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Contribution
to debate
Tim
Flinn
This 'contribution to debate'has emerged from debate within
the Green Party and is therefore important. The scheme in
question is a full citizen's income of £500 per month,
which of course isn't the only Citizen's Income Scheme on
offer, but it is important to debate such possibilities.
Where are the CI Emperor's clothes?
Several
Green Parties include CIS in their manifestoes. In recognising
CI virtues, however, political parties have also to anticipate
negative
criticism by seeking out and sealing any chinks in the CI
armour. This
article shares some of the consequential controversies recently
aired over the web by one Green Party. Any conclusions and
opinions are the writer's alone.
Several
problems were discussed, including 1. understanding CI 2.
the consequences of CI 3. delivering CI 4. universal CI
v selective CI (effectively: civil rights v civil duties).
1.
There are, presumably, several forms of CI. Our version
would guarantee every citizen sufficient to provide basic
needs of food, clothing, shelter and heating. Pensioners
and the infirm receive extra payments, and there is to be
a means-tested extra allowance for housing costs. Student
grants would be restored. Detailed figures are promised
before introduction and the whole appears to be funded at
least initially through higher personal taxation and the
ending of most other forms of social income. The case for
favouring CI over, say, the present welfare payment system,
actual CI levels, and definitions of 'citizen', 'basic'
and 'sufficient' are to appear in supporting literature.
2.
The many advantages of CI (ending stigma, increasing up-take,
etc) are well known to this readership, but that doesn't
mean CIS is problem-free. Here, very briefly, are five stumbling
blocks:
A.
its cost. There is no agreement yet about what level to
set CI at, but assuming 56m people each receive an average
of £500 a month (and could one have much less if all
the basics are to be covered?) the annual cost is £336bn.
That compares to UK's total government tax income for 2001
of £390bn, which leaves the Chancellor with a very
large revenue 'black 'hole'. To fill this requires a substantial
rise in income tax; the more so if, as some claim, claw-back
from high earners offends basic CI principles. It is a discouragement
that there still lacks a specimen set of government accounts
which would set all the relevant finances into context.
B.
CI breaches GATT/WTO rules by subsidising wages. This means
the UK will have to stop its international trading. One
wonders if we greens, (and many of us interpret, and so
despise, GATT/WTO as a 'profits-before-people' organisation)
have fully thought this one through? One wonders, in effect,
how much electoral support there will be for a policy that
could destroy the British economy? In trying to solve the
problems of wealth redistribution, radical parties almost
always neglect the initial problem of wealth creation. A
reply that a Green economy would solve this because it would
be very different to the present economic system begs the
response: first show me!
C.
CI will be inflationary. For example (as my own work many
years ago on the effect of including the salaries of both
partners for mortgage purposes showed) housing prices rise
in company with the ability of people to pay them. In fact,
the price of anything that is subsidised must, in an open
economy, rise.
D.
For that last reason CI runs the danger of encouraging objectively
undesirable conduct such as Wumpism, of which more later.
E.
Abuse. There are several ways this can occur, but an obvious
one is that children may not receive the benefits for which
CI is intended to pay. I've heard it argued that as 'only
a few' parents will spend the child's CI on drugs instead
of food (and as 'this sort of thing takes place under the
present system anyway') these occurrences aren't germane.
This response strikes me as a cop-out. It is preferable
(and makes more sense) to design out abuse than to turn
an ineffectual eye to it. To that end we should recall that
benefits already arrive in three
ways: in kind (e.g. education, NHS); in cash (e.g. child
allowances, the
dole); and as vouchers (e.g. OAP fuel, travel passes). To
ensure that
children get fair play it seems to be worthwhile to at least
discuss the
possibility of specific vouchers for fresh food, good clothing
and even
adequate parenting. WW2 experience of the benefits of some
of these
practices is very favourable (which would in any case apply
to increasingly few citizens). To resist a serious discussion
about this because of perceived problems of added big-brotherism,
bureaucracy, social control or 'whose opinion counts?' amounts
to an ultimately self-defeating sweeping-under-the-carpet.
Public means must only go on publicly approved ends. We
must believe that where there is a will, there is a way.
