A Basic Income (BI) is a simple idea: a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement (BIEN, 2018). Scholars, activists and politicians are increasingly becoming aware of the radical potential a BI could have to societies around the world: from economic security, fairer wealth distribution, justice and poverty eradication through to degrowth and gender equality (Ackermann & Alstott, 2006; Altman, 2016; Atkinson, 2014; Davala, Jhbvala, Mehta, & Standing, 2015; Standing, 2014; Weeks, 2011). The idea of a BI is also gaining attention in Australia, and while there has been speculation as to how it could work in Australia, a thorough analysis of pathways forward is missing. Within the pages of this book, we present the works of intellectuals considering issues of BI implementation in Australia.
These chapters are the culmination of a two-day workshop supported by the Academy of Social Sciences at the University of Melbourne in August 2017. In attendance were academics, political organisers, economists, writers, union and welfare-provider representatives, students and other interested observers, all considering issues of implementing a BI in Australia. This workshop was convened at a time when the operationalisation of BI into trials, pilots and poverty-alleviation programmes was underway in different jurisdictions, including Namibia, India, Kenya, and even parts of Europe and North America. These trials vary in scope and length, but are largely concerned with poverty reduction, workforce participation, and, in the case of the India pilot, women’s empowerment and reducing household debt. The discussion in these pages, therefore, should be seen as contribution to this worldwide investigation into the efficacy of a BI.
We use the term BI in this collection to refer to various possible models discussed by authors of the following chapters. Most prominently featured in this collection is the Universal Basic Income (UBI), which is paid regularly, unconditionally to everyone. Some chapters also discuss a Negative Income Tax where people earning below a certain amount receive an income supplement, and a Social Dividend, which is a regular dividend paid to residents from publicly generated wealth (the Alaska Permanent Fund is a commonly cited example of this). There is overlap between these models, especially when it comes to questions of implementation, and those issues are addressed by the contributors within.
Why a Basic Income?
Various arguments are put forward as to why a BI should be considered. As work is becoming increasingly insecure and the future of work uncertain, BI is presented as a much-needed alternative; something that goes beyond the usual understanding of the “ safety net” associated with post-World War II welfare states. For those in paid work, a BI gives an unconditional economic base that improves workers’ bargaining power (Gorz, 1999). A BI means if people want to withdraw or suspend their labour from exploitative or oppressive conditions, they can do so without the fear of destitution (Weeks, 2011). This is important as the GIG economy, labour precarity, and attacks on collectively mobilised labour and unions are increasing. BI gives people the freedom to say no and to get a better deal for their labour. In this way, individual security reinforces the ability of people to act collectively within the labour market. BI is thus enough to keep people’s heads above water in times of increasing job and wage insecurity or to see them through a period of trying a new idea and being innovative. The idea is that individuals with formal employment would still be able to work, because there would be none of the means testing that leads to high marginal tax rates and poverty traps (Davala et al., 2015; Van Parijs, 2006). People with a BI get their subsistence wage and they are also able to choose to continue to work.
Some critics of BI have argued it disincentivises work. But a BI of $15,000 or $20,000 a year is unlikely to lead a mass exodus from the labour force in Australia, a conclusion supported by international trials conducted over many years. For instance, Negative Income Tax trials in North America in the 1960s and 1970s showed only a small decrease in labour market supply (Henderson, 2017). What’s more, the people who delayed returning to work tended to be women re-entering the workforce after having children, or young people staying longer in education (Forget, 2011; Widerquist, 2013). The fixation on how a BI will affect labour market demand is short sighted, in part because the availability of formal and dignified employment is dramatically eroding, and there simply aren’t enough secure and dignified jobs for everyone. We are also living through a period where wages are decoupled from productivity increases, and so traditional presumptions about employment being a guarantee of a sustainable income are being rendered unsafe. Under such circumstances, BI can help workers sustain themselves as technological unemployment increases or technology otherwise changes the nature of the labour market. So while some predictions of technological unemployment are exaggerated, advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning mean more jobs than ever—specifically, cognitive, white collar work—are susceptible to automation in a way never previously considered possible (Dunlop, 2016).
