[P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] Fwd: Looking the Basic Income Gift Horse in the Mouth

Wed Apr 6 09:31:56 CEST 2016

Henry George's argument was that the supply of land is fixed, so an
increase in spending power in a community results in bidding up rents.
The result is that as social wealth increases, an increasing share of
it goes down the rat hole of rents to unproductive landlords whose
properties appreciate through nothing they've done other than sitting
on them.

On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 1:41 AM, peter waterman
<peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kevin
>
> Could you spell out your land value tax caveat?
>
> Best,
>
> PeterW
>
> On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 3:46 AM, Kevin Carson
> <free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I have mixed feelings about this.
>>
>> The point about conservatives hoping to put the floor as low as
>> possible are well taken. But compared to most family income support
>> programs in the U.S. even $1000/month is actually fairly decent.
>>
>> And I think an unconditional Basic Income, with no means-testing,
>> would have the effect of raising wages just from all the people on the
>> margin who would prefer living on it to working a fast food or nursing
>> home job, or cut their hours back to part-time because of Basic
>> Income, or the people who thanks to Basic Income were just marginally
>> less afraid of losing their job or were able to hold out a few extra
>> weeks while waiting for a better offer. The overall effect would be to
>> reduce the number of people competing for work, and at least
>> marginally increase the average worker's ability to walk away from the
>> bargaining table.
>>
>> And eliminating the demeaning, intrusive welfare bureaucracies is a
>> feature, not a bug.
>>
>> As for "full employment," that kind of workerism is a throwback to the
>> most atavistic Old Left models of the mass production age. If
>> anything, decoupling work from income and sharply reducing the amount
>> of work is one of the main selling points. The goal of a
>> post-scarcity, post-capitalist economy should be to eliminate as much
>> waste production, bureaucratic overhead and embedded rents as
>> possible, so that the costs of goods and services implode -- and so
>> does the average work week. A Basic Income would encourage the
>> shifting of a lot of production from wage labor to direct production
>> for use in the social economy.
>>
>> My own biggest caveat is that a Basic Income should be coupled with a
>> land value tax, or a major part of any increase in purchasing power
>> will simply go to bid up landlord rent.
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 9:02 AM, Anna Harris <anna at shsh.co.uk> wrote:
>> > Thank you for this Peter. It is clear that every tool can be turned to
>> > the
>> > service of capitalist austerity. Locally to me we have seen the rise of
>> > Junk
>> > Food Projects, with the admirable aim of sourcing waste food to feed
>> > hungry
>> > people. But it ends up being middle class do-gooders papering over the
>> > cracks in the system so supporting its existence rather than challenging
>> > it:
>> > the modern version of the 19th Century charity system. Meanwhile the
>> > waste
>> > food is still imported from low cost areas overseas, with appalling
>> > working
>> > conditions, creating pollution and consuming local scarce resources.
>> >
>> > Anna
>> >
>> > On 4 Apr 2016, at 07:43, peter waterman <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> > From: Sid Shniad <shniad at gmail.com>
>> > Date: Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 4:31 AM
>> > Subject: Looking the Basic Income Gift Horse in the Mouth
>> > To:
>> >
>> >
>> > http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/1241.php#continue
>> >
>> > The   B u l l e t • Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 1241 • April 1,
>> > 2016
>> >
>> > Looking the Basic Income Gift Horse in the Mouth
>> >
>> > John Clarke
>> >
>> > <image.png>
>> >
>> > Both the Trudeau Liberals in Ottawa and the Wynne Government at Queen's
>> > Park
>> > in Toronto have been making noises of late on the subject of Basic
>> > Income.
>> > The last Ontario Budget, in fact, declared an intention to carry out a
>> > pilot
>> > project in a community still to be announced. While no clear details are
>> > yet
>> > available, it is very likely that we will soon be dealing with a
>> > practical
>> > initiative that we will have to respond to. We will have to consider how
>> > we
>> > view the possibility of the Liberals moving in the direction of a Basic
>> > Income system.
>> >
>> > After decades of intensifying austerity and the erosion of systems of
>> > income
>> > support, with social assistance in Ontario now providing such wretchedly
>> > inadequate benefits that people are unable to feed themselves properly
>> > and
