In 1797, Thomas Paine published a pamphlet titled Agrarian Justice, in which he responded to the rampant poverty and financial anguish faced by many people in his time. He asserted that civilized society itself was the cause of poverty; in an uncivilized society without laws or property rights, no one would live in poverty because everyone had access to the common land and resources. In this state of nature, each person “inherited” the ability to provide for themselves using the common land. But in our society with defined property rights, land is held privately by a few individuals -- therefore those without property have no way to provide for themselves, and thus they starve.
Paine did not think that we should return to this uncivilized, state of nature society. He believed that a civilized state with property rights and laws had many advantages -- land could be used more efficiently, creating far more productivity from crops and livestock -- allowing people to spend less time and effort on merely growing food and surviving, and more time pursuing things like technological advancement and art. What Paine wanted was a system that kept the benefits of private property and civilization, while at the same solving the poverty that accompanied it.
His solution, the title and focus of his pamphlet, was what he called Agrarian Justice. He reasoned that, because civil society was what allowed property owners to gain their wealth and prosperity, they owed some payment back to the general public who allowed civil society to exist. Each person was to receive a sum of money equal in value to what they would have been entitled to provide for themselves in the state of nature. This system would free society of the wretchedness of poverty which society itself had created.
Paine’s system of Agrarian Justice was an early defense of what is now commonly known as Universal Basic Income. Universal Basic Income or UBI has become a prominent topic of debate recently. The idea is pretty simple. Every citizen receives a cash payment from the government, every month (or year), no strings attached. In most proposals for UBI, the payments are about $1,000 per month, which amounts to $12,000 a year, or slightly above the poverty line in the U.S. Various plans have been suggested regarding how the government would pay for this, including raising taxes on the super-rich, increasing the budget deficit, or imposing specific taxes such as carbon and land value taxes. Regardless of how they’re funded, the goal of these programs is the same -- create a society where no one lives in extreme poverty.
Despite the program’s simplicity and egalitarian goal, UBI has as many critics as it does advocates. Some worry that if people were given free money, there would be no incentive to work. Research has shown the opposite, in fact. A study published by the Roosevelt Institute found that a Universal Basic Income would not discourage work at all (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/30/16220134/universal-basic-income-roosevelt-institute-economic-growth). And studies on the Alaska Permanent Fund, an already existing UBI program which provides around $1000 to $2000 per year to each resident of Alaska, paid for by taxes on oil reserves, found that the fund actually created a small increase in employment, partially due to previously unemployed people now entering the workforce because the fund enabled them to pay for transportation or childcare (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/13/16997188/alaska-basic-income-permanent-fund-oil-revenue-study).
UBI also would offer a solution to the welfare trap that currently exists in the U.S. Due to income cutoffs for welfare benefits, welfare beneficiaries often find that as they work more and their income increases, they no longer qualify for certain welfare programs, and thus their net income decreases as a result. This makes it harder or even impossible for those in poverty to pull themselves out of poverty. A Universal Basic Income would eliminate this trap -- everyone gets it, so there's no cutoff to worry about.
Regardless of political affiliation, I think most people would agree that systemic poverty is a problem worth finding a sustainable solution to. Personally, I’m intrigued by the solutions to systemic poverty that a UBI system would offer. Currently, many groups are measuring the effectiveness of UBI through small-scale trials, with experiments being run by the Government of Finland on their own citizens, the charity GiveDirectly.org in Kenya, and various other groups in cities around the U.S and Canada. We may soon have an answer to whether we’ve actually found a solution in UBI.
Hi Gabe,
ReplyDeleteGreat Post! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Universal Basic Income is a very interesting and intriguing topic to discuss. I believe that the need for the establishment of Universal Basic Income will become necessary as technology continues to make labor intensive blue collar jobs more obsolete. Structural unemployment will lead to large amounts of people living at or below the poverty line. To Ensure people are able to meet there basic needs of food, water, shelter, and clothes, along with sanitation, education, and healthcare a Universal Basic Income is going to be required. I agree with you in the fact that UBI would not be a major deterrent to working.
Unconditional cash transfer programs operating on a small scale across the world shows great promise. They aim to reduce poverty by giving cash to citizens and letting them have autonomy in how it is spent has. Studies have found that the recipients of the cash donation are less likely to be sick, have improved food security and dietary diversity, or higher attendance. In cases of extreme poverty such as the recipients of Uganda's Youth Opportunities Program improved their income by 41 percent and were 65 percent more likely to work in a skilled trade relative to the comparison groups. Other examples include the GiveDirectly donations in Kenya which studies by Jeremy Shapiro found " increases in income, assets, psychological wellbeing, food consumption, and female empowerment among the extreme poor" who received cash. These Unconditional Cash Transfer programs could be thought of as testing a proof of concept for Universal basic income. For more information on cash transfers check out the Innovations for Poverty Action article on them. Thank you for bring up this interesting topic and I look forward to seeing what others have to say on the topic.
