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The universal basic income, I would argue, is already beginning to shift our national consciousness in directions that can direct us on the road to socialism. It is bringing issues of class and inequality more into focus and making them part of the national conversation, though in theoretically insufficient ways.

Chris Hughes, for example, the co-founder of Facebook, has argued strenuously for a universal basic income as not necessarily a comprehensive solution but as at least a moderating analgesic for the severity of income inequality and poverty in America, asserting, “We talk about inequality—and the economy in general—in terms that make it seem like these are structural problems that we can’t do anything about. When in reality, we’ve created the rules of the road: the way the economy works now.”

With right-wing variants of basic income on the table, it is natural to see a flurry of left criticism. Nonetheless, it should be recognized that the UBI concept dovetails with a normative vision that has deep roots on the Left. The fundamental goals of the socialist left have long been fixed on emancipation, self-realization, and the satisfaction — and even expansion — of human needs. As Adam Przeworski writes, “Socialism was not a movement for full employment but for the abolition of wage slavery … it was not a movement for equality but for freedom.” It was only when those goals appeared closed off by political and economic circumstances that we narrowed our horizons and settled for a productivist alternative, characterized by more rather than less work. Having found it unworkable in the medium-run to eradicate exploitation and alienation, socialists set out to universalize them.

Socialism lost something in the reorientation from a vision defined by the abolition of the wage relation to one that fastens us all to it. A generous basic income defined by a genuine exit option from the labor market ultimately has a real affinity with the socialist project. The moral question at the fore is whether or not we wish to retain the coercive and compulsory quality of the capitalist labor market. Fighting for an exit option ought to be a priority because, first, it gives people the power to confront their bosses or their spouses — the possibility of exit facilitates voice — and second, because it gives people real freedom to enact their life plans, unencumbered by the dull compulsion of economic relations.

The idea that an expansive UBI program could not be a direct challenge to capitalism is frankly laughable. There are two main reasons why a subsistence UBI (or higher) could be a challenge to capitalism, but it is important to note that in the very short-term there is the chance of some increase in stability brought to the capitalist system by the Keynesian effects of the policy, if enacted in even a single globally-crucial economy like the US, the EU, or even China or India.5 This stability would be short-lived and could lead to progress towards socialism, for the reasons that follow.

The first reason builds on the points made under the previous section: a subsistence UBI that did not replace existing, or was implemented alongside expanded, social welfare programs would require a mass movement in order to be achieved. It would also take workers in enormous numbers out of the realm of necessity and closer to the realm of freedom (as described by Marx). With a subsistence UBI, workers would no longer be forced to work at low-paying, degrading, unsafe, or mindless jobs. These jobs would then likely become the first sites of full automation. If systematically-compelled wage-labor is the sine qua non of the capitalist mode of production, then a subsistence-or-above UBI would be a direct challenge to the foundation of capitalism.

UBI has mainly been discussed and embraced as an instrument of freedom, and so there is a sense among critiques on the left that UBI is suspiciously libertarian (Rogers 2017). Further, when we think of an egalitarian proposal, we tend to think of a policy that reduces the gap between rich and poor. UBI is given to all, so it cannot be seen as reducing inequalities in this direct manner. Furthermore, it is no coincidence that UBI has attracted libertarian thinkers and has been opposed by labor unions (Vanderborght 2006). UBI skeptics on the left tend to think that UBI proponents too readily give up on the backbones of socialism: jobs and the interests of the laboring class. They also tend to worry that UBI may even be detrimental to egalitarian justice, if it is sold as a pill that will solve all ills, making market regulations seem unnecessary and full-speed automation look less objectionable (Rogers 2017). One important additional critique of UBI is that it makes no distinction between those who need many resources to achieve a decent level of functioning and those who need less to achieve the same goals (Anderson 2000). UBI then strikes us as perhaps inadequate for egalitarian purposes.

But in fact, as I show in this section and the next, UBI can also be seen as an instrument of equality (Baker 1992). Insofar as equality and freedom are conceptually connected, that is not surprising. Even Van Parijs’s (1995) real libertarian defense is egalitarian at core—the currency of egalitarian justice that must be maximized is simply “real freedom” rather than welfare, resources, or opportunities. As we highlighted above, Van Parijs has further demonstrated that even liberal egalitarian theories of justice, à la Rawls or Dworkin, are compatible with an endorsement of unconditional benefits. This is not, however, what most have in mind when they think of an egalitarian proposal, so here I want to underscore more explicitly the egalitarian case for universal and unconditional benefits. I do so generally first by drawing on social egalitarianism and then more specifically by focusing on two types of inequalities in the section that follows.

