A three horn trilemma of administrative difficulties makes solvency impossible.
Wispelaere and Striton 18 [Dr Jurgen De Wispelaere is a former occupational therapist turned political theorist and policy scholar. He is an ISRF Political Economy Research Fellow and a Policy Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research (University of Bath). *Dr. Lindsay Stirton, PhD, was appointed Professor of Public Law at the University of Sussex in 2015; “The Case Against Participation Income— Political, Not Merely Administrative”; 5/7/18; the political quarterly, vol 89, issue 2; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-923X.12513]//dollinger
The first horn of the trilemma consists of the requirement that PI must remain substantively inclusive if it is to satisfy the concerns of basic income advocates. The second horn is represented by the equally important requirement, insisted upon this time by reciprocity theorists and soft workfare proponents, that recipients must satisfy a genuine participation requirement. Such a requirement in turn demands that any PI scheme must be capable of differentiating between those who fulfil their social obligations, however defined, and those who do not. Finally, the third horn is made up of the ... concerns that pertain to the economic and human costs associated with administrability. The trilemma arises because PI can only avoid two of three horns simultaneously. The scheme inevitably gets pinned on a third.3
In developing our response to Atkinson, we must first recall why the trilemma arises. Our claims are grounded in the essential features of a control system as elaborated in the administrative cybernetics literature, namely setting standards, gathering information on compliance with those standards, and modifying behaviour.4
In order to operationalise a participation requirement, a set of criteria must be established which define and identify the intended beneficiaries. The challenge lies, following Colin Diver’s formulation of the trade-offs inherent in administrative rule-making, in ensuring that these criteria are ‘transparent’, ‘accessible’, and ‘congruent’ with underlying policy goals.5 Much of the difficulty springs from the fact that PI is administratively demanding in its ambition to recognise a wide range of informal and less institutionalised types of participation activities. Atkinson accepts that ‘qualifying non-market activities would require validation’ but insists that ‘the existing social insurance system requires such machinery if it is to be brought into the twenty-first century’. 6
In terms of ease of administrability, PI was outperformed not only by a fully unconditional basic income (BI)—which, as is well known, aims at radically simplifying administration—but paradoxically also by more restrictive workfare policies. The latter outperforms PI largely by virtue of restricting eligibility to fewer, clearly defined categories. Of course, the cost of this is paid in terms of restricting eligibility as well as reduced takeup even where potential claimants are eligible—a feature of conditional social protection programmes Atkinson aptly likens to ‘the (sickening) canary in the mine’ signalling a major flaw in social protection.7