Raventos 0A Prelims.qxd 18/09/2007 10:33 Page iii BASIC INCOME The Material Conditions of Freedom Daniel Raventós Translated from the Spanish by Julie Wark Pluto Press London • Ann Arbor, MI Raventos 0A Prelims.qxd 18/09/2007 10:33 Page iv First published in an earlier version in Spanish, 1999, as El derecho a la existencia: La propuesta del Subsidio Universal Garantizado by Editorial Ariel, Barcelona. English-language edition first published in 2007 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 www.plutobooks.com Copyright © Daniel Raventós 2007. This translation © Julie Wark 2007 The right of Daniel Raventós to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Hardback ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2630 6 ISBN-10 0 7453 2630 7 Paperback ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2629 0 ISBN-10 0 7453 2629 3 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Curran Publishing Services, Norwich Printed and bound in the European Union by Anthony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England Raventos 0A Prelims.qxd 18/09/2007 10:33 Page v For Roger and Teia Raventos 0A Prelims.qxd 18/09/2007 10:33 Page vii CONTENTS List of tables and figures x Introduction and acknowledgements 1 1. A provocative but possible proposal 7 1.1 The definition 8 1.2 What Basic Income is not 10 1.3 Is there a Basic Income anywhere in the world? 12 1.4 Historical precedents 13 1.5 The last 20 years 16 1.6 Basic Income in the twenty-first century 18 1.7 Strengths, questions, doubts 21 2. Normative liberal justifications 25 2.1 The libertarian justification: property first 28 2.2 The ‘possible’ justification of justice as fairness: self-respect to the fore 32 2.3 The real freedom justification: a real-libertarian society 37 2.4 Liberal theories and republican theories 44 3. The normative republican justification 47 3.1 Aristotle: material existence as a condition of freedom 49 3.2 Property in Cicero 54 [ vii ] Raventos 0A Prelims.qxd 18/09/2007 10:33 Page viii C ONTENTS 3.3 The right of existence: Robespierre 57 3.4 Republican freedom 61 3.5 Republican virtue and neutrality 65 3.6 The republican justification of Basic Income 68 4. Remunerated work, domestic work and voluntary work 75 4.1 Three kinds of work 78 4.2 Basic Income and the job market 79 4.3 Basic Income and domestic work 86 4.4 Basic Income and voluntary work 92 5. Poverty 94 5.1 A typology of poverty 95 5.2 Measuring poverty 105 5.3 The poor cannot be free 107 6. The welfare state and Basic Income 110 6.1 What is the welfare state? 111 6.2 The crisis 114 6.3 Justifications of the welfare state and some criticisms 118 6.4 Minimum income support 121 6.5 Basic Income in contrast with means-tested subsidies 124 7. Basic Income in comparison with other proposals 131 7.1 Traditional measures against poverty and unemployment: a more flexible labour market and reduction of working hours 132 7.2 Not-so-traditional measures against poverty and unemployment 142 [ viii ] Raventos 0A Prelims.qxd 18/09/2007 10:33 Page ix C ONTENTS 7.3 Proposals that are more or less akin to Basic Income 145 8. Financing 156 8.1 Aims and scope of the model 157 8.2 Data and sample 159 8.3 The micro-simulation model 163 8.4 An ambitious example 166 8.5 Two more modest examples 169 9. Basic Income and its critics 177 9.1. Ethical criticisms 179 9.2 Technical criticisms 191 Notes 199 Bibliography 215 Index 224 [ix] Raventos 0A Prelims.qxd 18/09/2007 10:33 Page x TABLES AND FIGURES TABLES 7.1 Comparison of Basic Income with other schemes 152 8.1 Estimated saving in social spending with the introduction of a Basic Income (Catalonia, 2003) 160 8.2 Estimated cost of Basic Income for the population not covered in the sample (Catalonia, 2003) 161 8.3 Main magnitudes of the sample 162 8.4 Main results of the three examples 171 8.5 Tax rates on net income by deciles 172 8.6 Distribution of winners and losers by deciles of net income 174 FIGURES 8.1 Tax rates over net income by deciles 176 [x] Raventos 0B Introduction.qxd 18/09/2007 10:35 Page 1 INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In 1999, a first version of this book, El derecho a la existencia (The Right to Existence), was published in Spain by Ariel. At the end of 2005 Pluto Press gave me the opportunity to publish it in English. Although much of the original book is still pertinent today, research in the field of Basic Income has greatly benefited from many contributions over