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Democratizing Citizenship: Some Advantages of a Basic Income

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Democratizing Citizenship: Some Advantages of a Basic Income 10.1177/0032329203261100POLITICSCARAROLETICLEP &ATEMAN SOCIETY Democratizing Citizenship: Some Advantages of a Basic Income CAROLE PATEMAN If the focus of interest is democratization, including women’s freedom, a basic income is preferable to stakeholding. Prevailing theoretical approaches and con- ceptions of individual freedom, free-riding seen as a problem of men’s employment, and neglect of feminist insights obscure the democratic potential of a basic income. An argument in terms of individual freedom as self-government, a basic income as a democratic right, and the importance of the opportunity not to be employed shows how a basic income can help break both the link between income and employment and the mutual reinforcement of the institutions of marriage, employment, and citizenship. Keywords: basic income; stakeholding; democratization; women; free-riding The essays by Philippe Van Parijs on basic income and Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott on a stake (or capital grant) contain very valuable insights into both these ideas. They also provide arguments about feasibility and the best way to present stakeholding or a basic income to gain public support. I am going to focus on the reasons for advocating a basic income, and how a theoretical argument for it should be framed. By a “basic income” I am referring to the payment of a regular sum by a government to each individual (citizen) over an adult lifetime, with no conditions attached. “A stake” means a one-time unconditional capital grant from a government to all individuals (citizens) at, say, age twenty-one.1 My view is that in the current political climate in the United States and Britain a stake is likely to prove more acceptable to public opinion than a basic income. The Blair government in Britain has already committed itself to a variant of stakeholding, the Baby Bond. Under this proposal the government will open a POLITICS & SOCIETY, Vol. 32 No. 1, March 2004 89-105 DOI: 10.1177/0032329203261100 © 2004 Sage Publications 89 Downloaded from http://pas.sagepub.com at UNIV TORONTO MISSISSAUGA LIB on June 8, 2010 90 POLITICS & SOCIETY capital account for each child at birth, to be available with the accrued interest when the child is eighteen. A basic income stands more chance of being intro- duced in Europe where, as Van Parijs illustrates in his essay, income support poli- cies have already moved in a direction where a basic income, albeit probably of a partial character, could be seen as a logical “next step.” Stakeholding, I agree, would be an advance over current arrangements in the United States and in Britain. But which is to be preferred: a capital grant or a basic income? The answer to that question depends upon the reasons each of these ideas is being advocated. All ideas and policies are invariably put forward for a variety of different reasons and involve different hopes about what might be achieved. The reasons that eventually become most prominent in public debate then help shape practical outcomes. All human activities have unintended and unforeseen conse- quences, so we cannot be certain of the results of introducing either a basic income or stakeholding, not least since a great deal hinges on the level of the income or capital grant. But because the direction of change depends, among other things, on the reasons the change is advocated and what it is expected to achieve, the manner in which the theoretical case is made for a basic income or a stake is crucial. I became interested in the idea of a basic income some years ago for two main reasons. First, because of the part that basic income could play in furthering democratization, that is, the creation of a more democratic society in which indi- vidual freedom and citizenship are of equal worth for everyone. The second, and closely related, reason is because of its potential in advancing women’s freedom. My argument is that in light of these reasons a basic income is preferable to a stake. A basic income is a crucial part of any strategy for democratic social change because, unlike a capital grant, it could help break the long-standing link between income and employment and end the mutual reinforcement of the institutions of marriage, employment, and citizenship. In the early twentieth century, Bertram Pickard declared that a state bonus (a forerunner of a basic income) “must be deemed the monetary equivalent of the right to land, of the right to life and lib- erty.”2 My conception of the democratic significance of a basic income is in the spirit of Pickard’s statement. I will begin with some general arguments about why, if democratization is the goal, a basic income should be preferred to stakeholding, and then discuss the institution of employment and some questions about free-riding and the household. A BASIC INCOME AND SELF-GOVERNMENT My argument for a basic income shares the view of Van Parijs and Ackerman