Using the Marshmallow Test on Our Value Personae

Here's a twist on a psychology classic: the Stanford Marshmallow experiment - a study on delayed gratification.  In the original experiment, a child was offered a choice between one small but immediate reward (a marshmallow), or two small rewards if they waited for a period of time alone in a room, staring at the marshmallow but not eating it.  In follow-up studies, the researchers found that children who were able to wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes, as measured by SAT scores, educational attainment, body mass index, and other life measures.

A blog post from an old applied improv conference colleague brought this study to mind.  She spoke of what she referred to as Marshmallow Test 2.0, in which you conduct the experiment on kids living in the shelter system.  In that experiment, each trial is more a test of privilege.  The kids have to believe and trust that the original and second treat will be there if they wait.  It turns out, many under-privileged kids have learned to eat when the treat is available - not to wait for someone else to maybe take it first.  So naturally, their scores in later life are already skewed, not based on will-power but on their survival-oriented upbringing.

That's an interesting thought.

What came to mind for me, though, was the three Value Personae that I suggest operate within all of us.  (An idea from Robert Reich that I expanded on.)  I now theorize that the Consumer value persona - the one which values immediate gratification and looks after present needs - might be the earliest value persona, from an evolutionary perspective.  We see lots of plants and animals exhibit this approach to resources, and it's not surprising that younger kids will express this tendency as well.  There's a marshmallow.  I like marshmallows.  Munch!

The Marshmallow Test is kind of checking for the presence of our Investor value persona.  Are we willing to wait, resist consumption now, and reap some benefits in the future?  As animals evolve, some species seem to become more aware of future needs and have learned to set food aside for leaner times.  That Investor behaviour might be considered a sign of evolutionary progress (or a predictor of better life outcomes in children).

Given that perspective, I naturally had to ask myself where the third value persona - the Citizen - might fit in.  The Citizen is our value set that looks after the needs of others or the collective.  Perhaps a test could be easily devised with two kids, where, if the first child resists the temptation to eat the  marshmallow, then they both get one.  Surely that says something about the first kid's ability to co-operate, share, and show empathy for their fellow human being.  Since (I believe) we only tend to see such behaviours in collective-oriented or cognitively-advanced species, I recently posited that perhaps the Citizen value persona is yet another step up on the evolutionary ladder.

My Value Personae theory proposes that each one of us has all three value sets available to us at any time, and that they are exclusive.  If I give you $50, you can either spend it (Consumer), save it (Investor), or give it away (Citizen).  All three actions can give us joy, but you can only do one of those choices.

A Fourth Value Persona?

So, if you're wondering how humanity might evolve to the next level, what might that be?  Increasingly, I believe that the fourth value persona might encompass some kind of realization that we are all connected to our environment and every other living thing in complex and inextricable ways.  I'm still trying to figure this out and express it as a value.  One thing I'm sure of is that the fourth value persona would not be based on any kind of zero-sum game, but rather one where there is no game.

One of the real-world expressions of this fourth value persona is a Guaranteed Universal Basic Income.  I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that a Basic Income is humanity's way of severing the connection between the imperative of a job and basic survival.  That game-changing concept could be the first step to solving what I call the Value Change Conundrum, and escape the paradigm of "More is Always Better" that I suggest is at the core of civilization's ecological overshoot, sociological shortfall, and all major global disasters.

I guess in that study, we just give every child a marshmallow when they need one, and we move on to other life priorities.

Responses to Comments from William Rees

In October of 2023, I gave a Zoom talk to the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR).  The requested topic was an overview of my sequel to "The Value Crisis", that being "Our Second Chance - Changing Course and Solving the Value Crisis".  Months later, the CACOR site curator sent me a copy of the Zoom Chat conversation from that talk.  It turns out that the most frequent contributor to the chat was Dr. William E. Rees, FRSC.  Bill Rees is Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia, and well-known as the originator of the "ecological footprint" concept.

Following the CACOR Zoom talk tradition, many of the chat room questions and comments will have been raised after the presentation, and some will be heard on the actual video.  Still, knowing that I have a huge amount to learn from this leader in ecological economics (and one of my heroes), I decided to devote a post to his comments and my more-considered reflections on them.

(It would obviously help a great deal if you watch the presentation first, but I'll try to craft this post in such a way that it's not entirely necessary.)

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 1:42 PM
What if the More is Better strategy is an innate adaptive strategy that worked in paleolithic times but is catastrophic today, when technology makes it possible?

Firstly, there is a very important distinction to be made here.  The value system that I claim to be flawed and unnatural is "More is ALWAYS Better".  Generally speaking, there are many times in nature when More is Better.  But more is never always better - everything in nature has sufficiency.  That's why, when more does happen to be better, it could indeed be seen as an innate adaptive strategy that worked in paleolithic times.  It is only when you have values measured by number (such as monetary wealth) that More is Always Better.  Having a limitless value, with no definition of sufficiency is where the trouble begins.  Add in technology that gives exponential growth, and that trouble does indeed become catastrophic.  This is not a value that has changed over time, because More is Always Better did not exist in paleolithic times.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 1:50 PM
We have to be careful about 'first nations' values.  The paleoecological evidence suggests that the spread of humanity over the Earth was followed by the depletion and often extinction of megafauna of all kinds.  Only after massive destruction, or at least alteration of their ecosystems, did indigenous peoples culturally evolve a stable relationship with their much diminished habitats.  That is what we see today.  

When you consider "the spread of humanity", you are really talking about a species of primate that was successful enough to produce a thriving population - one that did really well at adapting to other environments as well.  So whenever humans spread into an area where they had not existed before, they were essentially an invasive species.  We all know that any successful invasive species will invariably redefine the ecological balance of its new territory - sometimes wiping out previously existing species.  (This is easier to do when you are at or near the top of the food chain.)

I think another thing we obviously have to be careful about is generalizing "first nations".  There were/are hundreds of First Nations.  Some evolved into empires who adopted and applied a More is Always Better value system to territory, riches, slaves, and temple heights.  (Perhaps their demise was correspondingly predictable.)  Others are still living in relative isolation and in harmony with their original environment.

Still, I think your general heuristic applies.  When some First Nations people first came upon plains teeming with bison, they did not worry about the wastefulness of driving hundreds of them over a cliff, just to butcher a few for their needs.  And they did indeed alter their ecosystems - it would have been almost impossible not to.  However, for the First Nations that did not adopt a More is Always Better philosophy, they noticed the changes to their ecosystems and made various conscious choices to alter their behaviours.  The values that we associate today with indigenous wisdom are distinctly different and decidedly superior in terms of ecological economics.

BtW, modern techno industrial society is going the same way.  We will destroy our habitat to the point that it pushes back and forces an adaptive strategy onto the survivors of the great contraction.

This is my conclusion as well.  I believe climate change is one of the negative feedbacks that our habitat is going to push back on us.  The question of whether or not we will recognize our essential problem as a value crisis is still to be answered.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 1:56 PM
Overshoot is a function of population at any material standard.  Three billion over-consumers can be in overshoot: Ten billion people in poverty can be in overshoot.

This is very true.  Since ecological overshoot is based on available planetary resources, that quantity available doesn't change with population or lifestyle, but the amount lost to consumption does.  Right now, we have simultaneous examples of both kinds of overshoot (from overconsumption and overpopulation).

