First Article: Natural Equality and Real Freedom Pt.2

A Human Income sourced from the profits of natural resource exploitation should be distributed.

I finished Pt.1 with this sentence. In the following piece I intend to discuss what form a Human Income could take, and what the implications would be.

A universal flat rate payment has been floated before by a number of people. In my opinion the latest elucidation of the concept is the best, and that comes in the writings of Philipe Van Parijs. He names it a ‘Basic Income’ (BI) and my understanding of his concept comes from this interview. In short he believes that it should be:

• For all individuals regardless of economic or social situation.
• It will force employers who offer jobs that are unattractive and offer no training to reconsider their wage levels “It can be used that way by the beneficiaries of basic income, who are enabled to accept jobs which pay less than those that are currently available; but they will do so only on condition that these jobs are sufficiently attractive to them, compared to the alternatives on offer. They may be more attractive because of some intrinsic feature, or because of the training they provide."
•  Conditional welfare benefits would be reduced in relation to the BI (i.e., if you are guaranteed £500 a month in state pension money, with a conditional £200 extra based on your social need, and the BI is £150 a month, then you would get £550 in pension - the unconditional BI replacing the conditional welfare to bring it back up to £700).
• Those working would stay on the same income as their income tax/something similar would be adjusted to make up for the extra BI money 
• Those who don’t receive an income or benefits, mostly housewives, would get a BI. Again this would be deducted based on any tax allowance that spouses may receive (and so on, you get the picture) but if they have no ‘legal money’ income then they will get the lot.
• There should be an aim to introduce a BI across many nation states and even internationally, perhaps starting with the EU.

In effect I agree with the above format. But obviously further justification is needed, ultimately an explanation of the rationale. Why do I call it a Human Income for example?

Justification for a Human Income 

The name Human Income is for me more than a matter of departing from previous traditions. I am hesitant to carry on using the term ‘Basic Income’ because for me it emphasises too heavily the role of the income as explained above. I do not see the concept as purely a means of creating a basic living standard for the dispossessed (neither does Van Parijs it must be noted), but also as a means of accessing our common right to the natural resource. Our common right to Earth. It is a human right in essence, and for that reason it is a Human Income.

The other name attributed to this concept has been a ‘Citizen’s Income’. I am fully against that title for the simple reason that it implies a relationship between the State and the recipient. If we are all citizens, with a special income, then some sort of civic or even patriotic duty will always threaten to rear an ugly chauvinist head.

One obvious contradiction in my line of thought is that I, someone who identifies as an anarchist, am proposing an essentially statist reform. I’d like to defend my position.

First, I am not proposing just how this Income comes about. Although I deferred to the formatting of Van Parijs which makes references to State Welfare (of the European model) and the like, this is more of a practicality. A helpful explanatory tool. I believe that this should be a movement not restrained by narrow minded ideas of national solidarity etc. and that we should be agitating for this on a global scale as a human income. In the current world that would probably mean individual countries taking up the scheme one by one, if at all. It is still statist; it would likely mean bigger government in the short term. So, again, how can I justify this?

The answer is simple. I believe that the positive effects of a Human Income, the progress it would make towards a more free society, would outweigh the negatives of greater government intervention.

For a start I believe it would damage the ‘efficiency’ of the state. If the state is confiscatory in nature (as discussed here) and the aim of the state is to consolidate its power (retain a monopoly of violence) then any redistribution which is flat rate, guaranteed, and helps to emancipate the recipient is counterproductive.

Why do I think a Human Income is revolutionary and has the capacity to emancipate the recipient? This idea is based on a further elucidation by Van Parijs, the principle of ‘Real Freedom’.
This is an old Marxist idea that legal liberties may give us the technical right to fulfil our wishes but that you are not truly free until you also have the means to achieve that wish. If we all receive a Human Income then suddenly being a wage slave isn’t the only absolute option; there is more room in the system for creativity, divergent thinking, and enterprise.

But more importantly - imaging the effect it would have for the poor? Currently the menace of transnational corporations forces people all over the world into a “work for us or starve” situation. Their traditional society is ravaged by the corporation - at the assistance of the self-proclaimed ‘progressive’ State - as traditional economies are forcibly replaced with ‘efficient’ factory work. Imagine now that these workers (vulnerable peasants would be more apt) each hold the right to a Human Income. Imagine how could they band together and stand up those companies, forcing them either to leave completely by supporting a counter-economy with their guaranteed income, or forcing them to provide good wages and working hours. Corporations find it difficult to exploit people who have alternatives.

I genuinely think, in light of these benefits, that a Human Income would be a huge step forward in self-ownership. The idea that my ego is my own and that “each person enjoys, over himself and his powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply” (as defined by Cohen but also an idea widely accepted in libertarianism).

Will politicians ever agree?

Of course not. A flat rate and universal distribution (as opposed to collection, such as poll tax) of finance is against all of the ‘rules’. It has no benefits for the politician, it gives them no leverage. But I believe that they could potentially be forced to, by agitation and popular demand. Doesn’t this just make me a reformist? Yes, in a sense. But I don’t believe the State will ever dismantle itself, so state reforms which give us greater liberties and freedoms should always be accompanied by a diversity of action. Once the apparatus is in place, once we reach that optimum moment, revolution will be necessary. Until then the principle must be established:

We have a common right to the earth, all humans are born equal, and we will happily butcher the sacred cow of chance!