Sincerely,
David Engelmann
http://www.poverty-action.org/impact/cash-transfers-changing-debate-giving-cash-poor
Gabe,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. You spoke about extreme poverty in your charity pitch as well and it seems to be an important issue to you. Extreme poverty is a serious, global issue and the inequality between the richest and the poorest is staggering. I agree that it is a serious issue that we need to tackle but I am not so sure a Universal Basic Income is the best solution. First, any idea that revolves around giving people money to spend however they like makes me hesitant. The success of Give Directly and the studies you mentioned ease those hesitations slightly but I am not sure how these successes would translate to a large scale. My other concern would be how this would be implemented and who would be tasked with controlling the wealth. Would the United Nations control it? Would each country have to appoint a director to run this program? I agree that if this idea was implemented, it could help those suffering from poverty immensely. However, the implementation, especially on a global scale, seems nearly impossible. I'd really be interested in your thoughts on how this idea could be implemented on a large scale. The biggest obstacle with the implentation, in my opinion, is raising the money. The money would most likely be raised through increased taxes, which most people would not support. I think ideas such as Universal Basic Income would begin to solve the extreme poverty crisis. However, I think in today's society, people are too self-interested for those ideas to become reality. I appreciated reading your post and your passion for combating extreme poverty is really inspiring.
Hey Gabe,
ReplyDeleteGood post, though I do have some fundamental issues with Thomas Payne’s interpretation of the human state of nature. The biggest issue is that he had no vision, he did not account for the advancement of the human race. In 1797 humanity was already transitioning out of an agrarian society and for him to theorize a transition from a private to public society where land and resources were all a person would want and need was pretty idiotic. His argument rests upon the thought that civil society exists because we allow it to. My belief is that civil society exists as a byproduct of us living in close proximity of each other. When two or more people interact peacefully, civil society takes root. So his belief that society should compensate us for actively allowing it to take place loses my support. His idea of a universal basic income is a good idea for many reasons but not the ones you described. It could serve as economic and social stimulus. Or as a method of dispersing wealth for all of the reasons people have come up with for that idea. It was a good idea but in my belief his reasoning was misguided.
Dear Gabe,
ReplyDeleteI want to talk about the concept of a universal basic income. I have written an essay about this topic and the more I researched and read about it, the more I became a true supporter.
If we think about it, most of the problems we have identified in the last few weeks (low education, mental illnesses, drug abuse, food insecurity, poor health care coverage etc.) can all be narrowed down to a common fact or circumstance, a poor financial situation.
Abraham Maslow believed that, “We can think of our situation (personal, professional, familial, etc.) in life like we do a pyramid. The lower levels of the structure act as support for the upper levels. The lower levels must be there, and they must be stable, in order for the upper ones to exist."(1)
In order to create true social progress we need to realize that a systematic approach to philanthropy is required. I believe that a universal basic income (and Give Directly's project in Kenya) could be a real starting point in creating this systematic change.
I like the concept of Give Directly because it
I believe that a universal basic income might not be realizable all around the global but it could be a way to alleviate poverty in the poorest regions in the world. I have always believed as a global society, we can only thrive and progress in a sustainable way, if we have a solid middle class.
Now, if we look at the poorest regions in the world, providing a universal basic income (which for the village in Kenya, is as low as $22 per month, per person), allows these people to shift their focus, as well as our own, "from survival and safety to relationships, self-esteem, and accomplishment."(1)
providing people with a long - term monthly income allows Them to find their own way out of economic instability and it could ultimately lead to a situation in which many services that NGOs around the world offer become simply redundant, because people are finally able to provide for themselves.
I hope that more organizations will follow Give Directlys approach and start similar programs in different regions of the world. The more people realize that a universal basic income can be a successful philanthropic approach, the more they might be willing to support this concept.
1: https://medium.com/basic-income/universal-basic-income-the-maslow-argument-d1346fa9a9f2
Dear Gabe,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this post and at times I do support some of Paynes ideas. The topic of universal basic income is one that I have had an interest in evaluating in the past due to the increasing need to lose the gap of poverty and provide aid to the extreme poor.
This being said there are some concerns for the implementation of a UBI into today's society, specifically in America. Logistically there would be a great deal of difficulty using a democratic approach to such a drastic change in policy in the country. As a UBI would indeed benefit those in extreme poverty and be a feat of philanthropy, it would have more of an economic impact than anything else in a the worlds most capitalistic nation. Many in legislation might start to claim that we are moving towards Communism, especially when it is put on the tab of those with the money and power in the nation. Furthermore a problem with who would receive the money would be a large immigration vs nationalism issue, as we have seen such hostile discourse in the recent years. Finally, if a sharp decrease in unemployment occurs, with the nations economy hovering around a stable 4.1%, over employment would naturally cause prices to rise proportionally for consumer goods, which would require a raise to offset inflation in the UBI.
A UBI would indeed help those who are extremely poor and in other countries I'm sure this would (like in Kenya) be a drastic plus for a some of the poorest places in the world. This being said, to do this the money still has to come from taxing the rich and the rich hold power in such countries. Charitable aid is likely the best approach as the rich who are in power likely would not implement high taxes on themselves. I only aim to show as the idea of a UBI seems to be a straightforward approach to economic growth, brings major political and social logistical problems that offset its effectiveness.