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:36 PM
Where does the wealth or money come from to fund the basic income?  Doesn't this require a complete reorganization of the income/tax/economic value system.  And what if the basic income destroys any incentive to fend for oneself?

These are three common concerns with a Guaranteed Basic Income.  The simplest answer to the first question is that the money is already there - it is simply redirected.  For a full explanation of this, see a previous blog post.  Money is not like material resources - this is simply a math issue, not a show-stopper.

The introduction of a Basic Income does not require a complete reorganization of the income/tax/economic value system - we saw that when we implemented the CERB program almost overnight during the pandemic. However, it could eventually lead to such a reorganization - and that's the whole point.  We need a complete reorganization of the income/tax/economic value system as part of our rebalancing of qualitative and quantitative values.  A Guaranteed Basic Income program is perhaps the best and most powerful tool for easing society into that paradigm shift.

Finally, Basic Income pilot programs have consistently demonstrated that such schemes do not destroy any incentive to fend for oneself - although current social safety nets often do just that.  Humans want to be productive, to contribute to society, and to better their lot.  Basic Income facilitates and encourages those activities.  See my explanation in an earlier post.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:41 PM
I don't see much new in the notion that natural systems tend toward more complexity.  In any case, this assumes a continuous supply of energy.  Reduce the energy flow and the system simplifies. Remove available energy and the systems ceases to function and moves toward maximum entropy or disorder.

I agree entirely.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:50 PM
The value of human life changes with the availability of vital resources.  Lots of resources, we share; land and resources get scarce with overcrowding and overshoot, then we devalue live, particularly other peoples' lives.

This is also fairly obvious.  However, I believe that there is a more important factor in how we value human life, which is defined by our relationship to that human.  Yes, we all know that we care more about the life of a friend or family member than we do about some stranger on the other side of the planet, but sometimes we just need a connecting narrative for our perception to change.  Think of how a simple photo of a drowned toddler washed up on a beach completely altered the way millions of people thought about the Syrian refugee crisis.

This introduction of compassion works both for and against us.  You might think me awful for saying this (which would in fact prove my point), but when we start to think of every child as our own, then we start to believe that every life is worth saving, regardless of the cost or quality of life being saved.  That may be all very well, but few people who aggressively pursue disease eradication and lifespan extension consider what the ultimate effect on our planet might be if we were wildly successful in those endeavours.  (Imagine what would happen if all mosquitoes born survived to adulthood.)  If you are going to cure everything and have people living decades longer, there will HAVE to be other changes.  Single lives are valuable because they become qualitative.  At the same time, we can kill thousands in war, because those people are simply numbers.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:53 PM
Stasis implies a steady-state economy, an idea that has been around for 50 years or more and rejected by mainstream economists and techno-optimists. (Steady-state implies a constant level of economic throughput compatible with nature's productivity and waste assimilation capacity.)

A steady-state economy also includes minimal fluctuations in population.  It is not the only possibility for a sustainable economy - which could also be achieved by an economy the fluctuates up and down in relatively bounded cycles.  I'm not sure why mainstream economists and techno-optimists reject the idea of a steady-state economy, unless it's because they feel it is impossible to achieve.  I would think it's a lot easier to prove the impossibility of an ever-growing economy on the finite resources of a single planet.  It may also be a case of them being NIMPLEs - leaving the consequences of continuous growth to future generations.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:56 PM
There are lots of studies on how many people -- even a book called "How Many People can Earth Support?"

Determining the number of people that the planet can support is based on many variables.  The whole exercise seems more academic than policy-based.  I think it safe to say that, in terms of environmental impact, there are too many humans, regardless of our adopted lifestyle.  Yes, the planet could possibly support more, but at what cost?

I believe our focus would be better directed towards more sustainable and qualitative lifestyles.  The population decline will likely follow.  If it does not, then nature will address our numbers in her own way, as she inevitably does for all species that get out of control.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:58 PM
Ray's financial insecurity is the modern expression of our innate need to acquire the means to live.

[This was in reference to an earlier comment from Raymond Leury: "When I was much younger, being poor, my anxiety about the need to have money to survive was so big that it blinded me to just about anything else.  It also drove my strong desire to build up wealth so that I would have financial security."]

Actually, I don't entirely agree with the implications of this one.  All animals have an innate drive to survive.  For that they need the basics of life: oxygen, water, shelter (or appropriate environment), food, etc.  However, "financial security" is not focused on our immediate needs - rather, it is intended to address our future needs.  I theorize that conscious concern for future needs is a higher stage of evolution - perhaps even in a grey area between instinct and learned behaviour.

What strikes me as the most important takeaway from this is how financial wealth takes over our lives when we must struggle to have enough to survive.  Imagine how much collective anxiety there is in society right now, arising from this singular stress, and how a Basic Income would change their lives - and yours!

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 3:16 PM
Great discussion. Thanks Andrew for providing the catalyst.

I hope my content will eventually prove to be more than just a catalyst.  Anyway, I think this made for a good blog post exploration.  Thanks Bill for providing the catalyst!

The Environmentalist's Case Against Basic Income

At a recent talk that I was giving about my second book, Our Second Chance, I was sharing my supportive views on the concept of Basic Incomes.  Afterwards, I was reviewing the valuable comments in the Chat room, and found this gem:

"Futurist Douglas Rushkoff had espoused UBI (Universal Basic Income) in two of his books, but has since retracted his endorsement of the idea as he had come to realize that UBI without a deeper paradigm shift will only amount to increasing the rate of extraction, exploitation and consumption of earth's resources.  This is Douglas Rushkoff describing his rationale for no longer supporting the concept of UBI here."

The first 10:30 of the linked podcast is a monologue in which Rushkoff outlines his serious reservations with a Basic Income scheme - namely that it merely amplifies the population's role as consumers. Giving money to the people at the bottom will not create economic justice, he says, since that money will simply pay for increased consumption, thereby (a) continuing to line the pockets of the upper echelon capitalists, and (b) making our resource extraction and environmental degradation even worse.

Knowing that Rushkoff, a well-respected author, was changing his tune on Basic Income, led me to give his new position very careful consideration.  It is indeed a worrying proposition.  We all know that any attempt to raise the overall standard of living for a large number of people will entail a greater consumption of planetary resources - at least in the short-term.  Does that mean we are doomed to choose between widespread social inequity versus resource destruction?

Changing the Rules

Let me first say that I am very much in agreement with his fundamental objective.  In the podcast, he phrased the big picture in this way:

"It's not too late for us to start companies, cooperatives, commons where we all, everyone, owns a stake in the thing.  And then we can change our role in the economy from mere consumers to stakeholders; our role in society from consumers to citizens; and our role with each other from competitors to partners.  Now, the only substantive change we can make to our economic operating system is to distribute ownership, control, and governance of the real world to the people who live in it."

Well said!  I also agree that reinforcing the consumer tendencies of those close to or below the poverty line in our society actually channels that money to those at the top - seemingly defeating the purpose.

However, my Zoom audience member qualified Rushkoff's position more than the podcast does:  A UBI without a deeper paradigm shift, is problematic.  Well of course it is!  But a Basic Income is the best first step to achieving that paradigm shift!

I propose that, as living creatures, we are all consumers, citizens, and stakeholders (investors).  Those are the three value personae that I work from in my books (with a nod to Robert Reich).  We cannot eliminate the Consumer persona - all living creatures must consume.  A Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) model simply says that consumption needed for survival should be free - a basic human right, based on the abundance that we now enjoy.