these six years and, what with all the political and social changes that have occurred as well, some parts clearly needed to be updated or completely rewritten. Pluto Press has now provided the perfect incentive for revising my original book, which, in its thoroughly reworked version, will be published in Spanish by El Viejo Topo. Chapter 1 introduces the concept of Basic Income, identifies a number of common confusions, offers a brief account of its history and indicates the very interesting political role it could play at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Chapter 2 discusses some of the best-known academic theo- ries of justice and reviews the work of such authors as John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Hillel Steiner and Philippe Van Parijs in outlining a number of philosophical justifications of Basic Income. Chapter 3 will, I hope, offer ground-breaking material for English readers. My description of republicanism and theoret- ical justification of Basic Income in republican terms is based [1] Raventos 0B Introduction.qxd 18/09/2007 10:35 Page 2 BASIC I NCOME on ongoing original research (insofar as we can say anything is ‘original’, of course) I have been engaged in, along with several Catalan and Spanish-speaking colleagues who uphold the idea of republican freedom that is presented here. Repub- licanism in this book is rather different from the standard fare one finds in academic circles although, of course, our position is closer to the views of some than of others. Within this framework I shall establish a number of connections between the republican defence of Basic Income and some socialist and feminist concerns. Chapter 4 distinguishes between three kinds of work (remu- nerated, domestic and voluntary), while pointing out some of the absurdities that can arise when they are confused and when remunerated work is identified as the only kind worthy of the name. A detailed analysis of the relationship between Basic Income and each of the three types of work is also offered. Chapter 5 looks at different aspects of poverty: how it is measured, the relatively new phenomenon of the working poor, and how poverty affects men and women in different ways. Special attention is given here to the republican idea that the person who is poor is not (cannot be) free. Chapter 6 presents a view of the welfare state that is rather different from what is found in the conventional literature. There is no getting away from the fact that some of the issues that I raise here will be contentious for those people who favour traditional welfare-state approaches. I also consider how Basic Income compares and contrasts with these ideas. Chapter 7 constitutes an exhaustive overview of the differ- ences (and similarities, where they exist) between Basic Income and other measures that have either been applied at different times and in different places during the last decade, or that are still on the drawing board as proposals whose supporters are trying to win over citizens and policy makers alike. I believe [2] Raventos 0B Introduction.qxd 18/09/2007 10:35 Page 3 I NTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS that this chapter is particularly necessary at a time when a good number of these proposals have been confused with Basic Income because of their supposed similarities. Chapter 8 deals with the matter of financing Basic Income. This is perhaps one of the areas of Basic Income research where most advances have occurred in the last nine or ten years. Besides some general reflections on financing, I shall discuss in detail one particular proposal with which I am very familiar because I have been part of the research team involved and, more importantly, because it is a financing system that, with due database changes and adjustments appropriate to the fiscal reality of each situation, can be applied in many countries. Finally, Chapter 9 considers eleven criticisms of Basic Income, offering a detailed response to each of them. Some of these criticisms have already been touched upon in different parts of the book. Others appear here for the first time. I believe this is a good way to reinforce and highlight some aspects of Basic Income that have perhaps not been given enough attention, while also summarising some of the points that are exclusive to this proposal. Chapters 1, 3, 4, 6 and 8 have been completely rewritten. Chapters 5, 7 and 9 have been considerably modified.