, and students achieved higher test scores. As noted, people got healthier, too: Fewer people visited the hospital, mental illness decreased, and the number of work-related injuries went down. Plus, social ills like domestic abuse dropped.

As a recession hit and the center-left politics of the 1970s shifted rightward in Canada, interest in the Mincome experiment waned. However, Canadian economic researcher Evylen Forget notesthat most people who participated in Mincome wish the program had continued, citing benefits like increased opportunity to pursue an education.

Candadians are now reviving the idea, many arguing that such programs would actually encourage people to work because they would eliminate welfare provisions that penalize the poor who take very low-paying or part-time jobs. In Brazil, advocates have pointed out that a basic guaranteed income could help guard against such scourges as child labor, while Swiss activistsmake the case that it would help people do more meaningful work, making for happier and better workers.

Philippe Van Parijs, a Belgian philosopher, argues that a basic income is a powerful tool for social justice, allowing everyone, no matter what their circumstances, the possibility to pursue their conception of a good life. He notes that a guaranteed basic income could address some of the issues associated with sexist divisions of labor in which women are expected to do more of unpaid, care-giving work in our society.

4. It might be more efficient than present systems: In the current patchwork of systems confronting poverty, like welfare, food stamps and vouchers, people can fall through the cracks. A guaranteed income could help solve problems caused by rules and restrictions that leave some without subsistence income when they need it.

It’s not just liberals and progressives who like the sound of a simple basic guaranteed income. Something streamlined appeals to conservatives who like versions that could replace existing tax credits and social assistance programs — though it’s important to note that most advocates don’t propose it as a full substitute for existing programs. The American Enterprise Institute’s Charles Murray points out that a streamlined system would obviate the need for people to fill out multiple forms and visit myriad offices to receive benefits. (In his book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, Murray suggested an income of $10,000 a year to anyone who was American, over 21 and out of jail.)

5. Let’s not forget simple human dignity: Why is living in dignity not a right? These days, even Americans who get up in the morning every day and report to full-time jobs may not earn enough for a decent standard of living. People like fast-food workers, big-box store employees, caregivers, beauty salon workers, and farm hands often can’t earn enough to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. Millions have seen no real increase in earnings in decades. Material security, as well as the intangible things that come along with it, like self-esteem and peace of mind, are often out of reach.

A guaranteed basic income is one way to help people to survive with dignity and free them from the humiliation of having to participate in criminal activity and accept abusive work conditions. Because everyone gets it, such a program might serve to eliminate the stigma of a hand-out. Of course, the payment has to be large enough that it helps people actually live in dignity, and some, like economist L. Randall Wray, prefer it as a supplement to something like a jobs guarantee program for this reason.

What’s clear is that our current capitalist system and social safety net have failed too many of us. It may be that in order to confront that epic fail, policy makers will need to get bolder in considering universal guarantees to all citizens.

This author poses the idea of giving EVERY citizen, no matter what age or what income they already earn a guarantee basic yearly subsistence income in the amount of $3,000. The money would be a relocation of the money already spent on welfare programs, food stamps and voters, which then could be eliminated. It is based on redistribution as the government must first tax those citizens already earning income and give a portion of what is collected to EVERY citizen, with the rest used for governmental operations. As with the rally call to raise substantially the minimum wage, such redistributive programs are not the REAL solution to abate economic inequality and empower EVERY citizen to EARN an income that would build to support an affluent, not subsistence, level of living life.

The problem is that technological invention and innovation––change––makes the non-human means of producing––tools, machines, structures, and computerized processes––ever more productive while leaving human productiveness largely unchanged (our human abilities are limited by physical strength and brain power––and relatively constant). This means that fewer and fewer people are necessary to produce the products and services needed and wanted by society. But when a job is one’s ONLY way to be productive and earn an income and when jobs are disappearing and the worth of labor is being devalued, we have a problem.  The problem is magnified by the fact that upward of 95 percent of the products and services are produced by physical productive capital––the non-human factor––which is owned by less than 10 percent of the population and highly concentrated among less than 1 percent of the population. The result is that primary distribution through the free market economy, whose distributive principle is “to each according to his production,” delivers progressively more market-sourced income to capital owners and progressively less to workers who make their contribution through labor.