First, it is quite true that not all UBI programs would be worth supporting. Any UBI program that would have the likelihood of leaving the poor and vulnerable worse off should certainly be opposed by any socialist or progressive. This kind of welfare-state replacement UBI is the kind that white supremacist and conservative thought-leader Charles Murray and other libertarians often support.3 However, simply because not all UBI programs are worth supporting, does not mean that there are not thick or expansive conceptions of UBI that absolutely are. An example of a conception of UBI that socialists should support would be one that is—as the acronym requires—universal and also set at or above subsistence. This means that all people, regardless of their ability or willingness to work, would at least be much more likely to live a life without lacking any fundamental necessities.

A subsistence (or higher) UBI would likely only be able to achieve the goal of eradicating extreme poverty if it was also combined with a universal health care and tuition-free public higher education system. If the poor still had to pay or go into massive debt to afford basic health care and education, a subsistence UBI would be nearly functionally irrelevant—or worse.

Second, it is simply not true that UBI is irrelevant to workers and the workplace—again provided we are discussing a thick version of UBI. There are two key reasons why UBI would help workers in the workplace. First, if workers did not rely entirely on their wage for their subsistence, they would likely be able to take more aggressive positions in collective bargaining (Andy Stern, former president of the SEIU, has referred to UBI as a “national strike fund”).4 A subsistence UBI would decrease the opportunity-costs of hardline negotiating for higher wages, better benefits, fewer hours, and better working conditions. Workers, in such a position, could also demand greater democratic rights within the workplace. This is not to suggest that wages would cease to be a site of contention. On the contrary, by providing a stronger foundation from which to negotiate wages and benefits, there would be an opportunity for an increase in labor struggles.

The second way that UBI would aid workers in the workplace is more speculative. If a subsistence UBI were to be achieved, there is almost no way of imagining this taking place without massive organized support from workers. It would need to be collective demand that itself would require organizing and mobilizing workers, alongside the unemployed and homeless, and even stay-at-home moms and dads. The kind of social solidarity that such a radical policy position like a subsistence-level UBI would require would undoubtedly have important consequences for the organization of the workplace.

[Mary and Tyler, “Making UBI radical: On the potential for a universal basic income to underwrite transformative and anti-kyriarchal change,” Taylor and Francis Online, March 6th 2023, Accessed via Georgetown Library, GDS – PL]

Conclusion

[Mary and Tyler, “Making UBI radical: On the potential for a universal basic income to underwrite transformative and anti-kyriarchal change,” Taylor and Francis Online, March 6th 2023, Accessed via Georgetown Library, GDS – PL]

A radical position in support of a UBI

[Mary and Tyler, “Making UBI radical: On the potential for a universal basic income to underwrite transformative and anti-kyriarchal change,” Taylor and Francis Online, March 6th 2023, Accessed via Georgetown Library, GDS – PL]

Cash transfers underwriting radical change

In America, and around the world, there has been a surge of interest in basic income. Under a basic income scheme, a government gives a fixed amount of cash, without strings attached, to every citizen. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang is campaigning on the promise of a $1,000 basic income for all Americans, India’s opposition Congress Party pledged a basic income for the poor, and Finland recently completed a two-year basic income trial.

Critics  as unaffordable, that it would be un-American to giving something for nothing, that would be silly to give to the rich as well as to the poor, or that it would reduce work and make people lazy. Such reactions are unfair. There are sensible ways of funding it; the wealthy already obtain a lot of something for nothing (they just call it inheritance); it would be more efficient to pay to everybody and tax back from the wealthy rather than rely on ; and the  shows that it would not make us work less.