I confess that I don't know all of Rushkoff's reasons for turning his back on Basic Incomes, but here are my reactions to what he said in his ten-and-a-half-minute monologue:

1.  A Grand Destination with no Road Map

The proposal that he makes for a new world, with distributed ownership, control, and governance is a wonderful ideal, but that change cannot be wished or even legislated into being.  There must first be a fundamental shift in our value systems and economic models.  The real change must (most likely) come from the bottom up - from the vast swath of consumers - and to do that, you have to first release them from slavery.

(I use the term "slavery" advisedly.  Our current economic model says that, for the overwhelming majority of people, we need income and a job in order to meet our basic survival needs.  Take our job away and we are homeless, hungry, and - if the social safety nets are overwhelmed - dead.  The choice of "to work or to die" is essentially slavery.)

Basic Income is the most fundamental shift in our economic model that currently has a chance of actually being enacted,  The U.S. was two Senate votes shy of a basic income model 50 years ago.  It currently has broad support across the entire political spectrum.  The CoViD-19 pandemic did wonders for showing the general public how the basic principle might work.  A Basic Income is the best first step on the road map to the changes Rushkoff seeks.

2.  The Asset Alternative

I like the idea he mentions of giving people assets instead of income.  Unfortunately, it's not very clear what he means by "assets".  It seems impractical (and demeaning) to give people food instead of the money to buy food.  If you give them other assets, and don't change the paradigm of "money equals survival", those assets will soon be sold and you will be worse off than before.  Again, I agree with the principle of a lot more common wealth.  I don't think land or natural resources should be ownable.  But just giving away assets (if one could even do that), without rethinking the nature of ownership, does not solve the problem.

3.  Beyond the Poverty Line

Contrary to what Rushkoff says in his monologue (and contrary to common belief), UBI is not just a way to take poverty off the table.  A Basic Income alters the way everyone thinks about the future.  It impacts the non-wage-earner in an abusive relationship, the worker replaced by automation, the entrepreneur, the career-changer, the lifetime volunteer, and the new Art graduate (the one that he says usually has to go straight into a job because they can't afford a studio).  People can take risks, get better jobs, and invest in their future because their basic survival is not on the line.  Basic Income is a psychological gamechanger.  And that's what his operating system change calls for - a psychological gamechanger.  It can't happen with anything less.

4.  Follow the Money

I think he oversimplifies the flow of money when he says that the poor consumers will simply give their Basic Income cheque over to the capitalists.  I see the Basic Income scenario as including four major differences from the status quo:

(A)  We already hand out billions in social assistance.  A GBI merely gives that money out without all of the cumbersome application, eligibility, and ongoing oversight costs.  A lot of the money that would be going to those at the bottom of the pyramid is already being doled out.

(B)  In order for governments to afford these programs, they have to stop giving out the other billions of dollars in subsidies and incentives at the top.  They also have to revise tax laws and enforcement to reduce the wealth being stashed away at the highest echelons.  There are counterbalancing factors.  So even if the money eventually goes back to the 1%, it is doing people good on the way, instead of going straight into a corporate profit account.

(C)  The big picture when you level the playing field for the lower and middle classes is that entrepreneurship is increased.  Populations can afford to support local business, and finally have the option of choosing quality over the cheapest survival option.  Many shop at Walmart because that's all they can afford and they measure value by number.  A GBI has the potential to alter how we view money - as a tool rather than a survival imperative.  That paradigm shift will necessarily impact the monolithic corporations more than anything else.

(D)  Rushkoff portrays Basic Income as a very simple circle of money going from the government to the poor and then straight to the corporations.  This suggests that the status quo is preferable because when people can't afford to eat or put a roof over their heads... well, at least the billionaires aren't taking that money.  That is a pretty sad justification.  And if it's true, then where does that same money go now?  Do the governments keep it?  No, it participates in a different cycle, which is...

5. The Economic Growth Conundrum

The richest people in society profit from economic growth.  Economic growth is needed largely to create jobs and income so that we can have economic growth.  It is a vicious circle where those at the top reap the greatest benefit.  We have been told that jobs are good because everyone needs one in order to perpetuate and expand consumption.

We also know that when more money moves around (as would be the case with a GBI), you get serious economic growth - and thus, more of what is damaging the planet.  And yet, I believe that such a cycle is fundamentally different.  When millions of people don't need a job just to survive, they can choose more meaningful occupations.  We don't need to create bullshit jobs just to keep people busy and paid so that they can eat.  A GBI allows people to reconsider what is important to them, and returns consumption to a simple survival imperative instead of an economic one.  It makes it possible for an environmentally sustainable cycle to emerge.

In summary, I think Douglas Rushkoff is correct that a Basic Income, on its own, is not going to solve our flawed economic model.  Yet, I don't think that solution should ever stop there.  A GBI is merely the first game-changing step in a massive paradigm shift about how we value people and what is important to us as a species and as a society.  Yes, the digital behemoths have to be broken up and we have to re-write the myth of commercial corporations.  Yes, we need to reduce our role as consumer, and increase our stakeholder and citizen values.  And yes, we need to revisit asset ownership, control, and governance.

I am convinced that the best and most likely path to making all of that a reality is to change how we think about money and survival, and the most practical, realistic, and currently relevant way of doing that is with a Basic Income.

Basic Income - Where Does the Money Come From?

Believe it or not, back in the 1970s, President Nixon's administration was a heartbeat away from instituting what was effectively a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) program for the entire United States (before a few individuals derailed the plan). Today, with 2020 hindsight, everyone is realizing that a Universal Basic Income (UBI) would have been the best possible solution to the CoViD-19 economic crisis. The impact of our global pandemic has thus contributed to a renewed awareness of the power of Basic Income schemes, and many people are now pushing for those programs to be revisited.

The concept of a Basic Income for an entire population raises a lot of questions, but the most prevalent is this one:

Where is the money going to come from?

I believe this is a misleading question. The equivalent, for me, is hearing on the radio that a very significant rainfall is forecast and asking where all that water is going to come from. There won't suddenly be less water in your taps or in your well.  Your cistern won't suddenly be depleted. Nor will the lakes and reservoirs go down - in fact, their water level will obviously rise.

Water is necessary for life, just like money is now necessary for today's economy.  But plants and animals don't really consume water - they use it. Water facilitates the processes of life. Water moves in a cycle, and if that cycle were to stop, all life would soon end.

Money is exactly the same. We don't consume money - we use it. Money facilitates the processes of economic transactions. Money has to move in a cycle, and if that cycle were to stop, all economic activity would soon end. (That's what happened in the Great Depression: money stopped moving.)

One of the key concepts to be grasped for basic income programs is that "income" is not the same as "wealth". When we imagine the government handing out cheques to the population every month, it is a mistake to only consider that step of the cycle and wonder where all that money is going to come from. When money goes to people who really need it, that cash does not get added to Wealth - it gets spent. To use the water metaphor, only rich people have huge reservoirs and sealed aquifers that trap water and don't allow it to flow (wealth). Money, for everyone else, moves as streams and rivers, flowing out so that goods and services can flow in.

Here's how the simplified money cycle looks (to me):

The green lines show the cycles of money. The blue lines are also money (and luxury assets), that represent the discretionary transfers to and from Producers or Consumers that have a stockpile of Wealth.  (Other than bringing in money from Wealth and injecting it into the money cycle, retained Wealth is not part of the flow.) The red lines represent the flow of Goods and Services (materials and energy) - I include them just for completeness.

