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For, against, and who needs it: we understand how an unconditional basic income works, how viable this idea is, and what alternatives there are
“Basic income is income paid by the political community to all its members on an individual basis, without means test and without job performance requirements,” says the Belgian philosopher Philippe van Parijs, one of the most famous researchers and apologists for universal basic income (BBI). ), thus formulates the main idea of this project.
Sometimes another requirement is added to this definition – such income must be sufficient so that the person is no longer in danger of poverty. In general, the PBI differs from other social transfers in that such income is provided to every member of the political community, regardless of his personal income, social status, age, place of work, etc.
Despite the temptation of such a measure of universal support, heated discussions around it have been going on for more than half a century, drawing in more and more new adherents of this idea and more and more new opponents. Experiments that would show exactly how basic income affects the economy and society on a countrywide scale have not been, and are not. But local research “in the field” continues, and the flow of new academic and popular science publications does not dry out.
For example, at the end of August, Germany launched another long-term experiment to introduce an unconditional basic income, which will be overseen by several institutions. For this, a group of 120 Germans was formed, each of which will receive €1,2 thousand per month. The purpose of the experiment is not only to determine the economic and social behavior of a person who receives money “just like that”, but also his physical and psychological state.
Prior to this, as part of the program to overcome the economic consequences of the pandemic, the introduction of a basic income was announced by the Spanish Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escriva. True, strictly speaking, these payments cannot be called basic – only families will fall within the radius of deductions.
What the proponents of an unconditional basic income say
“The money you possess is an instrument of freedom; the money you are chasing is an instrument of slavery, ”Jean Jacques Rousseau noted in his Confession. In a sense, this capacious phrase contains the main argument of all supporters of an unconditional basic income: if such minimum payments are provided to everyone, then a person will become freer, and society will become more just.
Today this idea is discussed in the light of two global considerations. One side, digitalization of the economy and robotization of production are fraught with an uncontrolled increase in unemployment. The introduction of a basic income will avoid a sharp rise in poverty and smooth out other crisis phenomena of the coming socio-economic restructuring.
Philip van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborcht in their fundamental research “Basic Income. A Radical Project for a Free Society and a Healthy Economy” directly states that projects similar to the UBI have already been introduced in European countries and each time precisely in order to solve the problems associated with excess labor.
For example, as scientists note, in the middle of the XNUMXth century, when the process of economic restructuring from feudalism to capitalism began in Europe, thousands of people were left without work. Former social ties and traditional mechanisms of mutual assistance began to crumble along with a new stage of rapid urbanization. As a result, late medieval cities were flooded with beggars who could not be fed either by church organizations or by local private benefactors. The city authorities had to intervene, which temporarily introduced measures of monetary or other assistance to the poor on a regular and gratuitous basis.
On the other hand, talking about basic income is linked to a more complex problem of our time, namely the growth of economic inequalityaccompanied by falling middle-class incomes, markedly slower global economic growth, and an aging population.
In particular, as Guy Standing, author of Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen, notes, in the modern world, wages – that is, income that a person receives in exchange for real work – if it grows, then very slowly . At the same time, incomes generated through non-work activities – for example, through rent, intellectual property, financial assets – are growing at an ever faster pace. This disproportion is what fuels the growth of inequality.
Roughly speaking, while some, working “by the sweat of their brow”, are doomed to be at approximately the same level of income, others, having passive income, receive a peculiar and not alienable “head start”, due to which they increase their well-being. In these conditions unconditional income should at least partially offset this inequalityby providing such a notional monthly accrual to each person.
In general, all the arguments of the BBB apologists boil down to the following postulates:
- humanity will again begin to move towards social justice and economic growth;
- get more freedom from exploitation by family members, employers, officials, and hence a greater freedom for – self-development, self-education, interesting business, and so on;
- will be able to provide all members of society with basic economic security, which will lead to deepening moral integration into society.
In global terms, the minimum payments to citizens from the government is also a necessary measure in the face of a new “post-labor society”, where the process itself and the value of labor will change due to technological development, which means that the whole system of remuneration will not avoid correction.
Here is what Philip van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborcht write about this:
“It is most likely not accidental that gradually people abandoned the morality that ruthlessly stigmatized sexual relations before marriage, outside marriage, as well as homosexual relations and sought to limit sexual satisfaction to those who are ready to participate in social reproduction: this happened as progress in the field of hygiene and medicine has created more than sufficient reproductive potential of the population. In the same way, shouldn’t the morality that criminalizes anyone who earns income without doing work, if technological progress creates more than sufficient labor potential for the [working minority] population, should not be abandoned?
Of course, such insights are more reminiscent of the utopian fanaticism of dreamers than calm analytics, but they well show the fundamental logic of UBI supporters: in the limit, these payments should become a prologue to rethinking the value of labor as such.
