PEF_Piloting_Basic_Income_Guy_Standing.pdf

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Basic Income as Common
Dividends: Piloting a
Transformative Policy
A Report for the
Shadow Chancellor
of the Exchequer
Guy Standing
This is a report presented to the Shadow Chancellor, and the views are solely
those of the author and should not be attributed to the Labour Party or to the
Shadow Chancellor.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Defining Basic Income
3. Why is Basic Income needed?
4. What are the objections?
5. What could be shown by pilots?
6. What should be piloted?
7. How should pilots be designed?
8. Where should pilots be conducted?
9. Concluding reflections and recommendations
Appendix A: Experience with pilots so far
Appendix B: Why a Job Guarantee would be no alternative
References
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Acknowledgements
This report draws on the support and advice of many people, and has involved
presentations and discussions around the country, as well as extensive discussion
online and via email. While the author is entirely responsible for the report, he
would like to thank the following in particular: Patrick Allen, Jamie Cooke,
Sebastian Corbyn, Geoff Crocker, Marcia Gibson, Louise Haagh, Max Harris, Mark
Harrison, Barb Jacobson, Elliott Johnson, Matthew Johnson, Becca Kirkpatrick,
Stewart Lansley, Neal Lawson, Rory Macqueen, James Meadway, Annie Miller,
Kweku Amonoo-Quyst, Anthony Painter, Mary Partington, Howard Reed, Mary
Robertson, Malcolm Torry, Paul Vaughan, Karen Webber, Alan Wheatley, Frances
Williams and Charlie Young. Special thanks are due to Anthony Painter and
Malcolm Torry who read and commented on the draft report.
He would also like to thank the organisers for meetings in Belfast, Biddulph (Stoke),
Birmingham, Brighton, Cambridge, Coventry, Dunfermline, Glasgow, Hull, Keele,
Lewes, London, Sheffield and York, and audiences at the Hay Festival.
Special thanks are due to Patrick Allen and the Progressive Economy Forum, which
provided financial assistance.
Guy Standing is Professorial Research Associate, SOAS University of London, co-
founder and now honorary co-president of BIEN (Basic Income Earth Network),
and a council member of the Progressive Economy Forum.
Foreword
Patrick Allen, Chair of the Progressive Economy Forum
I am delighted on behalf of the Progressive Economy Forum to have supported the
preparation and launch of this report into piloting basic income for John McDonnell,
the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Our system of social security is in crisis and has moved far from the scheme devised
by William Beveridge, which was intended to banish want forever and provide security
from cradle to grave.
Since 2010, social security has been subjected to significant cuts and a massive
redesign, of which Universal Credit is the latest example. Many benefit rates have been
frozen while tax allowances are regularly uprated for inflation. Conditions and
sanctions are imposed routinely on vulnerable people leaving them with no means of
support or money to buy food and ineffective rights of appeal. These draconian and
intrusive measures have led to stress, hunger, evictions and suicide. Food banks, which
scarcely existed before 2010, are now to be found in every major town and city.
There has to be a better way and as the fifth largest economy in the world we can
clearly afford to do better. No one in this country should be so poor that they cannot
afford to buy food for themselves and their children. No one should be subjected to
capricious sanctions that summarily take away all means of support for weeks or
months at a time.
Guy Standing has promoted the concept of basic income for many years and is a world
authority on the subject. Basic income has been the subject of much debate. This paper
deals comprehensively with the common objections but importantly moves the debate
on to the question of pilot schemes, how to design them and where they should be
carried out.
An effective pilot has the ability to demonstrate the strengths or short comings of a
basic income scheme. Pilots have been tried in many countries – recently Finland and
the Netherlands. Now it is our turn and I hope that the next progressive government
will make it a priority to design and implement a pilot. Something must be done to
reform our social security system to provide security to all our citizens and basic
income could be the way to do it. If it helps to abolish sanctions and render food banks
unnecessary that alone would a major achievement. But much more than this is at
stake. By providing our citizens with security for their basic needs of a home,
subsistence and health we lay the foundations for a prosperous and sustainable
economy for the benefit of all.
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Piloting Basic Income as Common Dividends
A Report for the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
Introduction
What is basic income? At its core, it would be a modest regular payment to each
individual to help them feel more secure and able to purchase necessities for living.
There is nothing in the concept itself to say how much it should be and nothing to say
it should be paid instead of any other policy or that it should be financed by a steep
rise in income tax, although obviously the funds would have to come from
somewhere.
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Of course, at some stage an advocate has to say how much should be
paid, why it is desirable and even necessary, what are the answers to commonly-stated
objections, and how it could be afforded. Answering these points is one objective of
this report and the background research that preceded it.
There are many reasons for wanting a basic income system, some uniquely modern,
some that stem from way back in our history, first enunciated in
The Charter of the
Forest
of 1217, one of the two foundational documents of the British Constitution, the
other being the Magna Carta, sealed on the same day. The Charter asserted that
everybody had a
right of subsistence,
realisable in and through the commons. This is a
human or citizenship right, not something dependent on specific behaviour or some
indicator of merit-worthiness.
The primary justifications for a basic income are ethical or moral, not instrumental. It
is first and foremost a matter of
social justice.
The wealth and income of all of us are
far more due to the efforts and achievements of the many generations who came
before us than to what we do ourselves, and if we accept the practice of private
inheritance, as all governments have done, giving a lot of ‘something for nothing’ to a
minority, then we should honour the principle of
social inheritance.
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