To raise revenue in a progressive, efficient, and administrable manner, this chapter proposes a new national consumption tax: a broad-based credit-invoice value-added tax (VAT). The proposal comes with several qualifications: the VAT should complement, not substitute for, new direct taxes on the wealth or income of affluent households; to ensure the policy change is progressive, the VAT should be coupled with adjustments to government means-tested programs to account for price level changes, and with a universal basic income (UBI) program; to avoid having the VAT depress the economy, revenues should be used to raise aggregate demand in the short run and the Federal Reserve should accommodate the tax by allowing prices to rise. A 10 percent federal VAT that funded a UBI equal to 20 percent of the federal poverty line would be highly progressive (with net income rising among the bottom forty percent and not changing in the middle quintile) and would still raise more than 1 percent of GDP in net revenue. VATs are a proven success, existing in 168 countries. VATs have been proposed by both Democrats and Republicans in recent years. Concerns about small businesses, vulnerable populations, and the states can be easily addressed.

Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work 14 January 2022 A basic income would not necessarily mean that people would work less. This is the conclusion of a series of behavioural experiments by cognitive psychologist Fenna Poletiek, social psychologist Erik de Kwaadsteniet and cognitive psychologist Bastiaan Vuyk. They also found indications that people with a basic income are more likely to find a job that suits them better. The psychologists received a grant from the FNV union to research the behavioural effects of a basic income. They simulated the reward structure of different forms of social security in an experiment. ‘We got people to do a task on a computer,’ says De Kwaadsteniet. ‘In multiple rounds, which represented the months they had to work, they did a boring task in which they had to put points on a bar. The more of these they did, the more money they earned.’ The psychologists researched three different conditions: no social security, a conditional benefits system and an unconditional basic income. De Kwaadsteniet: ‘In the condition without social security, the test participants didn’t receive a basic sum. In the benefits condition they received a basic sum, which they lost as soon as they started working. In the basic income condition they received the same basic sum but didn’t lose this when they started work.’ ‘It’s sometimes said that people will sit around doing nothing if you give them free money.’ The basic income did not cause a reduction in the participants’ willingness to work and efforts, say the psychologists. Nor did their salary expectations increase. ‘In the discussion on a basic income, it’s sometimes said that people will sit around doing nothing if you give them free money,’ says Poletiek, who saw no indications of such a behavioural effect. Demotivating The conditional benefits system did prove to have a negative effect on work-seeking behaviour and efforts. ‘As soon as you have a situation in which you lose your benefits if you start working, this is demotivating,’ says De Kwaadsteniet. ‘We saw this in nearly all the experiments.’ The phenomenon in which taking on paid work leads to a reduction in benefits is also known as the benefit trap. Poletiek: ‘That is the disadvantage of pressurising people to apply for jobs. You can see that this benefit trap makes people risk averse. If you are on benefits and find a job, this leads to a potentially better, but also uncertain situation in the future. You don’t have this uncertainty if you keep your benefits.’ To avoid this risk and uncertainty, people don’t look for work. ‘It has nothing to do with how much women want to work.’ Previous studies have shown that women may work less if they receive a basic income. ‘In sociological studies, you see that a basic income is unfavourable to women’s participation in the labour force,’ says Poletiek. She and De Kwaadsteniet did not see this sex difference in their own research. Poletiek: ‘This shows that what has been found in sociological experiments is not related to sex alone. It has nothing to do with how much women want to work. Women generally earn less than men and take on most of the caring responsibilities. That’s why they are more likely to choose to swap work for caring roles if they receive a basic income.’ Fenna Poletiek and Erik de Kwaadsteniet Better match The psychologists also found an indication that people with a basic income look for work that suits them better. ‘We measured whether the test participants are ambitious, whether they want to do the best they can. Are they willing to do stressful work or are they happy with a simple job as long as they earn something?’ This personal attitude towards work proved to be a stronger determinant of the type of work the test participants took on in the basic income system than in the other two systems. This is an important new finding says Poletiek. It could mean that the security of a basic income gives people the space to find the work that best suits their personal attitude, motivation and abilities. ‘You would then get a better match between employer and employee. That would also be an advantage to employers.