What the opponents of an unconditional basic income say
Skeptics of an unconditional basic income challenge the possibility of such a measure conditionally on three levels:
If we talk about the UBI from the point of view of the economy, then the main thing that this project rests on is the boring, but completely intractable question of “who will pay for it.” A variety of calculations made by economists in recent years give simply astronomical figures.
For example, in our country the size of the minimum consumer basket today is 11,2 thousand rubles. per month. Suppose this is the same base amount for a hypothetical unconditional income, which, therefore, needs to be multiplied by 147 million citizens of our country, and then by 12 months. It turns out that the annual amount covering the payments on unconditional income will be 19,756 trillion rubles. At the same time, the expenditure part of the Russian budget, drawn up for 2020, is 19,503 trillion rubles.
Moreover, if we talk about countries with a much lower income level, the annual amount required for UBB will exceed the volume of everything produced in the country. For example, the IMF estimates that for Liberia, introducing a basic income would cost the government as much as twice their annual GDP.
Indicative in this sense were the experiments carried out in Mongolia and Iran. For the first country where something similar to the UBI was introduced due to the universalization of child benefits, this experiment ended with a significant increase in public debt and a drop in the size of the payments themselves – from $89 per month to $7-17. In Iran, where 92% of the country’s population received about $400 a month for a household for five years, the experiment ended in a noticeable deterioration in the macroeconomic situation, which froze the indexation of payments and led to the curtailment of the entire project.
Of course, against this background, a variety of ways to partially repay the costs of UBI payments are being discussed. For example, by raising taxes and optimizing government spending, or by reducing funding for existing social programs. However, even such measures are unlikely to cover all costs.
In 2016, The Economist calculated how much UBI the government could set if it cut all social benefits except for those assigned for health reasons. In this scenario, Mexico will be able to pay each citizen only $75 per month, and Denmark $900.
Apart from simple economic considerations, it is clear that the introduction of a single basic income for all may not only not make a person more free, but, on the contrary, will immensely increase his dependence on the state. Not to mention the enormous political and social risks that the curtailment of such a program is fraught with – due to an economic crisis, a natural disaster or a military clash.
The very moral basis of the idea of an unconditional basic income raises questions. Many people think that giving money for nothing is like pouring fuel on the fire of dependency, with all the ensuing consequences. James Heckman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, noted in an interview that it is already clear how communities living on benefits not only do not try to get out of poverty and get involved in crime, but also form a conditional ghetto that blocks such an opportunity even for their children.
Finally, opponents point out that a basic income is contrary to the norms of natural morality. As Rostislav Kapelyushnikov, Deputy Director of the Center for Labor Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, noted during the presentation of a book on BMI at the Higher School of Economics: “From the point of view of natural morality, a healthy, able-bodied person should not live at the expense of others. And rich and super-rich people should not receive money from the state in any form.”
Basic income as a political project
At the moment, the consensus that moderate supporters and opponents of the UBI have been able to achieve is that it will not be possible to introduce such payments on a global scale, even in the long term. The centuries-old dream will remain unfulfilled. On the other hand, some of the mechanisms of this idea can be used to improve the existing social programs, or they can be applied pointwise – with an eye on certain segments of the population.
“Today, in the most developed European countries, the practice of combining traditional instruments of social policy of the XNUMXth century, such as social insurance and social assistance, with the expansion of social services for the population, creating the opportunity for people to remain employed in different life situations, is gaining popularity. And in addition to all this, use programs minimum guaranteed income, — says Oksana Sinyavskaya, Deputy Director of the Institute for Social Policy at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. — These are payments that are addressed to people with income below a certain line established by the state. And they are the greater, the more the income is missing up to this threshold.
In addition, according to Oksana Sinyavskaya, countries rich in natural resources can partially introduce minimum payments through the distribution of a fixed percentage of export earnings. Something similar already exists, for example, in Alaska, where since 1982 the Permanent Fund has provided annual dividends to each local resident through a sliding hydrocarbon rent. By the way, such a tool could be useful for overcoming poverty in a number of Russian regions.
In this case, the very raising of the issue of introducing an unconditional basic income de facto signals the accumulated dissatisfaction with growing social injustice, which is also taking place against the backdrop of the widespread collapse of the welfare state. And this means that the idea of an unconditional basic income will inevitably turn into a political project.
“You have to understand that the whole discussion around the UBB is quite strongly ideologized and politicized, – says Oleg Buklemishev, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov. “Therefore, one can carefully weigh all the pros and cons of this idea for a long time and think about what sources of income can be found for it or what will happen to a person’s work motivation. But in the light of the trends of recent years, it becomes clear that the final decision will still remain with the politicians.”
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