Neil Wilson — The basic income means that you are requiring somebody else to use up their finite lifespan to…

The basic income means that you are requiring somebody else to use up their finite lifespan to produce output, take it from them by force and give it to somebody who *refuses* to contribute to the production process. There is no value exchange, only theft. That is no different to the process the idle rich use today — and are rightly resented for it.

So you have to justify, politically, why society should support people *for their entire life* who simply refuse to contribute when they clearly can. Good luck with that one....

Anything else is working tax credits, disability pensions, old age pensions, or child benefit. The Job Guarantee replaces them all with a simple demand: you are required to work for the wage unless exempted by age or infirmity. If you are exempted then you still get the supporting income — which neatly covers sickness, disability, old-age, child benefits....

In my view, the next step is recognizing that the attempted market state is not working and cannot be made to work by trying to impose the conditions necessary for it. That is the basis of a political ideology, rather than application of scientific method — as is often advertised either through ignorance or disingenuously.

The need is for a reinvigoration of a well-functioning welfare state that considers good comprehensively, defining good in terms of positive values versus negative values. Norms are cultural, and such decisions should be taken politically in democratic environments such as democratic republics and participatory democracies. At present there are as yet no large scale participatory democracies but technological innovation is making that possible.

Past attempts at creating sustainable welfare states have not been entirely satisfactory for various reasons. A basic income is unlikely to be successful in doing so for the many reasons that critics have set forth. In summary the issues are not chiefly monetary, but real.

My recommendation is to institute a non-monetary social dividend based on provision of social goods in terms of distribution of and access to the available real resources of a society, along with a job guarantee that guarantees paid work including benefits for all willing and able to work. Obviously, the pay is a monetary benefit. But this is tied to work as a productive social contribution unless a person is unable to make a productive social contribution in the context of a job. However, monetary contributions such as stipends for students and pensions for retirees would also be part of the "fair deal," positioned between work as non-monetary aspects of the social dividend like universal access to quality health care.

The social dividend would cover social goods like education, health care, R&D, and infrastructure, including continuously state of the art universal broadband access, for one thing. The proportion of available real resources committed to public use instead of private use is a political decision to be arrived at democratically in different jurisdictions. 

I would not include a universal monetary disbursement in a social dividend, but rather restrict the social dividend to distribution of available real resources for social benefit. This is the basis for a welfare state committed to the common good and general welfare that is not achieved in a market state, since markets behavior based on accumulation of private property is not concerned with provision of social goods.

I would begin with the enduring question, what does it mean to live a good life as an individual in a good society, recognizing that the micro, meso and macro levels are aspects of a system in which each affects all. Interdependence in a networked environment implies that causation is cross-level in all directions with varying degrees of effect. Therefore, a systems approach encompassing an institutional approach is required.

Neil Wilson
The basic income means that you are requiring somebody else to use up their finite lifespan to…
Neil Wilson