Wealth-financed slows unsustainable growth while effectively resolving poverty

The fact that on most models basic income is provided by the state to individuals within its boundaries raises some issues for the eligibility of non-citizens and residents of different statuses and again there are differing views on this.42 Some models propose a basic income for adults with a smaller grant for children.43 A strong argument for a basic income is that the absence of means testing and conditions such as work-seeking or being in employment reduces bureaucracy and saves administrative costs. This is quite a radical idea, particularly in the neo-liberal era where income support has become increasingly constrained under conditions of austerity and is often tied to meeting conditions to prove that the applicant is ‘deserving’. The idea of a basic income raises challenging philosophical questions about how we understand our obligations to each other and view the social contract, including how we understand individual decisions about paid and unpaid work. One of the arguments for a basic income is that it expands individual freedom to pursue meaningful activities that are not income-generating or are lower paid. The idea also raises economic questions about levels of taxation, affordability, the retention or removal of existing income support and other social welfare schemes, and the likely impact of a basic income on the economy. Various proposals suggest a tax claw-back from the wealthy which also addresses concerns about the seeming unfairness of a payment provided to rich and poor alike. One of the sub-issues within the basic income debate relates to the potential environmental benefits. A basic income is seen as a means of slowing down the exponential and unsustainable model of economic growth that currently animates our capitalist system by allowing people to consume less and work in ways that use less resources.44 In addition to issues of sustainability, the recent interest in a basic income is generated by specific concerns about growing economic inequality and the changing nature of work. As evidence of this inequality, Oxfam has noted the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a small group of billionaires. In 2018, 26 people owned the same amount of wealth as the 3.8 billion people who comprise the poorest half of the world’s population – in 2017, this figure was 43 people.45 Few countries seem willing or able to tax the global companies that generate this wealth. While inequality is growing the rate of reduction of extreme poverty had slowed by half since 2013 according to the World Bank.46 The Bank is now projecting that the economic impacts of COVID-19 will result in ‘the first increase in global extreme poverty since 1998, effectively wiping out progress made since 2017’. 47 Inequality has severe consequences for political and economic stability, health and the environment.48 This inequality manifests in many parts of the world in underemployment and salary stagnation. Precarious labour conditions are a reality for millions within the increasingly global labour market. There are fears about the loss of jobs in what has been labelled the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ which entails changes in scale and scope that cannot yet be predicted, including via robotics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, the ‘internet of things’ and quantum computing. 49 These technologies are likely to reduce employment in many areas with some uncertainty about whether new forms of income generating work will arise to replace the old jobs or whether many people will become unemployed or underemployed leading to even greater inequality and insecurity. It is these concerns about both a crisis in work and the related challenges of inequality that have led to calls for a basic income from a range of quarters. A basic income is being seen variously as ‘venture capital for the poor’, a response to poverty and austerity, and as a means of freeing people to work as they choose rather than remain in meaningless, unsatisfying ‘bullshit jobs’.50