A Basic Income Need Not Reduce Employment Suppose the government redistributed to every adult a basic, unconditional income from tax revenues. Would aggregate employment levels a) rise, b) fall, or c) stay the same? Suppose the government redistributed to every adult Briton a basic, unconditional income of £10,000 from tax revenues. Would aggregate employment levels a) rise, b) fall, or c) stay the same? This is the blue‐​sky policy question that former Labour leader Ed Miliband has been toying with. He’s not alone. Ideologically‐​diverse bedfellows from the neoliberal Adam Smith Institute through to the Green Party have weighed up the merits of giving everyone cold hard cash as insurance against fears of automation and lack of job security in the labour market. There are legion concerns, trade‐​offs, and practical difficulties with such a policy. Yet the employment question arguably resonates most, and both proponents and opponents seem confused about it. Last week on Newsnight, Miliband simultaneously argued that there would be little to no employment impact, but also implied that the ability to turn down work was one of the scheme’s virtues. Critics assert that earning money is what brings human dignity, without seeing that this might be why people would continue to work even with this cash stream. The idea that paying people unconditionally would lower employment is intuitive. Some people would pocket the income and not engage in formal labour market activity, especially if they currently feel compelled to work to get by, or due to the conditionality of existing benefits. Students may prefer to focus on their studies. Parents of newborns may opt to spend more time with their children. With a generous safety net, those between jobs may take longer to find positions that genuinely match their skills and talents too. All these things might lower the employment rate at any given time. As Miliband implies, for people in certain situations this might not be a bad thing. Yet this is only part of the story. When assessing the impact of a basic income, we have to ask: compared to what? The UK’s existing welfare state for working age people gives money with conditions and means‐​testing. This raises the incomes of poor people, but it paradoxically makes it harder for them to earn income. As someone works more, or gets promoted, they face benefit withdrawal as well as taxes. Even under Universal Credit, this creates effective marginal tax rates of around 75 per cent – a severe disincentive to earn. If a pure basic income replaced existing welfare, no such disincentive would exist. The overall impact on the employment rate of these two effects would therefore be ambiguous. Here’s where specifics about the scheme matter and trade‐​offs come in. The key problem is that a generous basic income would be extraordinarily expensive. A £10,000 basic income for adults alone would cost £580bn, far higher than the current £252bn social protection budget (which includes the state pension). Alone, then, a basic income would necessitate huge increases in taxes, which in turn reduce the return to earning for people who currently do not receive benefits. You could start with a much lower basic income, but then you would have to be willing to make some existing benefit recipients worse off to give money to people who currently “don’t need it”. A compromise is a “negative income tax” – in effect an integration of a basic income guarantee into the tax system, whereby individuals either receive money fromthe government, or pay taxes, but never both, with an absolute floor. This helps lower the fiscal cost substantially, but given that the amount transferred tapers with earned income, it reintroduces some of the work disincentives that a pure basic income eliminates. If Miliband is right, though, that a basic income provides a generous‐​enough safety net to give workers the power to say “no”, surely significant chunks of existing employment legislation are no longer needed as well? Minimum wage laws and statutorily enforced in‐​work benefits are often justified on the basis that employers would otherwise “exploit” workers. With the fall‐​back of a safety net, employment contracts are entirely voluntary. Justification for other job‐​destroying protectionist policies in areas such as trade likewise fall away, since workers have a safety net that grants them time to retrain or find better job matches. A basic income or a basic income guarantee need not reduce employment then. But it depends on the design and exactly what it replaces. The challenge for this idea taking off at a political level is whether its proponents can compromise on these features. Would libertarian advocates be willing to accept more redistribution for the elimination of intrusive welfare and damaging labour market regulations? Would leftists such as Miliband be willing to give up labour market rights in return for a more expansive safety net? If this is to be any more than a theoretical idea, it’s time to flesh out the answers to these questions.

