Dear List Members: After arriving back from Holland and the BIEN Conference (Basic Income European Network), I found this little gem from Tom Walker in my Inbox. I'm going to take this as a starting point to bring forth some observations. Most of the quotes I am using are pulled of my E Mail of the last few weeks. Tom Posted: The topic of basic income has come up on the "Third Way" Economic Policy debate list at http://www.netnexus.org/debates/3wayecon/ I personally find the tone of that third way debate stuffy and unrewarding. But there is an argument there calculated to raise the hackles of Thomas Lunde, among others. The objection to a basic income scheme centres on the issue of "moral hazard", which is to say that basic income offers an incentive to people to be idle. Thomas: "to be idle", what an evocative phrase. Somehow the fact that most Western governments have been following a "monetarist" economic policy for the last 20 - 30 years which has within it the concept of the "natural rate of unemployment", has been ignored. Linda McQuaig, The Cult of Impotence, Page 38. Quote: "This comes down to the monetarist position of having to choose between fighting inflation, or fighting unemployment. Quote: "The natural rate in his view (Milton Friedman), was the level of unemployment that was necessary to prevent an increase in the rate of inflation." Page 38-39 This give lie to the major argument against a Basic Income in which the unemployed will become idle. The poor have been deliberately made idle by the theories of economists, the policies of individual country's Central Banks, the compliance of politicians who have supported these ideas and practices. Let us address the concept of the idleness of the poor after we eliminate economist's theories, Central Bank policies and government policies that create idleness, not as a natural attribute of the poor but as the deliberate attack on the poor to preserve the wealth of the rich by limiting inflation. To give a graphic, though local example, in the Province of Ontario, Canada, the neo-con government of Mike Harris has recently passed legislation to initiate a Workfare Program that is quite draconian. As a response to that Act, an effort by a Union was initiated to unionize Welfare recipients to oppose some of the more offensive conditions of this legislation. This was countered by the government by a new Bill 22 which prevents Welfare recipients from organizing to lobby against the abuses (perceived) within the Act. Ed Weick, one of the regular contributors on the List Futurework, posted these two commentaries: As you know, the Government of Ontario has put Bill 22 (An Act to Prevent Unionization with respect to Community Participation under the Ontario Works Act, 1997) before the legislature in order to block any attempt to unionize people who are on WorkFare. This strikes me as being a step toward keeping the poor isolated from each other so that they cannot take organized collective action when in reality organized, collective action is what would probably be most helpful to them. Of course, Mrs. Ecker, who sponsored the Bill, says it is not directed at the poor, but rather at unions who are trying to subvert WorkFare and thereby deny the poor access to it. What the Bill suggests is a fear of the potential power of the poor. As long as solutions are imposed from above - like WorkFare - there is little to worry about. But if the poor were an organized political force proposing solutions of their own, there is no telling what might happen. Better to cut that possibility off. Ed Weick The Government of Ontario's Bill 22 raises two points. One is that the government does not want to see the poor organized into an effective political force able even to bargain with the autocrats, let alone develop a sense of ownership of, and entitlement in, their society. The poor currently have almost no political voice and almost no political allies. If they had the power to make the autocrats listen, who knows what conditions might have to be set around welfare and WorkFare. The other point is about the nature of unions. If the unions were able to organize the poor, they could be seen as reverting to their old role of agents of social change. At least with respect to the poor, they would be like the unions of old, and not merely bargaining agents. Ed Weick Thomas: This leads to another quote from FutureWork, were the discussion of rulers and ruled is defined by some new words: From: Eva Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> It's back to the game manager problem again. >> > >So who decides who takes the role of the gamekeeper and >the role of animals? Thomas: Currently, we must assume that it is government, Central Banks and economists and their theories who are taking the role of the "game manager" But the question remains unanswered - "who decides"? Jay Hanson another FutureWork contributor offers these thoughts in response: This is really an interesting problem and I have been thinking about it for years. I haven't found anyone willing to discuss it calmly because most people become hysterical at the very thought. Here is a very short outline of my present thinking: The problem is how to construct a global political "system" that