The major flow of money in our present economy is made up of Purchases and Wages. Both of those flows are Taxed so that the Government can meet society's Infrastructure needs. If you introduce a Basic Income, that money does not get added to Wealth (where it can pool and stagnate) - it gets immediately injected into the monetary flow, increasing economic activity. Purchases go up, demand goes up, production goes up, tax revenue increases correspondingly, and the cycle continues. Taxation is like evaporation - the money/water doesn't disappear; it simply reloads the system!

[NOTE: For those who hate Taxation and call for less Government, it is true that the cycle would still work with nothing in the centre, but the main green circle would soon get smaller, and (since the Producers would control the Natural Resources) the blue arrow on the right would effectively disappear.]

Basic income programs do not reduce the number of people willing to work, any more than rainfall results in plants not growing roots, but a guaranteed living allowance does reduce their dependence on dead-end jobs. (In other words, a GBI eliminates the slavery imperative: find a job or starve.) Over time, a GBI can also facilitate increased automation and shorter work weeks for all.

When the system is in balance, there will be dramatically decreased welfare supplements (which are like costly irrigation systems in areas with no rainfall), lower infrastructure costs (due to better health and lower crime rates), less stress for everyone's future, and a higher quality of life for all citizens. And yes, with all of that extra activity, it is possible that a higher Tax rate on Wealth might be necessary just to keep the revved-up cycle from being entirely diverted into the private reservoirs of the billionaires. Remember, they are not creating the jobs or driving the economy any more (if they ever were) - it's the Basic Income that's now doing that.

A Basic Income program does not demand that a nation have more money - it just moves a lot more of it around, and redistributes the flows in such a way that benefits everyone. (Read about its impact on me, for example.)

The Left's Case Against Basic Income

One curious thing about calls for the government to introduce a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) for all citizens is that they come from all over the political spectrum, from the far left to the far right.  Most people express surprise that such a seemingly 'socialist' proposal can be supported by some ultra-conservatives, but once you grasp their thinking, it naturally follows that some progressive liberal thinkers are therefore (unexpectedly) opposed to the GBI concept.

I have selected an article that expresses this perspective, and gives a fairly comprehensive list of the objections from the left that I have seen.  I leave it to the reader to first review the article, and then we will try to formulate some kind of response to their concerns and counter-arguments:

A basic income would be a major concession to the capitalist takeover of everyday life  (by Nicholas Erwin-Longstaff, York University graduate student in labour geography)

Before we begin, it should be made clear whether Erwin-Longstaff was comparing a Basic Income system to the status quo, or to his preferable system of government-supplied necessities of life (a la Medicare).  Unfortunately, he does not make this clear , and his various objections seem to waver between the two.  I will attempt to do both comparisons.

I've broken down the primary concerns into three general topics:

Deep Cuts to Social Safety Net

This is perhaps the most easily refuted objection to implementing a GBI.  Erwin-Longstaff says there would be "deep cuts elsewhere in the social safety net, resulting in a deepening of government austerity".  The first part is not only expected - it's desirable.  The second part is absurd.

Could there be a more comprehensive social safety net than a GBI - a program that is available to everyone, at any time, no questions asked?  Realistically, no, there couldn't.  Would the existing social assistance programs be reduced, if not, in some cases, eliminated?  Yes - because they would no longer be needed to the same degree.  If, on the other hand, certain programs were still necessary for those in dire need, there is nothing to say that such programs could not be retained.  The arguments for keeping a particular program under a GBI would be exactly the same as the arguments for having it now.  To say that they would all automatically disappear once a GBI is in place is no different from the panic that they could all disappear tomorrow, even under the status quo.  A GBI is not going to cover every single dire need in our society, so we still have to provide for those situations.  However, a GBI would categorically reduce the need for the vast majority of our social welfare system, along with its administration, assessments, failings, etc.

To then complain that a GBI, where the government is giving a guaranteed subsistence income to every citizen who needs it, amounts to government austerity is ridiculous.  I have seen many ardent supporters of GBI programs, but not one has ever suggested that the government would be spending less on a GBI than it does now on existing social programs.  Giving every person an annual income with no strings attached is a very strange definition of government austerity.

Erwin-Longstaff also fears that the government would "whittle away even the most ambitious BI to a barely subsistence-level support".  Of course, this is a danger for any program implemented by any government using a status quo paradigm.  However, I think it reasonable to insist that any true GBI program has to be implemented very differently from the come-and-go social welfare systems that we create and modify now.  A GBI is a long-term total gamechanger.  The only way that it's going to be truly effective is if it's implemented in such a way that future governments cannot later pull the rug out or whittle it down.  (That's part of the "Guaranteed" in the name.)  Perhaps it even needs to be a Constitutional amendment.  (Yes, it is that significant.)

All that being said, the author is correct that Basic Income programs are not intended to replace all current social provisions, but I don't think they should be viewed as complementing them either.  GBIs simply take survival completely out of the realm of social assistance and even out of standard paycheques - for everyone.

One specific present-day program needs to be addressed here - subsidized daycare.  The author makes the pseudo-liberated assumption that all women should choose to be out their having their own job; that the modern-day necessity of two-income families in order to get by is something to be retained.  When it was noted that some GBI trial outcomes showed more women staying at home to raise children, he highlights the absurdity of this with sarcastic quotes: "women 'choosing'  to remain at home".  And yet the authenticity of that choice is the very essence of a GBI.  He fears the ceaseless pursuit of capitalist growth and profit, and yet he wants more people working to produce those very ends.

I get it:  If you remove subsidized daycare, it would at first appear that fewer families will have the easy choice to have two careers going while the kids are shuffled off to an institutionalized baby-sitting service. However, I tend to think in broader strokes.  With a GBI accessible to everyone, I believe that communities will have numerous and superior alternatives to subsidized daycare.  Subsidized daycare, to my mind, merely perpetuates educational and opportunity inequities when the wealthy will be using vastly superior services like in-home nannies, etc.  Let's be absolutely clear: a GBI increases options - for everyone.

Capitalism will Adjust Negatively

I can appreciate the fear that with a GBI in place, capitalism could then attempt to eradicate its effects by lowering wages and increasing prices.  And yet I fail to see how a GBI newly introduces either this possibility or the motivation behind it.  Erwin-Longstaff says: "a BI would leave people vulnerable to rising rents and prices".  So if there was no basic income, people would somehow not be vulnerable to these?  That makes no sense.  The objection is similar to saying "a pay raise leaves people vulnerable to rising rents and prices" - so we should abolish pay raises.  Ridiculous!

And while we're on that topic - a basic income is not  a pay raise or a wage subsidy; it is something completely different.  Employment and wages would still be there to allow one to set and maintain a standard of living, but they would no longer be the determinants of life or death.  Under a GBI, survival is free - it is a basic human right.

To say it again, a GBI, to my way of thinking, should not  be intended to directly lift everyone out of poverty.   The function of a GBI is to remove the question of having or not having the absolute necessities from the whole poverty/wealth equation.  For other things, there will still be haves and have-nots, but a GBI offers those at the bottom of the ladder what our current social welfare system absolutely does not: the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty.