Universal Basic Income does not cause inflation The idea that a Universal Basic Income fuels inflation makes no economic sense. Part two in a three-part series on common myths about inflation. Read part one here. Opinion: We live in an age of crisis. The Global Financial Crisis, austerity measures, climate change, Covid-19 and war have all reduced people’s standard of living, wellbeing and predicted lifespan. It’s a dire outlook, made worse by a fast-evolving cost-of-living crisis. One way to ease the burden on people would be a Universal Basic Income (UBI). In our last age of crisis, during World War Two, Western governments took the momentous decision to tackle even more serious crises through massive state intervention. Governments rapidly committed themselves to costs with few precedents in creating social security and healthcare systems, nationalised industry and a range of other equality-promoting measures. At a time when countries could, apparently, least afford those policies, policymakers saw no alternative than to spend big. The consequence was three decades of growth, increased standards of living, increased life expectancy and unprecedented technological development, ended only by war-induced increases in energy prices that sent inflation spiralling. As the Financial Times recently noted, the policies adopted over the past four decades have left countries such as Britain poor, but with some very rich people. Universal Basic Income has been presented as a means of addressing this crisis. Giving people largely unconditional, predictable forms of income to satisfy their basic needs has been identified as a means of restoring social security, increasing equality and supporting growth in areas of countries that have been left behind by development and promoting public health overall. READ MORE: * UBI - could the free money scheme work? * Universal basic income: be careful what you wish for * Rocks ahead! Leaders struggle at the helm of the world economy There is, however, widespread belief that any monetary intervention stimulates hyper-inflation of the form found in 1920s Germany, 1990s Argentina and 2000s Zimbabwe. This is because people believe giving consumers more money to spend leads to businesses charging higher prices to take advantage of increased purchasing power, creating a cycle in which employees demand higher wages to buy commodities, increasing the cost of production, cancelling out any benefit from the monetary intervention and actually reducing the standard of living overall. UBI is a redistributive economic policy that can be funded by taxing those resources that contribute little to society: wealth and passive income from shares as well as income at the very top end of society There is little evidence to support this view. UBI is no more or less inflationary than anything else that raises incomes – its impact would depend on whether the economy is at full employment, whether taxes are raised to pay for the scheme and various other factors. Where hyperinflation has occurred, it has been because essential goods are scarce, raising their value overall, and debt has been held in foreign currencies and paid in currencies declining in value by virtue of countries’ domestic production being disrupted or declining. Our current levels of inflation are caused by similar pressures as those in the 1970s: war leading to an increase in the cost of fossil fuels. If the logic behind objecting to a UBI on the basis of inflation were correct, then there ought to be absolutely no attempt to introduce new jobs or increase wages, as both increase purchasing power. If inflation is our sole concern, governments ought to slash wages and massively increase taxes. The point is that nobody wants either of those options because, even if they did reduce inflation, people would not want to have their wages reduced. UBI is a redistributive economic policy that can be funded by taxing those resources that contribute little to society: wealth and passive income from shares as well as income at the very top end of society. The resources of the rich are generally off-shored and contribute little to a country’s financial wellbeing. Analysis of the distributive impacts of UBI in the UK suggest its introduction would shift resources to those people and areas that need the investment most. That may increase the cost of housing and other goods in parts of countries that have been left behind, but this is a central means of enhancing community wealth and ‘Levelling Up’. It is also a means of developing entrepreneurship and production within areas that have been deindustrialised. This support for production is, again, an essential means of supporting a bulwark against hyperinflation. Given that we live in market societies, the fear this will lead to unchecked inflation is counterintuitive, as competition is supported by rising purchasing power and serves to check price increases. The alternative is simply to leave all but the metropolitan centres to wither away and to be dependent on the whims of finance. As our recent RSA report indicated, if governments are committed to resolving our age of crisis, they need to do as their predecessors did after World War Two: invest in transformative policies with expensive up-front costs to achieve the most significant social outcomes. Nothing is more expensive than undoing climate change, dealing with pandemics and repairing the damage of social decay. In that context, there is evidence a UBI is economically feasible and voters regard UBI as a necessary means of promoting social security.

“Universal basic income” has become a talking point for political progressives in recent years, first as the centerpiece of Andrew Yang’s 2020 presidential bid, then as part of the debates over pandemic relief.

Perhaps the biggest criticism of the policy proposal is that “free money” would take away recipients’ incentive to work, causing a mass exodus from the labor force.

[Sofia, “The Global Importance of Universal Basic Income (UBI) Manifestation,” independent, 2 Mar 2023, SSRN – Social Science Research Network, accessed June 30, 2023, GDS-LL]

Universal Basic Income is an economic policy in which all citizens or residents of a country receive a regular, unconditional sum of money. This form of income will be given to all people regardless of their employment status. The idea behind this is that if everyone has a basic income, then it would be easier for people to find work and contribute to society.

