U.B.I. (Again)

Two councils, Fife and Glasgow, are investigating idea of offering everyone a fixed income regardless of earnings. Scotland looks set to be the first part of the UK to pilot a basic income for every citizen, as councils in Fife and Glasgow investigate trial schemes in 2017.

 The concept of a universal basic income revolves around the idea of offering every individual, regardless of existing welfare benefits or earned income, a non-conditional flat-rate payment, with any income earned above that taxed progressively.

 The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has suggested that it is likely to appear in his party’s next manifesto, while there has been a groundswell of interest among anti-poverty groups who see it as a means of changing not only the relationship between people and the state, but between workers and increasingly insecure employment in the gig economy.

This idea is an old one it was the first Muslim caliph, Abu Bakr (573-634 CE), who introduced a guaranteed minimum standard of income, granting each man, woman, and child ten dirhams annually; this was later increased to twenty dirhams.

 Thomas Paine advocated a citizen's dividend to all US citizens as compensation for "loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property" (Agrarian Justice, 1795).

 Napoleon Bonaparte echoed Paine's sentiments and commented that 'man is entitled by birthright to a share of the Earth's produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence'.

In recent years it has always been localised trials or feasability studies which the media then blow up into a major story. 

 If the UBI is introduced it will be in the form that is acceptable to the ruling class and for the purpose of mitigating the cost of the up-keep of the increasing and unavoidable numbers of casualties of the class war, automation being one field of battle. The capitalists and their State need us to be impoverished, indebted and enslaved. Would a basic income remove this or just create a new form of dependency? 

 Any UBI will always be framed within the tight parameters that capitalism will permit a reform which will only be passed if it fits in with the agenda of the employing class, will have sufficient built-in constraints  that it will fail to satisfy the expectations and hopes of our fellow workers.

 In the recent Swiss referendum on the issue for a proposed Basic Income referendum the pro campaign literature said that, with the introduction of Basic Income, wages would be reduced by its amount:

“Wages are going to adapt themselves to become a complement to Basic Income. For example with a Basic Income of 2500 Swiss Francs, someone who at present gets 8000 Swiss francs from his employer will not get more than 5500 or so wages which will come to be added to his Basic Income.”

 So, anyone with a wage above the poverty line is not going to be better off: their income will be exactly the same, with instead of it all being paid by the employer, a part will be paid by the State and a part by the employer. It would lead to a massive downward pressure on wages. In fact, it's part of the scheme. They have openly and explicitly said that their scheme involves a wage reduction for all workers above the poverty line even if their total income is to remain the same, i.e. will make no financial difference to the vast majority of workers.

The Swiss voters rejected this proposal.

  What UBI proposes is a reform of the welfare system that would benefit only those on benefits, allowing them to receive these as of right without means testing or the obligation to try to find work. For many supporters, it only makes sense that the budget for UBI would come from cannibalising existing welfare.

 UBI would not exist as an add-on benefit. The logic is to shut down housing benefit and the rest and replace them with a single cheque. The welfare system can finally be eliminated.  Nice if you could get it but hardly likely as long as capitalism lasts.