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More Basic Income
Dear Editors
Two quick comments on the article in the March Socialist Standard.
1. New research on the Speenhamland system is now arguing that the
common interpretations are not very accurate. It is not my field of
research so I guide you here, but I think there are some papers on this
at recent BI conferences.
2. The fact that conservatives fear that Basic Income gives too much
power to workers (as they can opt out) and radicals argue that it
undercuts workers shows that we cannot easily conclude what the micro
effects will be.
BI was killed in USA in early 1970s because it gave blacks more
independence, and that worried white southerners. The negative income
tax experiments in USA originally seemed to show disincentives to work,
but we know that the early results were distorted, and then it was shut
down. I do not see how a BI necessarily affects profit rates, certainly
not differential profit rates, except that it might change the
composition of demand, which will certainly help some industries and
hurt others. But I do not see how one can apply the simple Ricardo-Marx
wage-profit trade-off model in a modern economy when income categories
are not so clear cut. (Much of the income for the upper classes is
labor income and not property income).
Good luck with your work.
C. Clark (by
e-mail)
Dear Editors
In response to Adam Buick’s article in the March Socialist Standard: I
find his predictions unduly pessimistic.
He acknowledges that Basic Income would strengthen workers’ power in
striking, but fails to acknowledge that while, yes, it would allow some
wages to be pushed down, it would conversely result in others being
pushed up.
Dangerous, unpleasant, or essentially antisocial or environmentally
destructive occupations, which many workers are currently forced to
accept, would need to offer higher rewards to keep their labour – or
cease business, which for many such businesses, would be a good thing.
While he is correct that most governments are in practice in the
pockets of big business, this is not entirely true of all. The post-WW2
Welfare State brought much improvement to workers’ conditions – and
those of the unemployed; and attention to the source of the power of
corporations and banks would give a future, enlightened government the
power to work for the benefit of the environment and community –
including the workers and unemployed.
The fundamental source of this power is the right ceded by government
to the banks, to create our money supply, by making loans. This power
should be ended, and instead government should create and spend into
circulation all the money needed by society, and adjust its volume to
meet needs without causing undue inflation or the destructive growth of
debt which is now threatening the collapse of the whole system. This is
something you should seriously look into.
Brian Leslie (by
e-mail)
Reply: We should have guessed. There is some sort of link here between
Basic Income and the currency crank ideas of Major Douglas and Social
Credit. We haven’t got the space to go into this in detail here.
Suffice it to say that banks do not have the power to create money by
making loans. They can only lend out what has been deposited with them
or what they themselves borrow. If this wasn’t the case why are they in
trouble now? Why don’t they simply create more money by making more
loans? Your plan to finance Basic Income by recourse to the printing
press will shock many of its other advocates. In fact, we imagine them
falling over themselves to repudiate it - Editors.
Politics
Dear Editors
In the apology published at the bottom right hand side of Page 23
(April Socialist Standard), we are told that "The Politics Show" does
not exist. Surely this is the show that was on for many years on
BBC1 on Sundays at noon? Indeed it was the show that no-hopers
Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne had their infamous bust-up on - if I've
remembered that correctly
Dave Ainsworth (by email)
Reply: You’re right
“The Politics show” did, and still does, exist. We were just trying to
suggest that, as far as Andrew Neill was concerned, it probably didn’t.- Editors.
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