Economic inequality robbed the US of $23 trillion over the last 3 decades, study says Ben Winck Sep 9, 2021, 3:28 PM CDT tax the rich protest US billionaires Spencer Platt/Getty Images Inequality cut US economic growth by $22.9 trillion over 30 years, researchers said in a new paper. Underserving racial and ethnic minorities worsened prosperity for all Americans, the team added. Minorities make up a growing share of the population, meaning further inaction can push the price tag even higher. By definition, economic inequality lifts some parties and leaves many more struggling to keep up. But the have-nots aren't the only ones affected. New research shows the whole US economy would benefit if everyone had an equal shot. Longstanding racial and ethnic inequities cost the US economy a total of $22.9 trillion over the last 30 years, a group of researchers said in a paper published Thursday in the Brookings Institution's Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. That's roughly the same as the country's annual economic output as of 2021. The team looked to quantify just how much larger the US economy would be if opportunities and outcomes were equal across racial and ethnic lines. The researchers studied differences in economic opportunities and outcomes between white, Black, and Hispanic men and women aged 25 to 64 from 1990 to 2019. Disparities in employment, hours worked, education levels, education utilization, and earnings gaps helped them arrive at the multitrillion-dollar price tag. By underserving marginalized communities for decades, the US wasn't only harming those groups, but lowering prosperity for its entire population, the economists said. "The opportunity to participate in the economy and to succeed based on ability and effort is at the foundation of our nation and our economy," they said. "Unfortunately, structural barriers have persistently disrupted this narrative for many Americans, leaving the talents of millions of people underutilized or on the sidelines." The paper was written by Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Laura Choi, vice president of the San Francisco Fed; Lily Seitelman, a graduate student at Boston University; and Shelby Buckman, a graduate student at Stanford University. How to build a more equitable economy Addressing the economic gaps is no easy feat. For one, differences in both educational attainment and educational utilization complicate efforts to even the playing field. White and Asian Americans are more likely than their Black and Hispanic peers to have jobs that use the full extent of their educational levels. Improving equality doesn't just rely on improving access to education, but also helping people find work that fits their level of schooling, the team said. The private sector will also need to pull its weight. Past research has found that racial discrimination in hiring cut down firms' profitability, and that diversity in the workplace often yields higher revenue, greater market share, and stronger profits, the team said. Investments to close businesses' gaps in hiring and pay across racial, ethnic, and gender lines can boost their bottom lines while contributing toward greater equality, they added. Making gains across educational attainment, educational utilization, and hiring practices can also kickstart success cycles across generations, according to the report. Closing the wage gap across racial lines helps close decades-old wealth gaps. That's key for future gains, as it creates the "wealth begets wealth" cycle that's benefitted more fortunate Americans for decades, the economists said. And while solving the disparities stands to improve the entire US economy, doing nothing threatens even higher costs. Racial minorities are expected to make up more of the US population in the years ahead. Improvements from current conditions "are only the beginning," and failing to act only adds to the massive cost of inequality, the economists said. "More equitable allocation of talent by education, employment, and jobs improves innovation, invention, and entrepreneurship, which set the foundation for growth today and growth in the future," they added."

In recent months, everyone from Elon Musk to Sir Richard Branson has come out in favor of universal basic income (UBI), a system in which every person receives a regular payment simply for being alive. Now, a study carried out by the Roosevelt Institute has concluded that implementing a UBI in the U.S. could have a positive effect on the nation's economy.

The study looked at three separate proposals: a "basic income" of $1,000 per month given to every adult, a "base income" of $500 per month given to every adult, and a "child allowance" of $250 per month for every child. The researchers concluded that the larger the sum, the more significant the positive economic impact.

A universal basic income could make the US economy trillions of dollars larger, permanently, according to a new study by the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute.

Basic income, a proposal in which every American would be given a basic stipend from the government no strings attached, is often brought up as a potential solution to widespread automation reducing demand for labor in the future. But in the meantime, its critics typically allege that it is far too expensive to be practical, or else that it would spur millions of Americans to drop out of the labor force, wrecking the economy and depriving the government of a tax base for funding the plan.

One American in two develops a mental illness at some point in their lives. At any moment in time, about 20 per cent of the population in developed countries has a mental illness.

We know surprisingly little about why so many people suffer depression, anxiety or addiction to drugs and alcohol. We do know, however, about the severe consequences on their social and economic lives.