Universal Basic Income.
About forty years ago I went to a Green Party meeting. I found it very interesting. The only thing I still remember is that they introduced me to the Universal Basic Income (UBI). Maybe it was such a revelation that I forgot everything else they said and, if I was religious, I might have said they were guided by God. Ok lots of people say “why should I pay more tax so that some lazy bu**er can live for free”. But if you spend a little thought you must conclude that we would all be better off. You might think that I’m a loony lefty idealist but I am not. One of my heroes is Toney Ben, he had significant business interests, thus a capitalist, yet he was also a socialist. He is the only politician I’ve ever seen in a TV interview who actually answers the questions. Three more capitalist socialists I’ve heard of are Rowntree, Cadbury and Onan, there’s bound to be a lot more.
Utopia would be a noble and honourable thing to strive for but before we start out we need to realise that it’s not achievable. That’s not to say that it’s not worth trying. I would like to suggest that getting a little closer is worthwhile. The reason it’s not achievable is that human nature won’t allow it. One reason why utopia is not achievable is in our jeans. Imagine a society where everything existed in harmony, maybe like heaven, it would be so mind numbingly boring. What would there be to get excited about. I believe we need excitement in our lives.
I believe the solution to this dilemma is education but we’ve got to be very careful not to indoctrinate. Indoctrination only works some of the time. When I was young people tried to indoctrinate me, some of it worked and some didn’t.
If we introduced Universal basic income what would the benefits be? Life would be much fairer because everyone gets the same benefit. We could save a lot of money, for a start; the work load on the job centres would be much reduced thus cheaper to operate. The work load on the benefit system would be much reduced so less admin cost. Worker’s rights would be much better; no worker would have to knuckle down out of fear of losing their job. Anybody could just say “Stuff you I’m not standing for this” and walk. The minimum wage could be scrapped, because any worker not getting enough would be free to walk off the job anytime, this would make a lot more work available thus more GDP and less need for trade unions, so less union dues to pay. No one could fiddle there benefit because everyone gets the same, paid by computer, again saving money. No one could be jealous of other people’s benefit because we all get the same. People would have more freedom to choose part time work, on not, and thus have more time for other pursuits maybe voluntary work, or sport, or run a small business, so being healthier, happier and benefiting the whole of society. Employers could employ more part time workers who would tend to be more productive because they would be coming in to work more refreshed after more time off. Marginally profitable small businesses like corner shops would better afford to continue providing a service to the community.
How do we pay for UBI? Well the people have to eat, so how are we paying the unemployed now? Ok people are going to have to pay a lot more tax, but they’re going to have more income so why would they complain? The UBI would be included when calculating tax threshold thus most workers would pay a lot more income tax but still be no worse off because this extra tax would be offset by the UBI. The high earner could make a larger contribution than the smaller income person, making life a little fairer. We will save huge amounts on administration of benefits. People would be under less pressure thus healthier and happier so less cost to the health service and more enthusiastic and productive at work. State pensions would be scrapped.
How will we introduce it? We could build up gradually, like we did with the increased retirement age, by starting with giving every adult maybe £1 or £5 per week, we could gradually increase payments and simultaneously increase tax to cover it. No one in regular work would notice the difference except for having more freedom and choice of how, where, how much pay I want, how many hours I want to work and when I want to work.
At the moment, unemployed people are under a lot of pressure to insure their benefits are going to continue, if they didn’t have this worry they would be able to concentrate more on worthwhile employment maybe including voluntary work. People on benefit aren’t going to be able to say “I can’t go to work because I’ll lose my benefit” and “if I go to work, and it doesn’t work out, I’ll be stuffed”. The income tax threshold could be set at the same level as UBI so every penny a person can earn will increase her / his income and tax.
It would reduce crime because no one would be in abject poverty and needing to steal to live thus reducing the cost of policing. It would reduce housing shortages because people would be financially better off co habiting so more likely to do it.
I’m not advocating letting the unemployed live a life of luxury, the UBI needs to be low enough for people to want more and thus encouraged to work. The UBI would be a guaranteed safety net, making people feel secure and thus happier, healthier more enthusiastic and more likely to want to work. An enthusiastic worker is more likely to be a good one. Children could be paid a much smaller amount gradually increasing with age thus eliminating the current child benefit and with a large jump to full pay at 18. Housing benefit could be scrapped. Of cause there will need to be extra provisions for the disabled in order to pay for carers and special equipment etc.
The government likes to twist peoples arms to go to work but in my experience, as an employer and old person, no amount of pressure is going to make anyone a good worker. I’ve known many unemployed people and they tend to have health or other issues so can’t work and all the arm twisting makes them worse and less likely to want to work. Putting this pressure on people needs payed civil servants to do it and I bet it’s not a pleasant job and costing money. GPs are having their time wasted by seeing people trying to prove they’re too ill to work. If anyone tries to pressure me it just annoys me and I dig my heels in. Maybe if we didn’t use so much pressure more people would work. I was brought up to believe that a workforce had to be ruled with an iron fist but I’ve since learned, by personal experience, that this isn’t true. I have learned that people in general prefer to work, rather than not, and work better if they aren’t under too much pressure so I’m employing this strategy in my business and it seems to be working so far. Of course, in a business you always have the option of letting an unproductive worker go, a strategy a country doesn’t have so we have no choice but to maintain everyone as best we can and I don’t mean going easy on people but just to be a bit better understanding. Life isn’t fair but we can always do something to make it a little fairer.
I listen to BBC 4 radio a lot but always keep a CD in the radio so that I can get the Archers off as quickly as possible. Today, 15/04/2019, someone was saying on BBC 4, I didn’t catch who it was; I suspect it was a politician, that these people who go around stabbing people in the street should be treated as being ill. I have some sympathy with his/her views. I’ve been saying for a while now that this kind of behaviour is perfectly natural but not acceptable and must be prevented but not by threatening punishment but buy education. See my article ‘Crime not Punishment’. Some peoples attitudes are out dated. Society and work have changed enormously over the last few decades. There’s now much mechanisation, robots etc. so there’s less well paid work available. I heard on the radio recently that there’s a lot more part time working, they also said that it’s a good thing and the trend will continue so I say “UBI is now more required than ever in order to top up peoples part time incomes”. If we had UBI there would be more people available to do youth work and help with the present trend in stabbings because people would be freed up to do it rather than having worry about, finding more work, claiming benefit and working out how to get more income.
Another of my heroes is Nickola Tesla and he used to write about “Increasing Human Energy” I’m not quite certain what he meant by this but I like it and would like to do my small part but don’t quite know how to do it. If the above is any help I will be well pleased.
​
John Parlour