Importantly, a BI can also be understood as a mechanism that values the work of non-paid productive labour—a burden for the most part shouldered by women and Indigenous people, particularly Indigenous people living on country. Interestingly, an iteration of a BI proved successful for Indigenous peoples under the recently and unadvisedly axed Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP). Jon Altman (2016) documented how CDEP as a BI supported productive labour on country in remote Australia while providing economic security for populations without a formal labour market. Since the axing of CDEP, these populations have fallen further into poverty (Markham & Biddle, 2018; Markham and Altman, in this issue). A BI can be seen as a way of decommodifying labour where economic security is given regardless. This radical shift has the potential of underpinning the complete redefining of what work means, to include all forms of productive labour (Fouksman & Klein, 2017; Weeks, 2011).
A BI has also been discussed as a mechanism for promoting ecological and intergenerational justice (Marston, 2016). The ecological argument is an important one as, on a broader scale, transitioning to a low-carbon, slow-growth economy is not a small matter of a technical fix and a policy prescription to get economic incentives right within a capitalist structure. Instead it is a transformation of the whole patterns of social life in terms of work, family, transport, community, food, housing and leisure (Marston, 2016). The economic rights gained through a BI could give people the freedom to innovate towards this paradigmatic shift as economic rights are not just about the distribution of wealth but also about the distribution of time and opportunities. A BI could allow for human freedom in its fullest sense: to explore, create and connect with each other and our ecological surroundings, while not being tied to an endless drive for profit and economic growth.
BI has resonance across the political spectrum, though we should be cautious about how we interpret such apparent agreement. Neoliberal advocate Milton Friedman proposed a BI-like model that aimed to replace the welfare state with a voucher system so people could purchase services such as education and healthcare in commercial markets. But this view of BI is deeply commodifying and there is no guarantee that a subsistence wage would cover the cost of items like medical treatment and education priced by market mechanisms. Consequently, left and centrist BI advocates argue strongly that the BI should never replace, but only complement other social programmes such as healthcare, education, housing and disability support. The neoliberal model also fails to engage with notions of unfreedom inherent in capitalism—something also overlooked in the proposals coming from Silicon Valley elites and other free market proponents of what they call BI (Fouksman & Klein, 2017). As the neoliberal model prioritises the market as the primary means of redistribution, wealth concentrates in the hands of the few and thus overrides any sense of a more equitable distribution that recognises the way in which wealth has been socially generated. Instead, a BI that operates with other social programmes, and through the tax system, has the potential to be a radical redistributive mechanism—one that works to redistribute wealth, so all can enjoy economic security as a basic human right.
BI secures economic citizenship and, in doing so, creates freedom for all peoples within a society—freedom from exploitation and rising economic insecurity, and freedom to live a life people value. A BI can go beyond just a mere grant, and be a social dividend from wealth collectively created, what James Ferguson (2015) calls a “rightful share,” or others—a “social dividend” (see Standing, 2017). A rightful share or social dividend understands that wealth in society is to a large extent socially generated and, as such, all residents have a right to share in that wealth. That is to say, no single person or corporation is successful without access to a broad range of factors such as our common investment in physical infrastructure, education, healthcare, the judicial system and the rule of law, systems and institutions that have developed over generations and been paid for by the people in general. Therefore, the framing of a BI in Australia should be about a human right in which BI is an inheritance, rather than a mere grant to be bestowed on residents.
Nonetheless, a BI isn’t a silver bullet. It is not a panacea and needs to work in conjunction with many other important measures, and many of these are taken up by the authors of chapters in this collection.
Basic Income in Australia
Support for BI is experiencing a resurgence in Australia, in part due to the growing economic inequalities, widening poverty and changes in the labour market. The resurgence follows the 1975 Henderson Poverty Report by the Commission of Inquiry into Poverty. The report was overseen by Ronald Henderson and was ground breaking in drawing attention to the extent of poverty and the inadequacy of income levels of many Australians. To illustrate the extent of p...