Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Citizen’s Work Or Citizen’s Income

Laura Pennacchi 14th March 2017 7 Comments

Laura Pennacchi

Le Monde has good reason to claim that the idea of a “universal basic income” (UBI) or “citizen’s income”, which in these times of unrestrained populism is reappearing in Italy and France, is “a false good idea”. The theory (an unconditional universal income guaranteed for all citizens of a given community) poses enormous problems of cost – we are speaking of hundreds of billions of euros – against the much more limited sum that would be required for “plans for the direct creation of jobs for young people and women” inspired by a “universal right to work” – or “citizen’s work” – and Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Such a limitless cost makes the former simply impractical and the latter much more credible – enough to settle the matter, were it not for the fact that the idea of a “universal basic income” also raises highly important moral and cultural problems. We cannot ignore the fact that one of the first supporters of an “unconditional basic income” was Milton Friedman, the monetarist precursor of neoliberalism, who formulated a version of it based on a drastic reduction in public expenditure and taxes and the most threadbare safety net for the weak, as in “negative income tax”. But some theorists on the left, too, end up endorsing the image of a “minimal” welfare state, if it will mean achieving a “basic income”. This is especially the case in the more coherent versions, such as absorbing all existing transfers (including pensions and disability benefits) and reducing public services to zero, thereby (partially or wholly) supposedly providing the additional resources for financing it.

Underlying all this there is a strange resistance, even on the left, to coming to terms with the deeper implications of the permanent crisis that exploded in 2007/2008, almost as if they were indifferent to a politico-structural analysis of neoliberalism and its most devastating outcome –that very permanent crisis. The justification for “universal income” often takes the form of “well, there are no jobs anyway, and there won’t be any in the future either, or what there is will just be menial”. However, this justification makes the “citizen’s income” a kind of resigned acceptance of reality as it is, paradoxically sanctioning and legitimizing the status quo. As a result, no one need feel the need to demand deeper changes, and there is a ready-made justification for the public sector to throw off more and more of its responsibilities, as any administrator finds it easier to make a monetary transfer than grapple with the problems of maintaining, rebuilding and strengthening a social fabric that is vast, complex and structured. Western societies would be destined to become “jobless societies”, and its citizens to be financially compensated with forms of “citizen’s income” that place “income” before “jobs”.

There is almost no attempt in this perspective to combine an analysis of the changes with an observation of the structural elements of how accumulation and production function in the destructive neoliberal version of the capitalist system. It goes no further than a consideration of inequalities as a problem that is simply distributive and redistributive, to be treated ex post, and not one of allocation as well, to be treated ex ante because it concerns the functioning of those structural elements. There is also some correlation between the haste with which “citizen’s income” enthusiasts consider the political achievements of the “thirty glorious years” (quickly dismissed as a unique “parenthesis” of growth) and their inadequate attempts to hold Neoliberalism which followed on responsible for generating the explosion of inequality. Problems of allocation and structure are becoming more and more pressing, and monetary tools that are typically undifferentiated, elevated and generalized – and the “citizen’s income” is one of these – cannot genuinely impinge on them, but risk being offered as the only tool for solving a multitude of problems that in truth need policies that are complex, targeted and practical.

The very notion of what a job is requires clarification conceptually and culturally. The escamotage (sleight of hand) of some on the left – we support both a “citizen’s income” and “full employment” – is a sham that leaves all the problems unsolved. What is truly remarkable is that, today, only religious figures – like Pope Francis who has described neoliberalism as “the economy that kills” – show a strong, persistent sensitivity to the trinity of work/person/welfare, insisting that the right to a job is primary, superior even to the right to property, and that a worker’s relation to his job affects not only what he has, but his “being”. It is equally remarkable that no one invokes Marx, who, with Hegel, saw in work – in its “creative anxiety” – the process by which man does not merely metabolize but mediates – symbolically and otherwise – the relation between himself and nature, changes himself by giving himself a self-transforming function, and systematically explores intellectual dimensions of awareness and planning.

Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content.


We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you!

Please check your inbox and click on the link in the confirmation email to complete your newsletter subscription.

.

So, rather than seeking to construct a “welfare for non-full-employment”, absolute priority should be given to creating jobs by getting rid of the ostracism around the aim of “full and good employment”. We need to be acutely aware that full employment’s intrusiveness – I mean its “revolutionary nature” – as regards the spontaneous functioning of capitalism is greatest precisely when the economic system does not naturally create employment and prepares itself for a jobless society. Significantly, the late great economist Tony Atkinson proposed a “participation income” – a monetary benefit to be allocated on the basis of social contribution (work of various kinds, education, training, etc.) and recommended we once again take the aim of full employment seriously, ensuring that governments act as an “employer of last resort” offering “guaranteed public employment”. But, at the same time, he was still suggesting that “the direction of technological change” be identified as an explicit commitment on the part of collective institutions, designed to increase employment and not to reduce it, as happens with automation. However, it is here, claimed Atkinson, that we can unmask the deception concealed by the phantasmagorical proposals (setting up forms of “citizen’s income” privately and locally) of some entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. They have an interest in insisting that innovation is guided by supply (i.e., Atkinson translated, by corporations) and not by demand and the needs of citizens, and that those citizens need only spending capacity and purchasing power – i.e. income, perhaps in the form of a “citizen’s income”.

Laura Pennacchi

Laura Pennacchi, a former junior minister of state at the Italian Ministry of the Treasury, Budget and Economic Planning, is a member of the Scientific Committee of Fondazione Basso and co-ordinator of the National Economy Forum of CGIL (the most important Italian trade-union confederation).

Home ・ Economy ・ Citizen’s Work Or Citizen’s Income

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

Sakharov,nuclear,Khrushchev Unhappy birthday, Andrei SakharovNina L Khrushcheva
Gazprom,Putin,Nordstream,Putin,Schröder How the public loses out when politicians cash inKatharina Pistor
defence,europe,spending Ukraine and Europe’s defence spendingValerio Alfonso Bruno and Adriano Cozzolino
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,NATO,Ukraine The Ukraine war and NATO’s renewed credibilityPaul Rogers
transnational list,European constituency,European elections,European public sphere A European constituency for a European public sphereDomènec Ruiz Devesa

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube