[OccupyComms] Surely we can organise something global on this

[Mark Barrett]

TAX THE LAND, PAY EVERYONE AN INCOME
& RESTORE THE COMMONS
"Thomas Paine was among the first to argue that a basic income should be
introduced as a kind of compensation for dispossession. .. Paine proposed
that those with property should pay a “ground rent” – a small tax on the
yields of their land – into a fund that would then be distributed to
everyone as unconditional basic income. For Paine, this would be a right:
“justice, not charity”. It was a powerful idea, and it gained traction in
the 19th century when American philosopher Henry George proposed a “land
value tax” that would fund an annual dividend for every citizen... In the
US state of Alaska natural resources are considered a commons, owned
collectively by the people, so every resident receives an annual dividend
from the state’s oil revenues.. scholars have pointed out that the same
approach could be applied to other natural resources, such as forests and
fisheries. It could even be applied to the air, with a carbon tax whose
yields would be distributed as a dividend to all. And the upshot is that
this approach helps protect commons against overuse, giving our planet some
room to regenerate."
Read the rest below

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/mar/04/basic-income-birthright-eliminating-poverty

Every student learns about Magna Carta, the ancient scroll that enshrined
the rights of barons against the arbitrary authority of England’s monarchs.
But most have never heard of its arguably more important twin, the Charter
of the Forest <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_Forest>, issued
two years later in 1217. This short but powerful document guaranteed the
rights of commoners to common lands, which they could use for farming,
grazing, water and wood. It gave official recognition to a right that
humans nearly everywhere had long just presupposed: that no one should be
debarred from the resources necessary for livelihood.

But this right – the right of habitation – came under brutal attack
beginning in the 15th century, when wealthy nobles began fencing off common
lands for their own profit. Over the next few centuries, the enclosure
movement
<http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/short-history-enclosure-britain>,
as it came to be known, shifted tens of millions of acres into private
hands, displacing much of the country’s population. Excluded from the basic
means of survival, most were left with no choice but to sell themselves for
wages for the first time
<https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Great_Transformation.html?id=xHy8oKa4RikC>
.

And it wasn’t only England. The same process unfolded across Asia and
Africa and most of the global south as European colonisers staked private
claim to lands and forests and waterways that were previously held in
common, leaving millions dispossessed. In much of the colonial world the
goal, or at least the effect, was to drive people into the capitalist
labour market, where, in exchange for low wages and poor conditions, they
and their descendants would power the mines, plantations and sweatshops for
export to the west.

As the era of colonialism came to an end, the governments of many newly
independent nations sought to reverse these patterns of historical
dispossession with land reform programmes. But they were quickly forced to
abandon
<https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Empire_Trap.html?id=7rSrNAEACAAJ&redir_esc=y>
this
approach by big foreign landowners and international creditors. Instead,
the new plan for eradicating poverty – the dream of development – came to
hinge on drawing people ever deeper into the labour market. Jobs came to be
hailed as the salvation of the poor: as the World Bank puts it
<http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/jobsanddevelopment>, “jobs are the
surest pathway out of poverty”.
 To deal with climate change we need a new financial system
Jason Hickel

Read more
<https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/nov/05/how-a-new-money-system-could-help-stop-climate-change>

But now this promise is beginning to look hollow. With the rise of robots,
robust employment is no longer a realistic hope. We know that automation is
a real threat to jobs in the global north, but the threat is much worse in
the south. The main industries there, such as small electronics and textile
manufacturing, are some of the easiest to automate. According to a United
Nations report, up to two-thirds of jobs
<https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/in-the-developing-world-two-thirds-of-jobs-could-be-lost-to-robots>
in
developing countries could disappear in the near future.
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This is all bitterly painful, particularly for the postcolonial world.
First they were dispossessed of their land and promised jobs instead. Now
they will be dispossessed of their jobs, and many will be left with
literally no way to survive. Their dispossession will be absolute.
Technological unemployment will almost certainly reverse the modest gains
against poverty that have been made over the past few decades, and hunger
will likely rise.

Governments are scrambling to respond, and they don’t have many options.
But one stands out as by far the most promising: a universal basic income.

Once a fringe idea, basic income is now speeding its way into the public
imagination. Finland is running a two-year experiment in basic income.
Utrecht in the Netherlands is conducting a trial, too. Y Combinator is
trying it out in Oakland in the US. Scotland looks likely to follow suit
<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/01/universal-basic-income-trials-being-considered-in-scotland>.
And cash transfer programmes have already proven to be successful in
Namibia, India and dozens of other developing countries, sparking what some
scholars have billed as “a development revolution from the global south
<https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/just-give-money-to-the-poor-the-development-revolution-from-the-global-south-an-excellent-overview-of-cash-transfers/>”.
In Brazil, to cite just one example, cash transfers helped to cut poverty
rates in half in less than a decade.

But the success of basic income – in both the north and the south – all
depends on how we frame it. Will it be cast as a form of charity by the
rich? Or will it be cast as a right for all?

Thomas Paine was among the first to argue that a basic income should be
introduced as a kind of compensation for dispossession. In his brilliant
1797 pamphlet *Agrarian Justice*
<http://www.constitution.org/tp/agjustice.htm>, he pointed out that “the
earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have
continued to be, the common property of the human race”. It was unfair that
a few should enclose it for their own benefit, leaving the vast majority
without their rightful inheritance. As far as Paine was concerned, this
violated the most basic principles of justice.

Knowing that land reform would be politically impossible (for it would
“derange any present possessors”), Paine proposed that those with property
should pay a “ground rent” – a small tax on the yields of their land – into
a fund that would then be distributed to everyone as unconditional basic
income. For Paine, this would be a right: “justice, not charity”. It was a
powerful idea, and it gained traction in the 19th century when American
philosopher Henry George proposed a “land value tax
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism>” that would fund an annual
dividend for every citizen.
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The beauty of this approach is that it functions as a kind of de-enclosure.
It’s like bringing back the ancient Charter of the Forest and the right of
access to the commons. It restores the right to livelihood – the right of
habitation.

Critics of basic income often get hung up on how to fund it. But once we
come to see it as linked to the commons, that problem becomes more
tractable. In the US state of Alaska natural resources are considered a
commons, owned collectively by the people, so every resident receives an
annual dividend
<https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/karl-widerquist/alaska-model-citizens-income-in-practice>
from
the state’s oil revenues.

The Alaska model is popular and effective, and scholars have pointed out
<http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137006592> that the same approach
could be applied to other natural resources, such as forests and fisheries.
It could even be applied to the air, with a carbon tax whose yields would
be distributed as a dividend to all. And the upshot is that this approach
helps protect commons against overuse, giving our planet some room to
regenerate.

Implementing this idea will require political will – but it is far from
impossible. In fact, some research indicates that it might be
politically easier
to implement
<https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/direct-dividend-payments.pdf> than
other social policies. Even in the US, leading policymakers – including
former treasury secretary Henry Paulson and two former Republican
secretaries of state – have just put forward a carbon tax and dividend
proposal
<http://basicincome.org/news/2017/02/conservative-carbon-dividend-proposal-welcome-development-introduction-partial-basic-income/>.
The idea of a basic income also has broad and growing support from
high-profile figures including Elon Musk
<https://futurism.com/elon-musk-automation-will-force-governments-to-introduce-universal-basic-income/>
 and Bernie Sanders
<https://medium.com/basic-income/on-the-record-bernie-sanders-on-basic-income-de9162fb3b5c>
.
 Does the west really care about development?
Jason Hickel

Read more
<https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/mar/05/does-west-care-development>

There are risks, of course. Some worry that a basic income will only
increase the nativism that is spreading across the world right now. Who
will qualify for the transfers? People won’t want to share with immigrants.

It’s a valid concern. But one way to address it is to think in more
universal terms. The earth’s natural bounty belongs to all, as Paine
pointed out. If the commons know no borders, why should a commons-linked
income? Indeed, why should people in resource-rich nations get more than
their neighbours in resource-poor ones? A tax on resources and carbon
around the world could go into a global fund, in trust for every human.
Dividends could be set at $5 per day – the minimum necessary
<https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/1-90-per-day-what-does-it-say>
for
basic nutrition – corrected for each nation’s purchasing power. Or we could
set it at each nation’s poverty line, or some ratio thereof. Scholars are
already thinking about how such a system could be designed
<http://www.earthrights.net/pubs/the-earth-belongs-to-everyone.pdf>.
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We already know, from existing experiments, that a basic income can yield
impressive results – reducing extreme poverty and inequality, stimulating
local economies, and freeing people from having to accept slave-like
working conditions simply in order to stay alive. If implemented more
broadly, it might help eliminate “bullshit jobs
<http://evonomics.com/why-capitalism-creates-pointless-jobs-david-graeber/>”
and slash unnecessary production, granting much-needed relief to the
planet. We would still work, of course, but our work would be more likely
to be useful and meaningful, while any miserable but necessary jobs, like
cleaning the streets, would pay more to attract willing workers, making
menial work more dignified.

But perhaps most importantly of all, a basic income might defeat the
scarcity mindset that has seeped so deep into our culture, freeing us from
the imperatives of competition and allowing us to be more open and generous
people. If extended universally, across borders, it might help instil a
sense of solidarity – that we’re all in this together, and all have an
equal right to the planet. It might ease the anxieties that gave us Brexit
and Trump, and take the wind out of the fascist tendencies rising elsewhere
in nativism that is spreading across much of the world.

We’ll never know until we try. And try we must, or brace ourselves for a 21
stcentury of almost certain misery.
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