VAT alone fails Inclusion of the BI is necessary to prevent overconsumption.
Michael Howard 19, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maine, co-editor of Basic Income Studies, et al., 2019, “Ecological Effects of Basic Income,” The Palgrave International Handbook of Basic Income, Chapter 7, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23614-4
Assuming technological progress and rising labour productivity, slower growth (not to mention degrowth) might generate higher unemployment (see Chapter 4 of this Handbook). Basic Income is essential to ensure that everyone has an income whether or not they are working. It also makes it attractive to engage in other non-employment activities, which are typically ‘far more labour-intensive and less natural-resource-intensive than formal production is’ (Van Parijs 2013: 270).
For real freedom to be ‘at as high a level as is sustainable’ (Van Parijs 2013: 271), the level at which the Basic Income is paid will need to be at the highest possible feasible level, but that in itself does not tell us whether it will be below or at a sufficiency level. If it is below sufficiency level then it will not enable individuals to exit paid employment and it will tend to increase consumption, whereas if it is enough to live on then it will not (Gorz 2002, 1999; Mylondo 2010, 2012; Birnbaum and De Wispelaere 2016).
By breaking the link between income and the labour market it would allow individuals, if they so wished, to abstain from the race to accumulate ever more material goods and help combat the identification of freedom with consumerism. (Pateman 2004: 96, our italics)