ELEVEN ARGUMENTS FOR A BASIC INCOME

By Ronald Blaschke

[This article is translated from the German on the World Wide Web,  http://www.attac.at/1684.98.html. Ronald Blaschke is a spokesperson for the Basic Income Network in Germany.]


A basic income is

· individually guaranteed to all persons,
· at a living wage level (preventing poverty, making possible social participation),
· without need tests (income/assets tests),
· without work coercion and obligation or activity coercion and obligation,
· paid by the state. Additional income is possible (income mix).

All these criteria characterize the basic income as unconditional. There are simply no conditions for the basic income. A basic income is different from a basic- or minimum security. A basic income is not a social-political project that tries to repair market deficiencies. It is a project for more freedom, democracy and human dignity that points beyond the existing society.

ARGUMENTS FOR A BASIC INCOME

1 THE ABUNDANCE ARGUMENT. Human societies on earth were never so rich and never lived in such abundance – in material and immaterial goods. Human societies were never so fixated on the subordination of all this wealth under two capitalist principles – the principle of increasing profit and the principle of increasing rule over people. Both principles bring about bondage, poverty in all countries of the earth and enormous ecological damage. A basic income would limit the power of these principles. Some even think of destroying the foundation of these principles because like moles they undermine the (wage-) labor-capital connection. With this basic income, persons and societies will be partially freed from these rule- and extortion-principles.

2 THE LABOR MARKET- AND INCOME ARGUMENT. Developed capitalist societies are very productive societies. The supply of (wage/gainful) labor reaches the limit of profitable usability. National demographic developments do not change this at all. Permanent overproduction, constant destruction and new production of goods and external expansion of markets face declining work volumes and increasing productivity. Mass unemployment, dismantling traditional social-state benefits and low wages (working poor) fortify and intensify the division of society, poverty and exclusion. An adequate and continuing income security through (gainful/wage) labor becomes increasingly impossible for many. Rising non-work income from assets and financial investments distributing the wealth of society very unequally are juxtaposed to this diminishing supply. A basic income takes all these facts into account and redistributes material possibilities of participation – according to the principle of the basic needs of all people, not according to the principle of the market or rule position of individuals.

3 THE ARGUMENT FOR WORKER AND EMPLOYEE ASSOCIATIONS. Certain globalization effects and the increasing number of superfluous ones for the wealth production lead to an enormous loss in power for suppliers of labor. These persons and their organizations become increasingly susceptible to extortion since they possess nothing for life and participation in society except their labor power and humiliating social securities dependent on paid labor. A basic income will greatly improve the negotiating positions of suppliers of labor power with respect to working conditions and minimize the injurious competition for “jobs.” At the same time businesses will profit from motivated and rather voluntary workers. A high self-motivation and readiness for engagement are necessary for survival in a society based on knowledge and creativity.

4 THE WORKING HOURS ARGUMENT. Traditional reductions in working hours lead only to rationalization effects and work rush/ condensation more than new jobs. Part-time work goes along with precariousness and low gainful income. A basic income will promote better working conditions, voluntary breaks and individually desired reductions of (gainful/wage) labor,

5 THE INTEGRATION- AND MEANING ARGUMENT. The “crisis of work” always had its subjective sides: dwindling acceptance of the contents of work and dwindling meaning, integration and identity through (gainful/wage) labor. On the other hand, basic income promotes the multi-activity of people (activity society) and the wealth of society based on that activity, the abolition of gender-specific “division of labor” and alternative forms of appropriating production processes (alternative economies, joint determination regarding work contents/conditions). New possibilities of meaning, identity and integration could open up.

6 THE ARGUMENT OF “IMMATERIAL” PRODUCTION. A basic income is also the socially necessary answer to the material production and value creation based more and more on knowledge, imagination and creativity that can no longer be measured in the categories of individual working hours and output. On one hand, individuals develop in the life process outside (gainful/wage) labor. On the other hand, what is applied as practical science by individuals in the material production process (subjective knowledge, machine/ organization systems) is a result of an historical and social development process. The increasing influence of the “immaterial” in material production undermines the measurability of the individual’s share in the total material product. Aggregate social production/ value creation and individual working hours/efficiency uncouple. Incomes, that is individual sharing in social wealth and life and individual labor uncouple when an unconditional basic income is paid.

7 THE ARGUMENT FOR A NEW SOCIAL STATE. Basic income is the necessary reaction to patriarchal social systems centered on paid labor that demand verifiable symptoms as a prerequisite of transfer payments (for example, sickness, incapacity for work, unemployment etc) and include discriminations and repressions (work coercion, disclosure of private affairs). Basic income establishes a social state that makes possible a humane, independent and repression-free lifestyle.

8 THE DEMOCRACY ARGUMENT. The prerequisite for the meddling of all citizens in the democratic organization of public affairs (res publica) is their basic security. Existential anxieties and distresses promote an abstinence from intervention endangering democracy or convictions and activities hostile to democracy and tolerance in all classes of the population. Basic income grants freedom from existential fears and freedom for meddling in public affairs.

9 THE BUREAUCRACY ARGUMENT. A basic income can combine many tax-financed social transfers and result in an enormous reduction in the state bureaucracy through unconditional payment.

10 THE LEISURE ARGUMENT. The capitalist system covering the earth is like an increasingly accelerating and agitated system heading to a warm death. De-acceleration and cooling down only seem possible through various possibilities of leisure and persistent reflection. Basic income creates conditions for leisure and reflection, that is for a life-enhancing de-acceleration and creativity of social processes.

11 THE ETHICAL ARGUMENT. On one side the ground for the ethical (biblical and socialist) argument – “whoever doesn’t want to work shouldn’t eat” – namely scarcity – is cancelled in affluent societies. On the other side, to the arguments of “good (gainful/wage) labor”, we counter:

· Work does many bad things.
· Whoever renounces “good work” through (partial) abstinence should be compensated morally and materially in the logic of “good work,” not condemned or materially disadvantaged.

An unconditional basic income should be supplemented by the right to interruption of work, the right to free access to public goods (mobility, education, culture, health care and so forth), the right to multi-activity including the necessary infrastructures and the right to an education with the citizen as person –not only as a work citizen – as the goal.