Philosophical Impact and Preferable Solutions

Another concern expressed in the referenced article is that a Basic Income program would "commodify all aspects of life".  In other words, under this revised paradigm, food and shelter would still be items bought and sold in a marketplace.  I can't argue with that.  Since this is obviously also the status quo, I presume Erwin-Longstaff is now switching gears and comparing a GBI to an entirely alternate solution - one which would "remove the need for cash altogether - reduce or eliminate the costs associated with other vital human needs, such as housing, education and care work".

That entirely socialist solution might indeed be preferable, but somehow I don't see it as having anything like the realistic opportunities that a GBI has for implementation.  The state handing out all food and shelter?  Not a very attractive near-future prospect.  Let's take things one giant leap at a time, please.

The author also points out that "expanding public services reliably pushes back against the logic of the market, whereas BI represents a deep concession to the ongoing capitalist takeover of every aspect of social life".  Again, there may well be advantages to radically altering how each one of us acquires what we need, and to the core definitions of ownership and commerce, but I don't think that we as a society have evolved to that possibility yet.  Indeed, I continue to argue that a GBI has the very opposite effect from the latter part of the concern expressed.  When everyone can access the necessities of life without having to sell their labour to the capitalist system, I would hardly call that advancing the capitalist takeover.  No, it is in actual fact a complete reversal of the extortionate stranglehold that the marketplace holds over practically every living human on the planet.

The article references another critic, John Clarke (writer and retired organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty), who wrote another contrary viewpoint in the context of the CoViD-19 pandemic.  As a bonus, I'll give the critics another shot at things:  The False Hope of a Pandemic Basic Income

Left-leaning critics of Basic Income programs seem to continually view the world using the glasses of the right.  They are understandably wary because we have always played by the right's rules, so our social programs have always been vulnerable to their tinkering.

I, on the other hand, believe Guaranteed Basic Income programs create a whole new playing field, and a very real opportunity for society to shift - perhaps even in the direction that those critics dream of.

My Life on a GBI

When you think of someone whose life would be radically different under a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) program, what image springs to mind?  Is it a homeless person, or a single mother with children?  Is it an artist, or someone struggling to learn a new trade?  Here's a suggestion:  Why not think about the ways in which your own life might change?  That's what I've done for this post.

Background and Context

In my most active working years, I made reasonably good money and I saved most of it.  (I was never a great consumer.)  The result was that when I final bought a home, I paid off the mortgage in under 10 years.  I continued to save most of what I earned, but that income started dropping rapidly several years ago.  I now earn less than $10,000 annually, which means I have to rely on some of my savings to eat and pay property taxes and utilities.  I could probably afford to see theatre, eat out occasionally, and treat myself to some nice things, but I am reluctant to draw down on my savings any more than absolutely necessary, since those investments represent my future survival.  It also means that while I donate a very significant number of hours to charity and volunteer work, I do not contribute any cash to any worthy causes.  I don't stress about money, but nor do I take good care of myself financially.

Introducing a GBI

Let us assume that the federal government introduces a GBI program whereby every permanent resident receives a guaranteed basic income of, say, $1,000 per month, tax-free.  (A description of the general benefits, justifications, and responses to most common criticisms of GBI may be found in a previous post.)  A Universal Basic Income (UBI) would give this money to everyone - a GBI might have some system whereby those earning more than, say, $48,000 per year would have a relative amount of the GBI paid back at tax time.  It might thus make sense that anyone can opt in or out of the GBI at any time, no questions asked.

Speaking for myself, I could actually live on such a GBI - as in, pay all of the essential bills for my existing home and feed myself.  That might not apply for everyone, and it would not be a wonderful life if I relied on the GBI alone, but it could work.  Now let's explore what would really change...

Perception of Money

Unfortunately, money in the present reality represents survival.  If I don't have money, I will be living a miserable existence on the street, with dire mental and physical health deficits.  With a GBI in place, that perception changes dramatically.  Money becomes something that I can use to improve my standard of living, or use as a tool of change, for myself or others.  The rewards of earning money go beyond survival, allowing me to let my motivation for earning entirely match the incentive of my expected outcome.

A GBI bestows a healthier perspective on money.

Investments

Because my investments have to fund my future, I can't presently take a chance on funding a friend's new business enterprise or select stocks and bonds based on things I believe in and choose to support.  No, I have to put my money into places that will leverage interest and economic growth - concepts that I generally despise.  A GBI, on the other hand, would mean that my future survival is not at risk.  I can keep a store of savings for my own rainy day, and put the rest into projects I believe in - investments that may or may not preserve the original amount.  Personally, I would be okay with that - if it meant that I wasn't putting my total well-being on the line.

A GBI allows me to invest in what I believe in.

Quality of Life

As I said in the introduction, I don't stress about money, but I don't have a good relationship with it either.  Generally speaking, I don't buy anything (except food).  I don't see shows, I don't buy clothing or coffees, I don't spend a dime online, I don't own a cell phone, and the financial aspect of anything is always a carefully considered factor.  While I would argue that you could still have a high quality of life under such circumstances, that won't be easy in today's world, and you will probably be missing out on a lot.

My default behaviour has always been to only spend money on discretionary items when I have money coming in.  Savings are not for such things.  A GBI would change that perspective, in that money would be coming in, so I would be more relaxed about spending it.  I would no longer feel I have to add to my savings, so if there was money left over from my monthly GBI, it could go out freely.

My quality of life would go up, even if my standard of living did not.

Gifts and Altruism

I am a strong believer in the power of gift economies.  (There's not enough space in one post to go into more about those - I'll cover this separately some time.)  Part of that paradigm is that gifts beget gifts.  There is an increased desire to pay it forward, especially when you are on the receiving end first.

Even though a basic income should (to my mind) be a legislated right for all, it could still very much feel like a gift.  Essentially, the community is saying: "You have a right to be here.  You have value.  And you shouldn't be compelled to work at something that we decide has value for us, in order for you to eat and live.  Your survival, just like this miraculous planet and all the beautiful things inhabiting it, is a gift."

Personally, since I can theoretically live as I do now (without a GBI), that monthly payment would unquestionably inspire me to give most of it away.

Perceiving a GBI as a gift, I would give more.

What about you?

There are lots of amazing ways that a Guaranteed Basic Income could completely alter your life - even if you don't live below the poverty line.  Having a safety net, even when you aren't currently in freefall, can give you the courage to take powerful and worthy risks in order to realize your full potential.  Perhaps my essay on Free Survival would inspire more ideas.  So tell us - how would a GBI change your life?

Where Do We Start?

You see this crisis as an opportunity?  Great!

You got a plan?  No?  Well I do.

Not too surprisingly, my previous post here was similar in nature to a lot of other posts that are showing up in progressive blogs around the globe, all saying essentially the same thing:

"This could be our best chance for a better world!"

"During lockdown, the pollution cleared and the birds were singing, showing us the environment that is possible!"

"We've had to lots of time to think about what's important.  Now we just have to make that happen!"

It's all very heartwarming and uplifting.  It gives us hope for a brighter future while we are trapped in our own homes, unable to socialize, unable to reach out and hug one another, unable to share the joy of being alive in-person with others.  A new world is possible!

Please, don't kid yourself.

Personal changes to your life will be wonderful.  They may bring you happiness and renewed purpose.  They may shine new light in your tiny corner of the world.  Don't get me wrong - that is awesome!  But how are we going to take this opportunity that you see and actually do something with it?  What are you actually going to ask your leaders to do that hasn't fallen on deaf ears before?  What do you think is really going to happen?

Whether we follow China's timetable and end the lockdown by the end of May or whether it drags on into June or July, when we do get the green light to return to normal, we will sprint for it.  The marketing might of every industry on Earth will be pulling us back into their line of thinking with every fibre of their very powerful being.  And we'll go back to the old status quo, not because all of us want to, but because we don't know how to fight that.  We don't know anything else.  The world we want hasn't been done before.  We don't know where to begin.  This is all unprecedented.

Economic catastrophes, on the other hand, are not unprecedented, and governments have been continually refining how to restore their monetary paradigm.  After the economic crisis of 2008, and for the next four years, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and others started madly creating money out of thin air in order to avert total economic collapse.  Multiple trillions of dollars were printed with nothing but a prayer for the return of economic growth for decades into the future to back them.  And by their measures, it worked.  Meanwhile, the social values got worse.  Entire countries suffered austerity measures that they have yet to come out from under, millions more displaced peoples wander the globe seeking refuge from conflict and devastation, and populism has made a mockery of democracy and past advances in social justice and environmental protection.

This may be an opportunity to move forward, but all precedents point to a move backward - a loss of past gains and even deeper entrenchment in maniacally obsessive economic growth.  We are nowhere near the end of this crisis and look at what your government has already started.  The business bailouts have begun and the pitches have already started to have our economies roaring back sooner rather than later.  No-one on the news or in authority ever questions that objective as being what we all want.

On the flip side, those who long for change have no meaningful plan.  They are split between climate change activists, environmentalists, social justice seekers, spirituality practitioners, and biodiversity promoters.  Everything that they call for threatens jobs and the economy.  Yes, that is the point, but that point is lost on those that fear for their lives and understand that jobs and the economy are the keys to their survival.  I said it in my previous post, but it's worth saying it again:

The bulk of the world will never change its value system until it sees a real benefit in doing so, but the only way to see that benefit is if you are using a different value system.

I do not doubt that the scope of this pandemic, the pause effect on our lives, and all those other effects on the common person will have an impact.  At best, there will be many more who are drawn to a desire for change.  But chances are, the only real outcome will be a slightly higher proportion of the world population being distressed with the direction we're headed in.  Climate change and all the other global disasters will be back on track in no time.

Except for One Possibility...

Personally, so far, I see one chance for change.  One.

Consider what attributes any real change agent would have to have:

• Something that did not directly threaten the status quo paradigm.
• Something that, at face value, might even look like it would support the old status quo.
• Something that had been tried already and shown to have success potential.
• Something that does not immediately lower the corporate bottom line or the power of the super-wealthy.
• Something that already has support on both ends of the political spectrum.
• Something that could easily gain broad support from all the people.
• Something that suited the circumstances.

And most importantly...

• Something that could start small and had the potential of being a total game changer.

To figure out what that might be, I ask you:  What holds us back, every time?  Pandemics aside, what is our universal everyday fear?  What defeats the most progressive decisions of governments the world over?  What is the one thing you see touted on every party platform, regardless of where they lie on the political spectrum?

Jobs.

We must have jobs, preserve jobs, create jobs.  It's a policy with universal appeal because losing our job is the ubiquitous modern-day fear that the non-wealthy have in this country.  What if I lost my income?  What if my savings were wiped out?  What if I want to retire?  Jobs are equated with basic survival.  And so every single decisive move that any government wants to make gets weighed against the all-important job question because they know that's the deal maker or breaker.  So how might we ever escape this paradigm?

With a guaranteed basic income.

I am convinced, more than ever, that a guaranteed basic income (GBI) would be humanity's foot in the door that leads to the change we all want.  Free survival removes the survival imperative of having a job.  It is our best, most pragmatic, most realistic shot at turning this massive cruise ship around.  I see it as a first step towards restoring human values and literally changing our world.  Describing that process would take more time than I have in a single blog post.  I already posted a case for how a GBI might work in Canada, and what the benefits would be.  That article also addresses some of the common objections.  Note that a GBI does not replace jobs - it simply begins to change our relationship with them.  Perhaps in a later post, I will attempt to extract more from my second book-in-progress so that the pathway can be more comprehensively laid out.

Meanwhile, to all of you who have been reading my posts and others, cheering on the visionary writers, and spreading your hopeful optimism - to all of you who can truly see this tragic pandemic for the huge opportunity that it is - where are you going to start?

Let's throw our collective weight behind something that might actually achieve that brave new world.  Demand a federal guaranteed basic income.  That's where I think we should start.  And start now.

That's my idea.  I'd like very much to hear others...

Free Survival

The Concise Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income in Canada

Installing a floor in a house with no ceiling.

Imagine you lived in a country where every permanent resident was guaranteed a basic income that provided for the barest essentials of life.  Don’t question where the money will come from – we’ll get to that in a moment.  Simply imagine that the poorest people in the land each received, say, $1000 every month, no questions asked.  How would that country be changed?

Now imagine a contrasting scenario, where you live in a country that has no universal single-payer health insurance.  (Canadians can easily observe such an example below our southern border.)  What would happen if you slipped and badly broke a bone, or got a viral infection during a global pandemic, or had a child who needed urgent care, and you could not afford to pay for a doctor or a hospital visit or an essential operation?  Would any Canadian ever want to go back to the days before 1962 when that was actually the case?

If you are still having trouble with imagining the first scenario, but are all in favour of universal healthcare, ask yourself why medical treatment should be free but essential survival should not be.  Canadians don’t apply to be accepted to a hospital when they are sick – they are simply taken in and treated.  So why should a homeless person get free food and shelter from their government when they are in a hospital, but not outside of one?  How did creating wealth for someone else (i.e. a job) become a prerequisite for life?

The Status Quo

Like most wealthy countries, Canada generally offers social assistance – welfare – to those who apply for it and meet the eligibility criteria.  We don’t like to see people starving on our streets.  In poorer countries, such people might turn exclusively to begging in order to survive.  As a society, we don’t tend to hold welfare recipients or beggars in very high regard.  For those of us not fortunate enough to inherit our wealth, we have to work to earn a living, and it’s a bit irksome to see welfare money (our tax dollars) going to those who seemingly don’t.

While being on welfare and begging can certainly have a similar feel and stigma, the differences between the two are not all one-sided.  Social assistance is perhaps more predictable and has a less visible indignity, but at least if one works harder at begging, one can potentially earn more money.  Most welfare programs, on the other hand, are set up such that if you attempt to better your lot by getting work, every dollar that you earn is subtracted from your assistance cheque.  That’s a tax rate of 100% on our lowest income earners.  Indeed, there are some scenarios in which one or more part-time minimum-wage jobs might actually take the overall household income below the welfare payment level, discouraging recipients from even trying.

A guaranteed basic income (GBI) is different.  It is a commitment from the Government of Canada that no-one will be denied the chance to live.  It would be available to every adult citizen and permanent resident, linked to their social insurance number (SIN), and paid every month.  Every Canadian would receive the same amount, regardless of what province they live in or how much they have earned in the past.  If a recipient earns more than a defined threshold in any given year, the excess could be taken back at tax time.  Anyone can opt in or out at any time.

The remainder of this work will be devoted to answering the following questions:

• Has this ever been tried anywhere?
• What are the benefits of a GBI?
• Wouldn’t people stop working?
• What are the social costs of a GBI?
• Where will the money come from?
• Where else might the money come from?
• Isn’t a GBI total socialism?
• Why does anyone deserve a GBI?
• Where could this lead?

Has this ever been tried anywhere?

Absolutely.  Minimum income schemes are not just pipe dreams.  In the last 50 years there have been more than 30 such programs introduced on an experimental basis around the world – with very promising results.  In Canada, a pilot project in Dauphin, Manitoba was conducted in the mid-70s, and in three communities in Ontario (2017-19).  Around the same time, another guaranteed basic income program was tried in Finland.  Furthermore, at the time of writing, there is an all-party committee putting together the plan for a province-wide pilot program in Prince Edward Island, and a separate commission of inquiry looking at basic income programs for British Columbia.  We’ll examine some of their results in the responses to more questions below, but generally speaking, the outcomes have been overwhelmingly positive, and fiscally responsible.

What are the benefits of a GBI?

The straightforward benefits in terms of poverty reduction should be obvious.  If someone has a guaranteed basic income every month, regardless of other circumstances, at least they have a fighting chance.  Poverty is not caused by a moral failing, or a shortage of will, or a lack of character.  Poverty is not a mindset, or a choice, or laziness.  Poverty is caused by having insufficient funds.  Period.

Money doesn’t solve everything.  But the benefits of having a guaranteed basic income go far beyond the bank account and dinner table.  Where GBI pilot projects have been run, the improvements to social well-being were irrefutable.  Generally speaking, the physical and mental health outcomes of participants improved, education and graduation rates went up, and negative encounters with the law went down.

New mothers have more options; youth have more options; the homeless have more options; former inmates trying to rebuild their lives from scratch have more options; people stuck in dead-end jobs have more options.  Artists and entrepreneurs can survive while pursuing their dreams and making our world a better place.  While one person’s GBI might not pay the full rent in some cities, recipients can band together and pool their resources.

Those in need can get immediate assistance, with their dignity intact – no applications, no assessments, no ongoing administration.  When there is no longer a need for soup kitchens and food banks, charitable giving can then be redirected to other worthy causes.

The simplicity and summary benefits of a GBI have yet another significant benefit.  Most of us (certainly in prosperous nations with insurance safety nets) now live without the daily fear of being attacked by a predatory animal, or succumbing to a minor natural catastrophe, or being killed by a rival tribe group, or losing everything in a fire, or suffering a medical trauma.  What fear could nearly universally apply to anyone in today’s society (pandemics aside)?  Unemployment.  Losing it all.  Not having the money to live in the manner to which one has become accustomed.  Not having the savings to retire from a life of labour.  It’s a serious fear.  (Yes, there was the CoViD-19 pandemic.  And what did the Canadian government do?  Did its bail-out package save the people?  No.  It attempted to save pre-existing workers and the economy.  The concern was not feeding the population – it was saving the jobs!  Those who were already vulnerable got nothing.)  Knowing that there is a guaranteed secondary safety net, even if savings and friends are no longer able to help, means a huge stress point is alleviated for every single Canadian.

Speaking of pandemics, imagine what would have happened if a GBI program had already been in place when that global crisis occurred.  The back-up system would have been well-defined and ready to go.  The universal income amount could have been tweaked as necessary, and all non-essential workers could have immediately gone home to wait it out.

Wouldn’t people stop working?

A GBI is no free ride.  On the contrary, it provides the bare minimum needed for survival.  It just moves the starting line up for people trying to lift themselves out of abject poverty.  It’s also the backup safety system that many need for taking new risks and exploring new opportunities; getting the education that truly appeals to them; weathering a sudden personal disaster; taking the time to find a vocation that is a great fit for their talents and interests.  Humans do not want to be idle all their life.  They want to be productive and to contribute in meaningful ways.  If they are given the keys to the many doors of opportunity standing before them, they at least have a chance to start opening them and to better themselves.

A basic minimum income would not pay for a standard of living that anyone would choose for themselves.  If you want a nice place to live, internet access, a car, a cell phone, nice clothes, and all the other great things that many of us enjoy in Canada, you are absolutely going to need a job.  For example, if the GBI were $1000/month, nobody is going to choose to live on $12,000 per year.  (But it might just save your life if that’s all you had.)

This conclusion is borne out by the GBI pilot projects which consistently demonstrate that there was no inclination for participants to work less.  Notable exceptions were new parents who chose to spend longer periods out of the workforce to be with their babies, and youth who chose to further their education instead of taking the first job that they could find.  The collective benefits of both of those types of decisions are clear.

Moreover, as mentioned earlier, some of the present traditional social assistance programs do actually discourage people from working – especially those with dollar-for-dollar claw-backs.  A properly-designed GBI does not work that way, and would not have the same effect.  However, it does open up alternatives so that the most disadvantaged are not slaves to demeaning sweat labour just to survive another day.

What are the social costs of a GBI?

One very sad criticism of GBIs is that the money will simply be wasted by the recipients.  This is of course nonsense.  The people living at the bottom of our social pyramid are the ones most likely to know what they need to survive.  Indeed, they are probably in a better position to make those decisions than some government bureaucrat designing a social assistance program in a committee room somewhere.  The flexibility of a GBI gives people the dignity and options to make the choices that are right for their individual circumstances.

The other thing you will hear is that a GBI will simply be used to enable addictions such as alcohol, drugs, and gambling.  This kind of distorted thinking is ridiculously biased and narrow.  Addictive behaviours can be found at every income level of society.  These problems are by no means limited to the poor or marginalized people, nor would they be attributes of the vast majority of those that need financial assistance.  Our mental health system should be focussed on treating these addictions, wherever they show up in our communities, not on treating the despair and anguish of poverty.

Furthermore, studies show that even those with addictions do not view such income as something to spend on their unhealthy habits.  On the contrary, knowing that such an ongoing benefit could (and likely will) turn their life around, they take the opportunity to improve their well-being and live better lives.  Many addictive behaviours are born of despair for any hope for the future.  A GBI can supply that missing hope.

Another argument is that a GBI will make people dependent on the government for their survival.  This is far more likely an outcome of the existing welfare systems that pays supplements well below the poverty line, thereby keeping people in poverty.  Even for those rare cases where, for whatever reason, an individual is not able to capitalize on all of the benefits listed earlier and is forced to continue to rely on their GBI payments in order to live – is there really anything wrong with that?  Plenty of average citizens have exactly the same dependence on our universal healthcare system.  If you can’t fall back on the basic humanity of your country, what hope is there?

Where will the money come from?

While this might be the most obvious question to pose, I saved it until now because some of the responses to the earlier questions set the stage for this one.  The answer must also be prefaced with the fact that while we can fairly easily calculate the costs of a GBI program, there are likely to be even more indirect financial benefits than have already been confirmed by pilot programs.  This is because a GBI inspires profound longer-term changes to society itself as well as individual well-being.

To begin with, there is the money from existing programs that would no longer be needed.  A GBI can replace social assistance, income supplements, tax incentives, subsidies, and more.  These kinds of savings include not just their outputs but also the costs associated with managing their applications, assessments, and ongoing administration.  Under at least one proposed GBI implementation, these federal and provincial savings alone would cover 60% of the direct costs.

Then there are the secondary savings that have always gone hand-in-hand with real poverty reduction:  reduced healthcare costs, lower crime rates, reductions in serious family conflict, etc., all of which otherwise represent a significant burden on the government coffers.

Even after all of that, will a GBI be a net-zero cost program?  Probably not.  However, any net cost would arguably be an effective investment in universally raising the quality of life for every Canadian, whether getting the GBI or not, because of an overall improvement in the well-being of our communities.

Where else might the money come from?

Unsurprisingly, critics of GBI and similar programs immediately translate such proposals into a massive tax increase.  Why, they ask, should we be working hard and paying taxes so that it can be given away to the people at the bottom layer of society?  Since the implementation of a GBI might very well entail some changes to the distribution of the tax burden, those are valid questions to consider.

And yet, would it not make even more sense to ask why that same majority should be working hard and paying taxes, while some of the highest income earners in the land leverage complex tax loopholes, finagle trusts, hide income off-shore, and generally use their existing wealth to generate new wealth for themselves at a rate that most could not begin to imagine?  While it is extremely important for society to address poverty, it is equally important to address income inequity as those gaps widen ever further.  So yes, I think it safe to assume that the introduction of a universal GBI for Canadians is also going to involve some of the country’s wealthiest individuals and corporations paying taxes that more closely reflect their actual earnings.

That being said, it is also true that putting more money into the hands of more people also clearly leads to more economic growth.  If the poorest people in Canada can suddenly afford more food and other essentials, that buying power translates directly into a healthier economy.  That means more revenue overall to help pay for the GBI that made it all happen.  As prosperity grows, the demands on the GBI actually decrease.  (By contrast, under the status quo, poverty is self-replicating – it reinforces its own permanence.)

Isn’t a GBI total socialism?

Technically, no it isn’t and I’ll say why.  But before I do, dismissing an initiative that has the proven benefits outlined above, just because of its apparent political genre is the kind of closed-minded thinking that can hold back an entire nation.  Unfortunately, it is also the most common form of knee-jerk criticism when a GBI is debated in the general population.

Socialism, in the literal sense, is where the means of production, distribution, and exchange is owned and/or regulated by the community – none of which are really attributes of a GBI.  However, in common usage, the term “socialism” is often applied whenever the government is seen to be giving something away.  Universal healthcare, which the vast majority of Canadians support wholeheartedly, is closer to socialism, since the government does indeed define what healthcare is offered and control how it is delivered.

The existing social assistance programs are also closer to socialism than a GBI, since they are much more tightly regulated by the governments administering them.  It might surprise those on the right of the political spectrum to know that there is significant support among conservatives for GBI initiatives.  Even Milton Friedman, that great champion of neoclassic economics and libertarianism, was a supporter of minimum basic income programs (which he called a “negative income tax”).  Such programs appealed to him because it put the money and spending decisions in the hands of the people, not a central planning authority (and as such, were the opposite of socialism).  It is also worth noting that the recent three-year GBI pilot program introduced in Ontario in 2017 had the explicit support of all three major parties, and was in fact designed by a long-standing staunch Conservative, former senator Hugh Segal.

Why does anyone deserve a GBI?

There are several ethical arguments for a national GBI.  Here are a few:

Firstly, for the same reason that you deserve free healthcare.  In a country of so much abundance, the essentials of life should be provided to those with no other option.  A GBI offers survival with dignity, so that every person has a chance to become a contributing member of society.  The status quo does nothing to eradicate poverty – it simply keeps people there.  That is not the objective of society or humanity.  You might be lucky enough to not have to sleep on the street, but how does it feel to you when you see others forced to do that?  Everyone benefits when the lowest point of society is lifted.

Secondly, ask yourself:  What is the source of any other money in our present economy?  A large percentage of it comes from the real wealth of the nation – its natural resources, its sustainable energy sources, its collective technological know-how, and its broadly held culture and stories.  These are things that arguably every resident has equal claim to, so why shouldn’t everyone receive a dividend from this wealth?  Putting it another way, ask yourself why those few super-wealthy people who presently take significant wealth from such common national resources deserve to do so.

Thirdly, we must never forget that a GBI applies to everyone, regardless of upbringing, social status, or former income level.  It does not just rewrite the future prospects of our most vulnerable and disadvantaged populations; it also completely changes the way each and every one of us think about our own job security and our freedom to make choices that are right for us.  A GBI is there for everyone, and anyone can activate that safety net, if and when they need it.  This includes middle-income people with no savings fleeing domestic violence.  It includes victims of natural disasters or fraud who have lost everything.  It includes the disillusioned elite who need some time to redefine their life’s purpose.  It includes visionaries who choose voluntary simplicity and a life of volunteerism to help their fellow human beings.  A GBI changes the entire paradigm.

Where could this lead?

Already, a guaranteed basic income is a better solution for ‘current’ times.  It can be designed to provide a fiscally and socially responsible way to provide more effective help for those in need under the economic paradigm that we have lived under for decades.  But it can also be a total game changer, ushering in a whole new economic paradigm.

As we live today, survival is largely predicated on wages.  We exist in the relentless pursuit of money, a number-based value that has no concept of sufficiency.  More is always worth more.  The universal objective became the maximization of wealth, when the horrible truth is that wealth cannot be maximized – we can always earn more.  There is no maximum!  We devote our incredible life potential in pursuit of the impossible.  Furthermore, no matter what wondrous creativity we possess, it is held to have no value if it cannot be monetized.  “Not good enough – you need a real job.”  Where does this value distortion come from?

It comes from civilization’s present manifestation of the bottom layer of Maslow’s famous Hierarchy of Needs.  Physiological needs are the most basic of human requirements, and our modern framework says that to meet those we need money.  For many tens of thousands of years, this was never the case.  For our ancestors, just like for every other species on the planet, the essentials of life were supplied by the natural world.

When money became essential for life, its value was inextricable from survival.  We were taught from the earliest age that we were put on Earth to work non-stop so that we could eat.  Our education was entirely geared to preparing our money-earning potential because this is how we were going to spend the rest of waking lives: working.  At first, most of the work was productive to society and perhaps aligned with our collaborative instincts.  However, over time, work has become more of a life of earning money for those at the top of the pyramid – or worse, for faceless corporations that now rule over our societies.  The consumption of planetary resources is no longer for our survival – it takes place to create an economy with two different objectives: (1) to enrich those who already have far more than anyone could ever need, and (2) to create enough jobs so that the workers can all continue to work and afford to consume what is being created so that the cycle may continue.

We all fully understand that success takes work.  Happiness and productive lives require some effort.  But what if survival was free?  What if the ability to afford the essentials of life was something you never had to worry about?  Imagine the phenomenal freedom that such a societal evolution would release us into!  Why couldn’t our public revenue (especially corporate taxes) be used in that way?  Why shouldn’t they be?  Such a base line would buy all of us the precious time that we need to rethink our economies and our actions on this planet.  We could change the course of society without the constant paralysis caused by the law of job preservation trumping every other major change initiative.

It is very hard to predict what such a world would look like, but it is easy to see that it would be better than the obsessive and unsustainable pursuit of growth that we are stuck in now.  Perhaps guaranteed basic incomes would extend to become universal basic incomes, available to everyone, rich or poor.  Perhaps money would be entirely uncoupled from survival somehow.  Perhaps food and shelter would simply be given, and our economies would focus on science or the arts or healing our planet.  Who knows?


More reading:
Basic Income Canada Network
Basic Income Earth Network