Basic income and the anti-slavery movement

Written on March 17th, 2015 in politics Comments Off

Modern-day ‘abolitionists’ need to frame labour exploitation so that it fits the narrative of their funding sources – Published on openDemocracy, by NEIL HOWARD, March 12, 2015:

Unconditional basic income is not only feasible, but it also has more emancipatory potential than any other single policy because it targets economic vulnerability, the heart of all labour exploitation.

Last May, I argued in a piece for Al-Jazeera that the emerging global anti-slavery movement risks becoming no more than a fig leaf for structural political-economic injustice. I suggested that unless it faces that injustice head-on, it will waste a generational opportunity to make the world more just, focussing instead on making consumers and activists “feel better about feeling bad” … //

… Slavery and the market: … //

… Basic income:

  • So what is to be done? The one single policy that has most emancipatory potential is the unconditional basic income (UBI). UBI has a long and respected pedigree. Thomas Paine advocated a version of it at the dawn of the American Revolution, and it has had modern supporters ranging from Bertrand Russell to John Rawls.
  • The idea is as simple as it is brilliant: give every citizen an amount of money sufficient to guarantee their survival without any strings attached. You receive it just by virtue of being a citizen. It will never make you rich, but it will always prevent you from going hungry, or from having to sell yourself into slavery-like labour for want of a better alternative.
  • When people are first pitched UBI, their gut reaction is to often ask, “is this feasible?” “Won’t everybody just stop working?” These concerns are understandable, but they are also misplaced.
  • With regards to feasibility, there are two major points. The first is that economic viability of such a method of wealth redistribution has already been proved in principle by Great Britain itself. Indeed, the welfare state operates on the very same basis, taxing progressively to distribute wealth more evenly.
  • Second, UBI is likely to be far cheaper and more efficient than any other existing system of social protection. Currently, governments everywhere waste billions of dollars on policies that fail to reach the most vulnerable. In the West, expensive means-testing excludes many of those most in need, while governments subsidise poverty wages and give tax breaks to corporations. In the Global South, fuel and agricultural subsidies frequently fail to reach their intended targets as corrupt bureaucrats siphon money to buy political influence. Under these circumstances, the costs of distributing a basic income directly to people will be offset by reducing other, less efficient programmes and cutting out the dead weight of political middle-men.
  • Will people work if they receive a UBI? Of course they will. Very few are satisfied with simple subsistence; almost everyone wants to improve at least the lives of their children. No advocate of basic income wants it set high enough to discourage work. Rather, the goal is to give people the “real freedom” to say No! to bad jobs and Yes! to good ones. Remember that in the West, it is the punitive social security system which itself creates unemployment traps. If instead of tax-breaks or top-ups we gave people UBI, then nobody would ever face the choice of losing money by accepting work.
  • UBI has benefits beyond these practical fundamentals, and for the first time in history, we now have detailed empirical evidence from a developing country to show it. UNICEF has just completed a pilot project with the Self-Employed Women’s Association in India to trial UBI among thousands of villagers in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The findings are electric.
  • First, they show an increase in economic activity, with new small-scale businesses springing up, more work being performed, and more equipment and livestock being purchased for the local economy. Second, those receiving UBI registered improvements in child nutrition, school attendance and performance, health and healthcare, sanitation and housing. Greater benefits were recorded for women than for men (as women’s financial and social autonomy were increased), for the disabled than for others, and for the poorest vis-à-vis the wealthy.
  • But there is a third dimension that should really make the anti-slavery movement sit up and take note. This is the ‘emancipatory dimension’. The economic security provided by UBI not only increased the political participation of the poor, as it gave them the time and resources necessary to represent their interests against the powerful. It also freed them from the clutches of moneylenders.
  • As the author of the UNICEF study puts it: Money is a scarce commodity in Indian villages and this drives up the price. Moneylenders and landlords can easily put villagers into debt bondage and charge exorbitant rates of interest that families cannot hope to pay off.
  • Unless, of course, they benefit from UBI, in which case they have the liquidity necessary to maintain their freedom even in the case of economic shocks. If you doubt the transformative potential of this work, just watch this 12-minute video and I defy you not to be inspired.

Historical potential: … //

… (full text with hyper-links).

(Neil Howard is an academic and activist based at the European University Institute in Florence. He is a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Institute’s Centre for Advanced Studies, where his research focuses on forced labour, trafficking and slavery, and on the work of the modern ‘abolitionist’ field. See also the Neil Howard’s Blog).

Related Links:

Other Links:

The ten-point failure of the Tories’ long-term economic plan, on Labour List, by John Healey, March 16, 2015;

Is There an Easy Way Out? Private Marketable Debt and Its Implications for a Eurozone Break-up, on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, March 16, 2015;

Will the Budget reinforce Britain’s lopsided housing recovery? on Leftfoot Forward, by Craig Berry, March 16, 2015; The government is no longer just revving the engine – it’s also cutting the brakes;

Yanis Varoufakis: Presenting an Agenda for Europe at Ambrosetti, on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, March 15, 2015;

False Flags and Regime Change in Ukraine, Why We Still Don’t Know What Happened to Flight MH17, on Global Research.ca, by Peter Viemmix, March 15, 2015;

India – VIEWPOINT: Falling behind, on South Bend Tribune, by Marty Wolfson, March 13, 2015:  … The report defines a new standard called the Household Survival Budget. The survival budget calculates how much it costs to afford the five basic household necessities: housing, child care, food, transportation and health care. It is a more realistic measure of how much it costs to meet basic needs than the official poverty line …;

India: Five things to keep in mind while choosing retirement plan, on MoneyControl, by Aalok Bhan, March 12, 2015;

US: Low-Income Advocates Hope for Basic Health Plan Framework for 2016, on The Lund Report.org, by Chris Gray, March 11, 2015;

India: LTCG tax exempt if cost of new house exceeds sale gain, on live mint, by Parizad Sirwalla, March 11, 2015: If it is lower, LTCG is exempt from tax in proportion of cost of construction of new house;

Canada: Politics, not economics, the main hurdle to addressing income inequality – expert, on Political Points/yahoo.news, by Laura Beaulne-Stuebing, March 11, 2015;

Together, in the National Interest? on Hopi Sen, a blog from the backroom, by blog owner, March 8, 2015;

TRANSITogether: Building A Movement, on Socialist Project.ca/Leftstreamed, March 1, 2015;
also on YouTube, presentation by Brenda Thompson from TTCriders.ca., uploaded by LeftStreamed, March 14, 2015: part 1/3, 20.33 min; part 2/3, 09.34 min; part 3/3, 18.52 min;

Labour, SNP, Greens: could they do business together? on4News, by Paul Mason, Feb 16, 2015;

Can any party win a majority? on MAY2015.com, forecast.

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