and Alstott that both a basic income and a stake expand individual freedom. How- ever, our reasons for holding this view and our conceptions of individual freedom are very different. Basic income in Van Parijs’s Real Freedom for All and Downloaded from http://pas.sagepub.com at UNIV TORONTO MISSISSAUGA LIB on June 8, 2010 CAROLE PATEMAN 91 stakeholding in Ackerman and Alstott’s The Stakeholder Society are justified in terms of freedom as individual opportunity. Despite the many other differences between the form and content of their arguments, they agree about the conception of freedom to be promoted. I am concerned with another conception of freedom, individual freedom as self-government or autonomy, which I see as a political form and as central to democracy. In Real Freedom for All Van Parijs explicitly rejects any necessary connection between individual freedom and democracy; if there is a connection it is merely contingent.3 Individual freedom as autonomy or self-government has been neglected in the academic debates about stakeholding, but it is central to democracy. Modern (uni- versal) democracy rests on the premise that individuals are born, or are naturally, free and are equal to each other. That is to say, they are self-governing or autono- mous. If their self-government is to be maintained they must become citizens with rights, and interact within institutions that further autonomy. In this conception, freedom includes not only individual economic (private) opportunities, and the opportunity to participate in collective self-government, but also individual autonomy. The latter tends to be overlooked, in part because “democracy” has become identified with collective (national) self-government, especially through “free and fair elections.” Other forms of government that deny or limit individu- als’ freedom fall out of the picture, such as government in marriage or the work- place. Insofar as self-government in these areas has received attention in political theory it has been directed to the workplace rather than to marriage, despite three centuries of feminist analysis that has highlighted the denial or limitation of wives’self-government and the political significance of the institution of marriage. Individual self-government depends not only on the opportunities available but also on the form of authority structure within which individuals interact with one another in their daily lives. Self-government requires that individuals both go about their lives within democratic authority structures that enhance their auton- omy and that they have the standing, and are able (have the opportunities and means), to enjoy and safeguard their freedom. A basic income—set at the appro- priate level—is preferable to a stake because it helps create the circumstances for democracy and individual self-government. Little attention has been paid in recent academic debates to the democratic sig- nificance of a stake or a basic income. Participants have tended to focus on such questions as social justice, relief of poverty, equality of opportunity, or promotion of flexible labor markets, rather than democracy. I do not want to downplay the importance of these questions, or suggest that they are irrelevant to democracy, but they involve different concerns and arguments than explicit attention to democratization. Academic discussion today is too often conducted in a series of separate compartments, each with its own frame of reference. In political theory, for instance, discussion of social justice has usually been undertaken by one set of theorists and democratic theory by others, with the two discussions seldom inter- Downloaded from http://pas.sagepub.com at UNIV TORONTO MISSISSAUGA LIB on June 8, 2010 92 POLITICS & SOCIETY secting. The terms of the debate about stakeholding have tended to be confined within the framework provided by republicanism, libertarianism, utilitarianism, and liberalism. And, rather oddly in ostensibly “political” theory (though in keep- ing with the times), political argument is being displaced by neo-classical economic concepts and theories. The narrowness of the debate is exacerbated by the striking absence of the arguments and insights provided by feminist scholars. Some feminists are opposed to a basic income but their arguments are absent too. Many years of scholarship about marriage, employment, and citizenship are virtually ignored in debates about basic income and stakeholding, and women’s freedom (self- government) and its implications for a democratic social transformation have hardly been mentioned. Now that the nostrums of neo-classical economics enshrined in national and international policy making have begun to look a little tattered, the way is being opened for some new ideas. The idea of a basic income is not, strictly speaking, new; advocates usually trace it back to Tom Paine, and I have mentioned one of its earlier incarnations as a state bonus. But it is now being more widely discussed, and current circumstances (as I shall discuss below) offer a much more favorable environment than in years past.
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