Unfortunately, ever since the 1946 passage of the Full Employment Act, economists and politicians formulating national economic policy have beguiled us into believing that economic power is democratically distributed if we have full employment––thus the political focus on job creation and redistribution of wealth rather than on equal opportunity to produce, full production and broader capital ownership accumulation. This is manifested in the myth that labor work is the ONLY way to participate in production and earn income. Long ago that was once true because labor provided 95 percent of the input into the production of products and services. But today that is not true. Physical capital provides not less than 90 to 95 percent of the input. Full employment as the means to distribute income is not achievable. When the “tools” of capital owners replace labor workers (non-capital owners) as the principal suppliers of products and services, labor employment alone becomes inadequate. Thus, we are left with government policies that redistribute income in one form or another, such as a proposed universal basic income.

The capitalism practiced today is what, for a long time, I have termed “Hoggism,” propelled by greed and the sheer love of power over others. “Hoggism” institutionalizes greed (creating concentrated capital ownership, monopolies, and special privileges). “Hoggism” is about the ability of greedy rich people to manipulate the lives of people who struggle with declining labor worker earnings and job opportunities, and then accumulate the bulk of the money through monopolized productive capital ownership. Our scientists, engineers, and executive managers who are not owners themselves, except for those in the highest employed positions, are encouraged to work to destroy employment by making the capital “worker” owner more productive. How much employment can be destroyed by substituting machines for people is a measure of their success––always focused on producing at the lowest cost. Only the people who already own productive capital are the beneficiaries of their work, as they systematically concentrate more and more capital ownership in their stationary 1 percent ranks. Yet the 1 percent are not the people who do the overwhelming consuming. The result is the consumer populous is not able to get the money to buy the products and services produced as a result of substituting machines for people. And yet you can’t have mass production without mass human consumption made possible by “customers with money.” It is the exponential disassociation of production and consumption that is the problem in the United States economy, and the reason that ordinary citizens must gain access to productive capital ownership to improve their economic well-being, not to a hand-out derived from government coercion that takes from those who make productive contributions as workers and capital owners and gives to those who are unable to earn a minimum sustainable income.

Binary economist Louis Kelso postulated: “When consumer earning power is systematically acquired in the course of the normal operations of the economy by people who need and want more consumer goods and services, the production of goods and services should rise to unprecedented levels; the quality and craftsmanship of goods and services, freed of the corner-cutting imposed by the chronic shortage of consumer purchasing power, should return to their former high levels; competition should be brisk; and the purchasing power of money should remain stable year after year.”

Without this necessary balance hopeless poverty, social alienation, and economic breakdown will persist, even though the American economy is ripe with the physical, technical, managerial, and engineering prerequisites for improving the lives of the 99 percent majority. Why? Because there is a crippling organizational malfunction that prevents making full use of the technological prowess that we have developed. The system does not fully facilitate connecting the majority of citizens, who have unsatisfied needs and wants, to the productive capital assets enabling productive efficiency and economic growth.

America has tried the Republican “cut spending, cut taxes, and cut ‘entitlements,’ eliminate government dependency and shift to private individual responsibility” and the Democrat “protect ‘entitlements,’ provide tax-payer supported stimulus, lower middle and working class taxes, tax the rich and redistribute” through government brands of economic policy, as well as a mixture of both. Republican ideology aims to revive hard-nosed laissez-faire appeals to hard-core conservatives but ignores the relevancy of healing the economy and halting the steady disintegration of the middle class and working poor.

Some conservative thinkers have acknowledged the damaging results of a laissez-faire ideology, which furthers the concentration of productive capital ownership. They are floundering in search of alternative thinking as they acknowledge the negative economic and social realities resulting from greed capitalism. This acknowledgment encompasses the realization that the troubling economic and social trends (global capitalism, free-trade doctrine, tectonic shifts in the technologies of production and the steady off-loading of American manufacturing and jobs) caused by continued concentrated ownership of productive capital will threaten the stability of contemporary liberal democracies and dethrone democratic ideology as it is now understood.

Without a policy shift to broaden productive capital ownership simultaneously with economic growth, further development of technology and globalization will undermine the American middle class and make it impossible for more than a minority of citizens to achieve middle-class status.

We are absent a national discussion of where consumers earn the money to buy products and services and the nature of capital ownership, and instead argue about policies to redistribute income or not to redistribute income. If Americans do not demand that the contenders for the office of the presidency of the United States, the Senate, and the Congress address these issues, we will have wasted the opportunity to steer the American economy in a direction that will broaden affluence. We have adequate resources, adequate knowhow, and adequate manpower to produce general affluence, but we need as a society to properly and efficiently manage these resources while protecting and enhancing the environment so that our productive capital capability is sustainable and renewable. Such issues are the proper concern of government because of the human damage inflicted on our social fabric as well as to economic growth in which every citizen is fairly included in the American dream.