can remain virtuous to its stated goals? Thomas: And this cuts to the heart of the problem, how to we separate the rhetoric from the reality in a way that would allow us (citizens) to get what we want, rather than what the elites are imposing on us. How do we get them to be accountable for the words they use to describe their intent while simultaneously doing just the opposite? The results of their actions are there to be seen in hundreds of postings. The following dramatizes the reality fairly well. Life expectancy falls in Europe Adrea Mach, Geneva Laying the blame squarely on "poverty, unemployment, homelessness, excessive drinking, and smoking" and on health reforms that are too reliant on "market forces," the World Health Organization's latest report reveals that Europe's overall health is deteriorating for the first time in 50 years. And, as the social safety net of the welfare state dissolves, extreme poverty (affecting 120 million of Europe's 870 million people), homelessness, and other social and environmental factors also undermine health. In reversing these trends, universal access to high quality healthcare services must remain "a bedrock principle," Dr Brundtland emphasized. Market forces may have increased productivity; business may have enhanced cost effective resource allocation, but "the private sector will never become the key provider of primary health care or the guarantor of securing health services to the poor . . . that is a key responsibility for governments." Thomas: This is the direct result of the economic policies of Milton Friedman, an economist theorist whose policies have been slavishly implemented by agencies of democratic governments. It is showing up in our health, our life expectancy and will continue to show up in future generations of adults who have been undernourished children, raised in dysfunctional homes run under impossible financial conditions that are the direct result of policies that favour fighting inflation, (read protecting the wealth of the rich) over unemployment (read giving the poor a chance to control their own destinies). HOUSE DEMOCRATS LAUD IMF FUNDING DEFEAT, SEE NEW CHANCE FOR BADLY NEEDED REFORM "The world's working people are better off today now that Congress denied the IMF billions more in expansion funds." said Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH). "Harsh IMF economic prescriptions have entered the very language of many countries, as shorthand for economic and social disaster." The Democratic group says IMF actions have done more to create economic crises than to solve them, by shielding financial speculators from the cost of risky investments. They say IMF's unyielding commodity-driven export policies are wreaking environmental havoc in developing countries around the world. >"Given the horrendous record of the IMF in making life worse for the people of Mexico, worse for the people of Asia and worse for the people of Russia, we are proud to have prevented IMF expansion thus far," said Representative Bernie Sanders, (I-VT). Thomas: At first glance, this seems such a rational posting describing the problem and a solution. However it is double-talk. The Republicans have heartily endorsed the IMF and the World Bank and their policies which have protected the wealthy banks and transferred potential losses into citizen debts by loaning money to governments to pay their bills which they owe to big financial institutions. However, even for the wealthy United States, the crunch is coming in that funds can no longer be found to support the IMF and World Bank. What we see by this article is the beginning of the sacrificial lamb policy in which it is time to scratch the IMF and World Bank and scapegoat them for following the policies their political and wealth masters have directed them to pursue. It reminds me of the old shell game, where is the pea? It probably is not where you think it is as the master manipulators dazzle us with slight of hand. Now to some comments from a totally different direction - scientists. Edward O. Wilson is arguably the most knowledgeable man on the planet about ants, how's that for a shift of logic. Let's see what he has to say. Edward O. Wilson has come to the conclusion that economists don't know what they are talking about. Forget your abstractions, he advises, and study how ants operate. He has written prolifically on both subjects. On Human Nature (Harvard University Press, 1978) won the first of two Pulitzer prizes he would receive. The Ants (Harvard University Press, 1990), written with Bert Hölldobler, won the second. In this age of specialization it is not uncommon for scientists to bury themselves in their own little corner of the universe and stay there. What caused Wilson to move up the scale from ants to Homo sapiens? "I was intellectually ambitious," Wilson explains, as we walk across campus to the Harvard University Faculty Club for the rest of our lunch. "It's a human trait to want to see how far one can go. There isn't a person we've passed on this sidewalk who doesn't want to better their own lot." Thomas: Contrast this statement with the original quote, "The objection to a basic income scheme centres on the issue of "moral hazard", which is to say that basic