>> > retain their housing, the notion of a basic level of income that all are
>> > entitled to can't fail to generate a level of interest and raise some
>> > hopes.
>> > However, I am convinced that a good hard look in the mouth of this
>> > particular gift horse is well advised. What are the different notions of
>> > how
>> > a Basic Income system might work? Why are governments now considering it
>> > more seriously? What form would it be likely to take in the present
>> > economic
>> > and political context?
>> >
>> > Looking Deeper Into the Gift Horse
>> >
>> > As soon as you start to look into the question of Basic Income or, as it
>> > was
>> > often called in the past, Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI), you are
>> > immediately struck by the ease and enthusiasm with which free market
>> > thinkers and warriors of the neoliberal order have embraced the concept.
>> > From Milton Friedman to Charles Murray, the idea has found warm support
>> > on
>> > the political right. There are some clear and obvious reasons why this
>> > is
>> > so. Firstly, the very idea of a basic level of income is about
>> > establishing
>> > a floor and right wing proponents are confident they can locate it in
>> > the
>> > basement. A low and inadequate social minimum seems to them a great way
>> > of
>> > folding in existing, relatively adequate programs so as to, precisely,
>> > drive
>> > people into deeper poverty.
>> >
>> > Another attraction offered by a low universal payment to those who take
>> > the
>> > side of the capitalists is the potential role it could play in
>> > depressing
>> > wages. In a recent contribution to the Union Research blog on the issue
>> > of
>> > Basic Income, Toby Sanger, draws attention to the Speenhamland System, a
>> > wage supplement arrangement put in place under the English Poor Laws
>> > between
>> > 1795-1834, and the role it played in driving down wages. Low wage paying
>> > employers could rely on the tax base to pay their workers wages and
>> > employers who had been paying higher wages were under an incentive to
>> > lower
>> > them in order to obtain the same benefit. In the present context of
>> > vastly
>> > expanding low wage precarious work, this danger is one that should not
>> > be
>> > underestimated.
>> >
>> > The right wing Basic Income agenda, however, sets its sights on more
>> > than
>> > cutting benefit levels for people in poverty and depressing the wages of
>> > the
>> > lowest paid workers. Potentially, it is a means to gut social programs
>> > and
>> > to decimate the workforce that delivers them. The notion is to use the
>> > basic
>> > payment to advance the pace of privatization enormously. This kind of
>> > payment would replace public services and all who received it would
>> > become
>> > customers shopping for their social needs in the private market. Not
>> > just
>> > income support systems, but public housing, healthcare, education and
>> > transportation are threatened by the parsimonious universal payment
>> > envisaged by free market Basic Income.
>> >
>> > A Different Kind of Basic Income?
>> >
>> > Of course, the political right's version of a system of basic social
>> > payments is countered by those with more progressive concepts. There is
>> > a
>> > notion of Basic Income that stresses income adequacy, the need to
>> > advance
>> > full employment and the importance of preserving and strengthening a
>> > range
>> > of other elements of the social infrastructure. Without doubting the
>> > good
>> > intentions of advocates of a progressive Basic Income, it does need to
>> > be
>> > pointed out that the question of which version is to be adopted will not
>> > be
>> > decided by an impartial court of the common good but by present day
>> > governments. The people running the show on Parliament Hill and at
>> > Queen's
>> > Park have some history behind them when it comes to the implementation
>> > of
>> > measures of austerity and privatization. Their recent experience in bold
>> > new
>> > social policies that raise the living standards of working class people
>> > and
>> > increase their share of the social wealth is significantly less.
>> >
>> > The austerity agenda, which we can trace back to the 1970s but which has
>> > intensified following the international crisis of 2008, has placed a
>> > central
>> > strategic importance on weakening the adequacy of income support
>> > programs.
>> > In addition to the massive undermining of federal unemployment
>> > insurance,
>> > provincial social assistance has been enormously weakened. People on
>> > Ontario
>> > Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) have seen
>> > the
>> > spending power of their income reduced by up to 60 per cent since the
>> > infamous Tory cuts of the mid 90s. Not only have income levels been
>> > driven
>> > down but rules and policies have been adopted that have made programs
>> > harder
>> > to access and more uncertain for those receiving them. The increased
>> > poverty
>> > and the climate of desperation that this attack has generated have been
>> > of
>> > central importance in ensuring an astounding growth of low wage,
>> > precarious
>> > employment in Ontario.
>> >
>> > As the Liberals, political chameleons that they are, posture on the
>> > issue of
>> > Basic Income, we must avoid the trap of thinking that a rational and
>> > socially just approach is going to be won on the strength of good
>> > arguments.
>> > The idea that Basic Income is so sensible that everyone on both sides of
>> > the
>> > class divide will want to get behind it and make it work in the best
>> > interests of all is profoundly mistaken. If the concept is being
>> > advanced in
>> > Ontario by the very provincial government that has led the way in
>> > program
>> > reduction and austerity, it is not because they want to reverse the
>> > undermining of income support, the proliferation of precarious
>> > employment
>> > and the privatizing of public services but for the very opposite reason.
>> > They are looking with great interest at the possibility of using Basic
>> > Income as a stalking horse for their regressive social agenda and it
>> > will be
>> > the version that Bay Street has in mind that will win out over notions
>> > of
>> > progressive redistribution. As the announcement in the Ontario Budget
>> > acknowledges:
>> >
>> > “The pilot would also test whether a basic income would provide a more
>> > efficient way of delivering income support, strengthen the attachment to
>> > the
>> > labour force, and achieve savings in other areas, such as healthcare and
>> > housing supports” [page 132].
>> >
>> >
>> > We are in a period when capitalism and the governments that represent
>> > its
>> > interests are increasing the rate of exploitation and reducing the level
>> > of
>> > social provision. That is not about to change and any redesign of income
>> > support systems we confront will be all about furthering, not limiting,
>> > levels of social inequality. This is a particularly bad time for the
>> > lamb to
>> > accept an invitation from the lion to lie down. Basic Income will be no
>> > panacea and the fight for income adequacy will continue, of necessity,
>> > to
>> > take the form of social mobilization against an agenda of austerity and
>> > regression.
>> >
>> > Social programs that have emerged in capitalist societies, especially
>> > those
>> > devoted to income support, have always been reluctant concessions. Their
>> > design, effectiveness and contradictions have reflected the prevailing
>> > economic and political situation and the balance of class forces in
>> > society.
>> > For decades, we have been fighting a largely defensive struggle to
>> > prevent
>> > the decimation of systems of social provision. We are not in a period
>> > when
>> > bold new redistributive programs are on the drawing board. The Liberals
>> > will
>> > be only too happy if we give up our fight to defend the systems that
>> > have
>> > been won in previous struggles and join them, as ‘stakeholders’ at the
>> > consultative round table. A decade of experience in maintaining an empty
>> > discussion of ‘poverty reduction’ has turned them into experts in such
>> > diversionary tactics. At the end of the process, however, if we allow
>> > them,
>> > they will put in place a version of Basic Income that will give Milton
>> > Friedman very little reason to turn over in his grave.
>> >
>> > John Clarke is an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
>> > (OCAP).
>> >
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>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Click for recent writings:
>> >
>> >
>> > https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwAVbfM6AWJpUmloOEhtUlppSnM/view?usp=sharing
>> >
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Kevin Carson
>> Senior Fellow, Karl Hess Scholar in Social Theory
>> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
>>
>> "You have no authority that we are bound to respect" -- John Perry Barlow
>> "We are legion. We never forgive. We never forget. Expect us" -- Anonymous
>>
>> Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
>> http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
>> Desktop Regulatory State http://desktopregulatorystate.wordpress.com
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>
>
>
>
> --
> Click for recent writings:
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwAVbfM6AWJpUmloOEhtUlppSnM/view?usp=sharing

-- 
Kevin Carson
Senior Fellow, Karl Hess Scholar in Social Theory
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org

"You have no authority that we are bound to respect" -- John Perry Barlow
"We are legion. We never forgive. We never forget. Expect us" -- Anonymous

Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Desktop Regulatory State http://desktopregulatorystate.wordpress.com