Our current system is rigged to continually concentrate the ownership of capital in the 1 to 5 percent of the population. The current system is presently propelled by greed in our society, which creates dire moral implications. A new system that would ensure equal opportunity for every child, woman, and man to acquire productive capital with the earnings of capital and broaden its ownership universally does not require people to be any better than they presently are, but it does enable our society to leverage both greed and generosity in a way that honestly recognizes and harnesses productive capital as the factor that exponentially produces the wealth in a technologically advanced society.

The resulting impact of our current approaches has been plutocratic government and concentration of capital ownership, which denies every citizen his or her pursuit of economic happiness (property). Market-sourced income (through concentrated capital ownership) has concentrated in individuals and families who will not recycle it back through the market as payment for consumer products and services. They already have most of what they want and need so they invest their excess in new productive power, making them richer and richer through greater capital ownership. This is the source of the distributional bottleneck that makes the private property, market economy ever more dysfunctional. The symptoms of dysfunction are capital ownership concentration and inadequate consumer demand, the effects of which translate into poverty and economic insecurity for the 99 percent majority of people who depend entirely on wages from their labor or welfare and cannot survive more than a week or two without a paycheck. The production side of the economy is under-nourished and hobbled as a result.

While Americans believe in political democracy, political democracy will not work without a property-based free market system of economic democracy. The system is the problem, but it can and must be overhauled. The two prerequisites are political power, which is the power to make, interpret, administer, and enforce laws, and economic power, the power to produce products and services, whether through labor power or productive capital.

Kelso wrote: “In the distribution of social power, whether it be political power or economic power, all things are relative. The essence of economic democracy lies in the elimination of differences of earning power resulting from denial of equality of economic opportunity, particularly equal access to capital credit. Differences of economic status resulting from differences in advantages taken and uses made of differences based on inequality of economic opportunity, particularly those that give access to capital credit to the already capitalized and deny it to the non- or -undercapitalized, are flagrant violations of the constitutional rights of citizens in a democracy.”

We need a recognition in America that we should deliberately begin to broaden the capital ownership base in a way that is consistent with the laws of property and the Constitutional safeguards of the rights of men and women to own property and be productive.

What needs to be adjusted is the opportunity to produce, not the redistribution of income after it is produced.

The government should acknowledge its obligation to make productive capital ownership economically purchasable by capital-less Americans using insured, interest-free capital credit, and, as Kelso stated, “substantially assume financial responsibility for the economy through establishing and supervising the implementation of an economic, labor and business policy of democratized economic power.” Historically, capital has been the primary engine of industrialization. But as used, as Kelso has argued, has, as well, “been the chief cause of the institutional deformities that have created and maintained two incompatible classes: the overcapitalized and the undercapitalized.”

We cannot balance the budget without cutting out coerced taxpayer-dependent redistribution of the earnings of capital workers, which if we did at this juncture would collapse the economy and ruin lives, resulting in social strife, personal suffering and degradation, the erosion of freedom, and ultimately anarchy, which will bring on totalitarian government. While welfare, private charity, boondoggle employment and other redistribution measures are now seen as necessary, they do not have to be sustained indefinitely. There are policies that can be adopted and executed to reverse the ultimate direction of collapse of the American market economy system. Such policies are based on the recognition that as the production of products and services changes from labor intensive to capital intensive, the way in which every human being––not just a few, but every person––earns his or her income must change in the same way. At the core of this quiet revolution is the understanding and commitment to broadening the ownership of productive capital.

We need new justice-committed leaders, especially those who want to end the corruption built into our exclusionary system of monopoly capitalism––the main source of corruption of any political system, democratic or otherwise. We need to advocate the need to radically overhaul the Federal tax system and monetary policies and institute proposals to get money power to the 99 percent of American citizens who now only rely on their labor worker earnings. Under the Just Third Way’s (http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797) more just and simple tax system, access to ownership of the means of production in the future would by provided to every child, woman and man by requiring the government to lift all existing legal and institutional barriers to private property stakes as a fundamental human right. The system was made by people and can be changed by people. Guided by the right principles of economic justice, “we the people” can organize and demand that the system be reorganized to make true economic democracy the new foundation for true political democracy. The result of this movement of new justice-committed leaders leaders and activists will be inclusive prosperity, inclusive opportunity, and inclusive economic justice.

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