UK Poverty Post

Citizen’s income: an idea whose time has come? (part one)

Introduction

For well over a century, there has been a persistent call for a citizen’s income. Alternatively known as a basic income, social wage, social dividend, social credit, guaranteed income, citizen’s wage, citizenship income, existence income or universal grant, this would provide every citizen with a basic ‘wage’ as a social entitlement without means test or work requirement. Eligibility would be automatic for all citizens and unconditional. There would be no tests of willingness to work.

With this minimum income guarantee in hand, individuals could then choose to improve their well-being by engaging in employment so as to earn additional money in order to purchase goods and services, or they could instead choose to invest their time in self-provisioning of those goods and services, or helping others. This would then give individuals and groups increased resources for taking charge of their own lives, further power over their way of life and living conditions. If implemented, that is, it would be no longer solely be the labour market that integrated people into society but also this scheme that would potentially offer limited material security, esteem and identity.

For proponents of a livelihoods approach that says there are alternative ways of securing a livelihood beyond engaging in formal employment, citizen’s income offers a means of not only recognising but also rewarding citizens for engaging in work beyond employment, such as caring for young children, volunteering, community engagement and self-provisioning of goods and services.

Citizen’s income: origins and debates

What are the origins of this proposal? The idea of providing a citizen’s income can be traced to Tom Paine, Saint-Simon, Bertrand and Dora Russell, and Major CH Douglas amongst others (Van Trier, 1995). More recently, it has been advocated by a wide range of economists (e.g., Atkinson, 1995, 1998; Desai, 1998), political philosophers (Van Parijs, 1995, 2000a,b) and social policy commentators (Jordan, 1998) of all political persuasions. Among the main advantages claimed for such a basic income scheme are:

• It is neutral between paid and unpaid work, giving better incentives for low-paid employment than tax credits, but allowing choice over how to combine the two;
• It treats men and women as equals, allowing them to negotiate how to share unpaid work in households;
• It combats exploitation, by allowing individuals to survive without relying on dangerous or demeaning work;
• It promotes economic efficiency, by ensuring that low-paid work is not given a special subsidy (as in tax credits) and hence labour power is not wastefully deployed, and
• It promotes social justice, by treating all individuals alike, and giving extra income only to those with special care needs.

Even amongst advocates of a basic income, however, it is perhaps now accepted that a fully individualised and unconditional basic income could not be introduced in one operation, not least because it would upset the current distribution of incomes and labour supply. Instead, and particularly for the working age population, the growing consensus seems to be that one should not proceed by cohorts or by categories, but start with a very modest (partial) basic income that would not be a full substitute for existing guaranteed minimum income provisions (Desai, 1998; Jordan et al, 2000; Parker and Sutherland, 1998).

Whatever the costs of a basic income scheme, this solution, although necessary, is perhaps by itself insufficient if the desire is to help people to pursue a more diverse range of strategies to secure their livelihood beyond simply entering formal jobs. To enable this to happen, such a citizen’s income scheme needs to be coupled with initiatives to facilitate participation in other forms of work. As Gough (2000: 27) argues,

‘It is not enough to pay citizens a minimum income without enabling them to participate in socially significant activities, including paid and unpaid work… All persons who can, should have the right – and the duty – to contribute in some way to the common wealth.’

Lipietz (1992: 99) similarly argues that a universal basic allowance ‘would be acceptable only if it meant that those who received it were prepared to show their solidarity with society, which is paying them’. The crucial issue confronting citizen’s income, to borrow a well worn phrase, is that ‘there are no rights without responsibilities’. Elson (1988: 29) puts this well,

‘Alongside the right to a grant should be the duty, on the part of able-bodied adults, of undertaking some unpaid household work of caring and providing for those who are unable to take care of themselves. Persons already undertaking care of a young or sick or handicapped person would be exempt.’

There is thus a groundswell of opinion that a citizen’s income needs to be tied to some form of active citizenship. Atkinson (1998), for example, argues for a ‘participation income’ and Lipietz (1995) for a new sector engaged in socially useful activity and comprised of 10 per cent of the labour force (the unemployment rate at the time he was writing). The idea, therefore, is to tie a basic income scheme to some form of participation in society. Advocates of an unconditional basic income, however, argue against such an approach (e.g., Gorz, 1999; Jordan, 1998; Jordan and Jordan, 2000). For them, the result will be new forms of compulsion akin to workfare such as compulsory work in the third sector (e.g., Elson, 1988; Offe, 1995; Rifkin, 1996).

This, however, does not necessarily follow. It is wholly possible to create what have been variously called ‘passports to participation’, ‘participation incomes’ or forms of ‘community service employment’ (Williams and Windebank, 2003) that provide basic incomes for active citizenship in a way that avoids compulsion. Tomorrow, we will look at some variants of a citizen’s income which attempt to do this, with varying degrees of success.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oxfam GB.