Universal
Basic Income (UBI), Citizen’s Income (CI), Basic Income Guarantee
(BIG), or Universal Demogrant (UD) is a capitalist reform project. It
is a proposed periodic cash payment delivered to all on an individual
basis, without means testing or work requirement.
The
income will be:
1. unconditional
2. periodical
3. non-withdrawable (i.e. basic income will remain unchanged
irrespective of increase or decrease in income)
4. individual
(beyond the age of 18 years, not per household)
5. a
right to every legal resident (In some less developed countries
basic income is directed to the poorest section of people, and then
they are called ‘Guaranteed minimum income system’)
This
is not a new idea, in fact it is of medieval origin. The first Muslim
Caliph, Abu Bakr (573-634 CE) introduced a guaranteed minimum income
granting each man, woman and child ten Dirhams which later increased
to twenty. The idea of state sponsored basic income was also proposed
in “Utopia” by Sir Thomas More in early 16th century.
In
this crisis ridden capitalism, UBI has been projected as a panacea
for the working class. Its proponents are billionaire oligarchs of
capitalism and, not surprisingly, some “left liberal” economists
and intellectuals are also supporting the idea of a basic income.
Many even claimed that it is the beginning of post capitalist economy
where human labour can be separated from the means of subsistence
from the capitalist economy. What a ridiculous claim indeed! Can the
relation of capital and wage be replaced by maintaining the
capitalist mode of production anyway?
It
is not rocket science to understand the underlying planning of the
UBI project. It has been proposed by the minority ruling class in
order to perpetuate the exploitative system of capitalism.
We
have to understand why they are so eager to offer the working class,
including their unemployed segment (“reserve army of labour” or
“industrial reserve army” or “relative surplus population” in
Marxian parlance), a fixed amount of money without any strings
attached.
The
reasons are multiple, but most importantly is the near certainty of
massive unemployment due to the recent technological development
regarding automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics. This is
making the ruling elites very worried. Not for the interests of the
working class, but for their obvious fear of losing the potential
buyers of their products.
Already,
capitalism is suffering from “the epidemic of over-production”;
capitalists need a working class population just
capable of reproducing their physical and mental energy to serve as
wage slaves and thus act as perpetual consumers to sustain the
economic system. Moreover, the other glaring elite interest is to
mitigate the discontent among the working class in order to tame the
brewing class war. This is just another ploy to maintain the
enslavement of the working class in exchange for a regular supply of
payment cheques.
Genuine
socialists do not advocate reforms of any kind since the capitalist
system cannot be reformed to serve the interest of all. Furthermore,
we apprehend with all certainty that it will actually be detrimental
to the interests of the working class if UBI is set to replace the
existing social security programs.
In
the USA, the proposed UBI for every adult person $12,000 a year would
cost more than three trillion dollars (consuming more than three
quarters of federal budget). This would require massive taxation and
yet we rarely hear wealthy UBI advocates calling for their taxes to
be raised. Instead they more likely advocate cutting existing social
welfare programs that benefit the most impoverished populations.
It
will also exert huge downward pressure on real wages and, on average,
would probably fall by the amount of the “basic” income. It would
essentially boil down to a national subsidy for employers.
It
is actually a cheap reform, for those who are employed it is nothing
but a tax rebate up to the value of basic income. Anyone who has paid
enough to pay more taxes than the basic income will then subsidize
the unemployed. The state then obtains the opportunity to abolish all
other welfare benefits since the “basic income” gets declared as
enough to live on. It then becomes a constant struggle for the ruling
class to hold the basic income at or just below the level of
subsistence (so people are forced to accept low wage work, another
bounty for the employers).
The
capitalists, and their puppet states, need us working class people to
be impoverished, to remain impoverished, and perpetually indebted.
Additonally
their UBI will also be framed within the logic of capitalism which
will permit a reform befitting to the agenda of the employing class.
It will definitely fail to satisfy the unfounded hopes and
expectations of our fellow workers and, if it can be done
masquerading as ‘socialism’, then the resultant disillusionment
and disappointment will not be against capitalism and the owning
class, but rather against the term socialism and those recognized to
be “socialist”.
The
proposed UBI will not make any real difference to the working class’
existing situation, and is perfectly compatible with their ongoing
alienation, exploitation and oppression.
The
only scientific way towards forging a path for freedom and happiness
is the abolition of wage slavery, production for social needs, and a
world of free access to all social wealth created by the working
class.
Parthapratik
Mukherjee
Taken
from here
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