3.
The delivery of CI has not anywhere been worked out satisfactorily.
Some promote funding it from Land Value Taxation, but as
this does not solve the actual delivery problem the LVT
people do, in their enthusiasm to throw out income tax,
also throw out a very useful baby with the bath water. Leaving
aside the vices and virtues of personal taxation, the Inland
Revenue Service already has, for CI purposes, a potentially
vital data base and redistribution mechanism, namely positive
and negative taxation. With every citizen identified (given
suitable safeguards) on a modernised national computer and
through the use of a fraud-proof smart card system, the
transfer of money from those with too much to those with
too little is much simplified, and few (if any) will be
able to slip through the cracks.
4.
CI and universality versus selectivity. It has been argued
that CI is a universal civil right, but accompanying civil
rights are some often
conveniently forgotten about civil duties. Our discussion
has recently gone down the track of a debate about whether
or not the Wilfully Unemployed, or Wumps, should receive
CI only in return for a confirmed and regular working week
of worthwhile (as defined by a citizens' jury) charitable
(i.e. unpaid) work. The case for bowing to Wump self-exclusion
from the work force (refusing to subsidize it, that is)
includes a perceived need to reduce the work-shy culture;
to support the growth of regular work habits; to benefit
society through many more helpers, and a desire to improve
the self-esteem of the erstwhile opted-out. It should be
noted that carers, the infant, the infirm and the insane
are exempted from the Wump category, as are those who wilfully
don't work, but don't also demand benefits. The intention
is not to force people to work, merely to refrain from subsidising
laziness. The position of creative people has been seen
as a problem case, but is it? Artists have only the same
rights and duties as everyone else. It is a
common observation that people will always find time to
do the things they really want to do. An ordinary person
can write several books and plays, complete several degrees,
design and build a couple of houses, produce a lot of art
work, and much else, all alongside forty five years of full-time
work and a family. The case for subsidising Wumpism includes
a stipulative definition of human rights that irrationally
detaches rights from duties. It also makes a supposition
that the numbers of Wumps will be so small (despite the
everyday observation that the effect of subsidising things
is to encourage them) as not to much matter. This is inconsistent,
as the same numerically dismissive attitude is not also
applied to, say, murder. There is a familiar challenge here
to produce a system that designs out undesirable side effects
and consequences. A tolerant regard for Wumpism serves only
an underestimation of the cost to society of people deliberately
opting out of worthwhile work. Given certain assumptions,
my own calculations are that 125000 Wumps ( a low figure),
deprive the UK economy of at least £15bn annually.
Such a figure spent correctly would in ten years solve our
energy and transport problems, and probably more. That is
a high opportunity cost to pay for a dubious extension to
the valuable human rights principle. As most, if not all,
existing benefits are handed out on the basis of dessert
and need (as easily identified and dealt with through an
enhanced Inland Revenue data base), the requirement upon
CI advocates to justify not doing the same seems strong.
For Green Parties there is the additional consideration
that we believe in recycling 'rubbish', and so we cannot
afford to ignore the need to also recycle fellow citizens
who have
been dumped on (or dumped themselves on) the human scrap
heap.
In
conclusion, the undoubted advantages of CI should blind
no one (least of all those trying to sell CI to an ignorant
and sceptical public) to its several apparent loose ends
which need, therefore, to be tied up before rather than
during or after an election. For some people, promoting
CI is quite like a tout flogging tickets for seats on a
potentially wonderful aeroplane, but one which both lacks
engines and an even theoretically demonstrated airworthiness
certificate. In short, to vote for CI at the moment may
be akin to buying a pig in a poke. Shorter still, it appears
the CI Emperor has few or no clothes.
Naturally, I'm hoping most of the foregoing is wrong and
that CI
enthusiasts will so prove by sending me sensible, BRIEF,
and foolproof data to the contrary (please, though, NOT
mere opinions, speculations, statements by 'authorities',
or books to read, as we're up to our ears in these already.
What we really need is 'killer' evidence and peer-reviewed
research). I will pass everything useable on to our debaters.
Tim
Flinn. flinntim@hotmail.com
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