income offers an incentive to people to be idle." The defender of the status quo, sees humans as intrinsically lazy and that it is only through the whip of the principle "work or starve" that the masses can be made to work. Wilson sees this differently, "It's a human trait to want to see how far one can go. There isn't a person we've passed on this sidewalk who doesn't want to better their own lot." In short, people are inherently selfish? He counters that. "There is a widespread human trait—not just among Americans—of a willingness to give a helping hand, particularly to members of their own tribe," he says. You went to Princeton, you give to Princeton. You are Catholic, you give to Catholic charities, Jewish to Jewish charities. "People identify powerfully with their tribe and take the greatest pleasure in contributing to tribal welfare." However, when they are not members of your tribe, that generosity shrinks considerably. Thomas: And this points toward a possible understanding. Governments belong to the tribe of political parties. Central Banks belong to the tribe of Central Banks. Economists belong to the tribe of economists. Each are generous to the tribe they belong too, but "that generosity shrinks considerably." to those members of society who are not members of your tribe. Wilson: "Humans are very primal in the way they acquire and distribute power. Primates don't sit around and vote on how each can contribute to make their community work at optimum levels, nor is it human nature. But there is an ideal grouping size from monkeys on up to apes and humans that seems to relate to the size of the brain. The larger the brain, the larger the group. The ideal size for humans is about 150. Hunter-gatherer groups get up to about that level before they split. One hundred and fifty is about the number of people every person knows well; it doesn't matter if you live in Namibia or Manhattan. By the way, that's about the size of a company in military organizations." Thomas: Another seminal insight, we, by genetics are a family and tribal species. The concept of large nation states is a recent invention grafted onto us by the dictates of the agricultural revolution which led to the concept of hoarding food. For a million years, food was free, nature provided it and if you were hungry, you went out and got some. If you brought back a deer, it was useless to consider sitting in your tent hoarding it while members of your family and tribe went hungry. That is our genetic experience. Wilson: FORBES is a business magazine. What does this mean for business? Wilson: "As a corporation grows, I would guess you would want squad-or company-sized teams of people who know each other well and who feel the effort of the team redounds to their own welfare. "In any organization people are driven by a need for competition, and also to cooperate. At a university nothing gets done—because you're loaded with competition but there's little cooperation. Universities are not organized to encourage both. There are rarely squad- or even company-sized bodies within academic institutions. I think it was a former Yale president who said, 'Scholars come to university to disagree.'" Thomas: So the end is in sight. What is my point? It is not necessarily maliciousness that has created the present mess. It is a conflict between our genetic programming for family and tribal survival that provides the basic incentive for abuse. Milton Friedman's theories came out the University environment, an overly competitive society in which different tribes of economists compete for fame, prestige and personal safety of their tribal members. It was adopted by relatively small tribal groupings of party strategists in political parties that became governments. It found favour among the tribal energies of Central Bank directors and was supported by various tribal societies of CEO's, the wealthy and the acquisitive. Each of these small groupings consist of a tribal entity, and so, much like a tribe that controls a stream within a dry territory, these various tribal groups are basically interested in only protecting what is theirs. For the rest of us, we have been disenfranchised of our family groups. We have been made citizens, not tribal members. We have lost our will to fight and organize as a tribe because of the concept of nationalism, which leveled us from the self interest of our family and tribe to the abstract concept of citizen supporting the state. The big problem is that our rulers have stayed tribal while denying us the ability to stay tribal. They do not know it consciously, but they are acting in intensely tribal ways. And now back to the concept of a Basic Income. Why is it resisted so vehemently by governments, Central Banks and the wealthy. Because it would remove the control they exercise through controlling the food. And at a gut level, they see that this lack of control of the food, will empower other tribes to form and challenge them. In self defense, they resist. It all happens at the level of the gut and a million years of existence in family and tribal units encoded in our genes - just as the propensity for language accumulation is encoded in our genes. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde
