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Five Questions to Philosopher Philippe Van Parijs on Unconditional Basic Income and the Pandemic

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Five Questions to Philosopher Philippe Van Parijs on Unconditional Basic Income and the Pandemic Philippe Van Parijs is a philosopher and a Brusseler. He teaches at the Universities of Louvain and Leuven, and is a Robert Schuman Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. FIVE QUESTIONS TO PHILOSOPHER PHILIPPE VAN PARIJS ON UNCONDITIONAL BASIC INCOME AND THE PANDEMIC n 1986, you convened the first internation- al conference on universal basic income, which saw the birth of BIEN, a network that now spans the whole world and whose ad- Ivisory board you still chair. Has the hour for Universal Basic Income finally come? In these forty years, I have learned not to get excited too quickly. It is true that the idea is coming up right, left and centre. But there are several versions, with distinct purposes. This is what inspired, for example, a proposal One purpose is to ensure that no one ends made at the end of March by over 170 members up without an income for weeks on end, as a of the British Parliament. They advocated the result of the lockdown imposed by a govern- introduction of an “Emergency Universal Basic ment. Income” for at least the duration of the lock- down, to be paid weekly to all residents and In many countries, including Belgium, some funded by public borrowing. scheme of “technical” or “temporary” unem- ployment is triggered, with workers receiving 70 Compared to the existing schemes, including or 80 percent of their wage for a limited period the UK’s so-called “universal credit”, such a gen- of time. uinely universal scheme would have the advan- tage of reaching all households with a minimal But it is harder to design a scheme that satis- amount of bureaucracy. But it would have the factorily covers the growing category of the disadvantage of increasing, at a high cost, the self-employed, the platform workers, and work- net income of a majority of people whose prob- ers with irregular or “zero-hour contracts”. In lem is not that their income is too low, but that several countries, these are the categories that they cannot spend it due to shop closures. have been growing fastest in recent years. 30 | THE BRUSSELS TIMES MAGAZINE Universal Basic Income posters could be seen in Belgium already before the pandemic. It can therefore be argued that the public debt “ One purpose is to ensure that no would be unnecessarily swollen by such a meas- ure and that something more finely tuned to ad- one ends up without an income dress the sudden fall in income of the people hit by the crisis would make more sense, even if the for weeks on end, as a result targeting is imperfect. of the lockdown imposed by a government.” Is an “emergency basic income” different from so called “helicopter money”, a label some- times also used to defend an unconditional commonly called Quantitative Easing (QE), basic income? a monetary policy that injects money into the economy, thereby enabling and inducing private The purpose is different. When an economy banks to lend more to both firms and house- is in a recession, a central bank will want to holds. boost it by pumping more money into it. This is THE BRUSSELS TIMES MAGAZINE | 31 effect, and it is meant to have one. It is to be “With a permanent unconditional used when there is not enough inflation, and it basic income in place, there must therefore necessarily be temporary, which is also the case for an emergency basic income would be no one without an or other measures meant to address the imme- diate impact of the pandemic on the disposable income at all, waiting for ad hoc incomes of many households. But its optimal timing is different. Helicopter money is best re- schemes to be implemented or served for the moment businesses can reopen trying to find out how they could and welcome a strong demand. access existing schemes they never The fear sometimes expressed is that, just as firms may not invest even when interest rates dreamt of ever needing. ” are very low, households may not spend but rather hoard the additional income they receive. Some of the proposals for a “QE for the peo- ple” therefore suggest that this payment should be made in a “melting” currency that loses value through time, in order to encourage households But as interest rates approached the lowest to use it straight away. possible level, many economists started plead- ing for so-called “helicopter money” or “Quan- Some of the proposals also exclude households titative Easing for the People”, the printing of with high incomes and therefore a lower pro- money to be distributed directly to households. pensity to consume. The case for such meas- The simplest way of doing so consists of a direct ures is well explained in a recent paper by the payment of the same amount into the bank ac- NGO Positive Money. But the recession we are count of every resident. experiencing is very special not only by virtue of its size, but also because economic activity is Of course, such a payment has an inflationary hampered not only by the lack of demand but 32 | THE BRUSSELS TIMES MAGAZINE also by all sorts of constraints required to con- income of the rich nor need to be funded by a tain the pandemic. Helicopter money, there- massive increase in public borrowing. The bulk fore, cannot be expected to be the magic bullet of it would be paid for by those whose income it could hope to be under different conditions. is not affected by the crisis. This would not make it unnecessary to have so- cial insurance schemes that protect both wage You seem rather lukewarm about these vari- earners and the self-employed against a sudden ous developments. income loss. But such schemes would come on top of a basic income security provided uncon- Whether actually implemented or just pro- ditionally to all. posed, measures of this sort serve useful pur- poses and, in certain circumstances, they can be If such a basic income existed at the EU level, the best tools available. But they are all intrinsi- it would additionally operate as a mechanism cally temporary. Over more than the short term, of automatic solidarity among member states, they are unsustainable because they are funded with the shock attenuated in the countries hit either by deficit spending or by money creation. hardest. Moreover, whenever Quantitative Eas- ing would be required, the pipeline would be However, they all share a most welcome virtue. ready for it, in the form of an administratively They all boost our awareness of how much bet- straightforward, temporary increase of the ba- ter equipped our societies and our economies sic income regularly paid to all. would be to face challenges, such as this one, if a permanent unconditional basic income were in place, funded in a sustainable way. So, do you think that the time is ripe for a fundamental reform of our social protection systems that would incorporate such a perma- “I believe in opportunistic nent basic income, even possibly at the Euro- ERYV sprl pean level? Avenue du Martin-Pêcheur, 15 Bte 24, B-1170 Bruxelles – Belgium utopianism. Crises can provide Tel : +32 (0)2 675 42 40 -- Fax : + 32 (0)2 660 60 46, Email : [email protected] I believe in opportunistic utopianism. Crises can opportunities for major provide opportunities for major breakthroughs. breakthroughs. In Belgium, In Belgium, universal suffrage was the product of World War I, and a developed welfare state, universal suffrage was the like in many other countries, the product of product of World War I, and a World War II. We do not know at this stage how long, how deep developed welfare state, like in and how wide the economic crisis triggered by many other countries, the product the coronavirus pandemic will be. But we must try to use the momentum to restructure our in- of World War II.” stitutions so as to make our economies and our societies more fair and more resilient. Enabling our societies to better cope with a pandemic is of course only one of the reasons for introduc- ing a basic income. If such a scheme had been in place, would there have been no need for all the measures After the Swiss referendum and the Finnish ex- improvised by the various governments in periment, the presidential campaigns of Benoit order to address the socio-economic conse- Hamon in France, and Andrew Yang in the Unit- quences of the pandemic and the lockdown? ed States, and the many proposals for an “Emer- gency Universal Basic Income” or for a “QE for With a permanent unconditional basic income the people” in response to the current crisis, in place, there would be no one without an in- can further contribute to persuading people come at all, waiting for ad hoc schemes to be im- that an unconditional basic income is not a lu- plemented or trying to find out how they could dicrous idea fancied by a handful of eccentrics, access existing schemes they never dreamt of but a central part of what we need. To make it ever needing. a reality in a particular national context or at the European level, visionaries and activists are Contrary to an emergency basic income, a per- needed, but also, at the right moment, clever in- manent basic income would not boost the net stitutional tinkerers and courageous politicians. 34 | THE BRUSSELS TIMES MAGAZINE .
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