Ontario’s ‘Universal Basic Income’ (UBI).

[Anonymous]

The Canadian province of Ontario is intending to test a ‘Universal Basic Income’ for all citizens:

http://www.thecanary.co/2016/03/10/tories-just-received-sharp-lesson-economics-canada/

According to the article:

"The Canadian province of Ontario just announced that it will be the first region of the country to test a ‘Universal Basic Income’ (UBI). The recently elected progressive Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is leaving David Cameron and the Tories in the past.

UBI is an unconditional pay packet for everyone in the country. It replaces all existing benefits and is granted to people no matter their job, wealth or circumstance. It will not make you rich, but provide you with the means to survive."

Do you think such a basic income for all employees would lead to employers lowering the wages they pay?

I guess this could be a simpler way of insuring the masses are kept away from being so destitute they are likely to riot?

This quote from the article is also interesting:

"A new study from The Bank of America Merrill Lynch, reports that within just 20 years up to 35% of UK jobs and 47% of those in the US are at risk of being replaced by machines. This is incompatible with our current relationship to work. It would lead to mass unemployment and destitution."

If this study is correct, surely the capitalists will be forced to do something, to stave off rebellion…………

[ALB]

Meel wrote:

Do you think such a basic income for all employees would lead to employers lowering the wages they pay?

Yes, of course, though this would more probably take the form of wages rising less than inflation, i.e less than they otherwise would, rather than an outright cut in money-wages.There's more on this on the other, long-running thread here on this reformist proposal:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/left-and-right-unite-ubi-fight

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the link – I hadn' seen the thread.I am in agreement with your analysis.Do you agree with the article's bleak outlook on employment levels in the near future?

[ALB]

Not really. We've heard these predictions of growing mass unemployment before but they've not materialised. There was an article in last month's Socialist Standard that touched on this:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2016/no-1338-february-2016/cooking-books-who-owns-machinesIn particular this passage:

Quote:

How likely anyway is the first scenario of growing mass unemployment? This has been predicted many times but has never actually come about. Production and employment have continued to expand over time, even if in fits and starts. The growth in productivity resulting from mechanisation is not as fast as is often thought, only of the order of 1 to 2 percent a year; which is slow enough to allow the labour displaced to be reabsorbed in other activities (including machine building).Also, if increasing mechanisation were to lead to steadily growing unemployment this would have the effect of slowing down the introduction of machines. The mass unemployment would exert a strong downward pressure on wages and make it profitable for the machine-owners to employ workers rather than machines.A minor example was reported in the Times (14 December):‘Garage owners said that the number of car-washing machines has more than halved in the past 15 years because they are struggling to compete with migrants doing the job by hand…. [T]he number of automated “rollover” car washes in Britain has more than halved, from about 9,000 to less than 4,200 in 2015. It is estimated that the number of dedicated handwashing sites has ballooned from 4,000 to at least 20,000 over the same 15-year period.’So, while the effect of mechanisation under capitalism might not be as bad as some predict, the full benefits of it will not be able to be enjoyed until the machines are owned in common by society as a whole. Then, and only, then will they be able to be used to turn out plenty for all, to be distributed in accordance with the principle of ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’.

.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I can see the argument.And yes, I have certainly seen a lot of cars being washed by hand, by companies operating out of car parks, etc.

[alanjjohnstone]

The citizens wage comes to New Zealand ?http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/new-zealand-plan-to-give-everyone-a-citizens-wage-and-scrap-benefits-a6932136.html

[alanjjohnstone]

 A citizens wage for Scotland http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/universal-basic-income-snp-scotland-independent-conference-vote-a6931846.html 

Quote:

SNP members agreed a motion stating that “conference believes that a basic or universal income can potentially provide a foundation to eradicate poverty, make work pay and ensure all our citizens can live in dignity”. The motion called for more research into the impact of the policy, which would unconditionally give all citizens an income from the state. Members also agreed that a basic income should be considered as a possibility when designing the welfare state of an independent Scotland. The motion comes after around two SNP dozen MPs backed a call for a feasibility study into the policy.

[ALB]

It's long been Greem Party policy. Pie in the sky of course if not a pie crust election promise.

[alanjjohnstone]

Whats noticeable is that since these schemes were first suggested (as far back as the 1930s and the ILP, i believe, but maybe as far back as the Speenhamland system in the middle ages) no country has actually implemented UBI, the citizens wage, nationally.It has always been localised trials or feasability studies which the media then blow up into a major story.  But the fact that it is becoming popularised means we should again feature a critique of it in a more detailed response…perhaps a short pamphlet…or a longer article for our educational files. Over to you, chaps. 

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Whats noticeable is that since these schemes were first suggested (as far back as the 1930s and the ILP, i believe, but maybe as far back as the Speenhamland system in the middle ages) no country has actually implemented UBI, the citizens wage, nationally.

Actually 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'.

[alanjjohnstone]

The head of the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region says she's not sure a guaranteed minimum income program is all its cracked up to be."Employers may decide, 'Well, we don't need good business practices, we don't need to create well-paid positions, we don't need to create secure jobs because people will be taken care of.' "http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/guaranteed-minimum-income-could-be-problematic-warns-poverty-advocate-1.3493805

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