Research by the the group called Green New Deal UK (which is not same as the one I am involved in) has reported that people in this country are just about in favour of a universal basic income now, but are much more strongly inclined to back a government backed job guarantee, of which more than 70% apparently approve.
So, the question of the day is, which should it be? A UBI, or a JG?
Or a mix of the two?
Or neither?
The floor is yours.....
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As someone being slowly tortured on Universal Credit (by the system, not my job ‘coach’ I should emphasise) I’m deeply in favour of UBI. If you set it at the level of the tax allowance it would be easy to administer for those in work as if they earned over that level nothing would change.
Employers would be forced to entice people to work for them and support them and work to keep them satisfied at work. I might just continue as a private science tutor, freed from UC’s swingeing 63% tax rate which sees me work for less than the minimum wage.
The market has almost evaporated with the ending of school exams, nobody needs preparing for exams any more. I’ve had one online tutorial with a university student working on a project which was really fun and am negotiating for another. But I would be much busier if schools were in fully (they are for the kids of essential workers here in Scotland) and exams are back on.
But I could live, keep life and soul together and take part in society much better on a UBI set at the above level. The DSS would have to actually help people find work using carrots instead of sticks. I expect the majority of people working there would find that preferable. So such a system would avoid degrading the job coaches as well.
Though it has to be said that with ScotGov having stopped workfare and many sanctions here the atmosphere in the jobcentre has improved. It is much less adversarial.
I am increasingly pessimistic about my job prospects with so many more people made unemployed due to the virus. I’m still hampered by being a male in my 50s and well over qualified (PhD). Please, please UBI.
I think we need both, as – AIUI – they have different functions, and capabilities.
While UBI is conceptually simple – a payment to everybody, every day/week/month – and hence understandable, I have never quite understood what a job guarantee means, on the ground, in practice – how it works and what it does. What the JG advocates seem to be advocating is a system that provides not just jobs, but ‘good(-ish)’ jobs – reasonably paid, with prospects and benefits: at the other extreme, what might come about is something like ‘workfare’- people being paid a pittance to wave a flag or such.
What they have to do, between them, one way or another, is meet two societal needs: to stop people starving, and provide them with the means for a reasonably good life. As I see it UBI provides the first (I sometimes think its role is to lift people into (not out of) poverty, and provide a launchpad (rather than a safety net) for people to move on to better things). I don’t see quite how JG can fill this role.
Once UBI has provided a launch pad, and stopped people starving, people can then move on into a good life with a job – either a ‘normal’ job or self employment, secure in the knowledge of the UBI provided foundation, or JG, which can ‘take its time’ to sort people into a good(-ish) role.
(The other function I would envision for UBI is to replace tax allowance, but that’s an issue for a different blog)
The UBI route leads to a situation where everyone gets the bare minimum and the private sector chooses to go down the route of increased automation and robotics. Those whose jobs have been replaced by machines will be essentially unemployable and future governments will abdicate responsibility for education. This will lead to a large and growing underclass. I see lots of middle class jobs disappearing this way too. The entire lawbook can be codified destroying most of the legal profession. Teachers will be unnecessary too. Inequality will continue to increase. Who will buy all the stuff that gets made is anyone’s guess. Henry Ford understood this a hundred years ago. On the other hand the job guarantee leads to a happier more contented society where everyone feels that they count. I feel that UBI will amplify the divisions in society where JG will heal a lot of resentment.
You think the private sector employs people out of some sense of civic-minded philanthropy? Where they continue to do so, they do so only because the automation options are not sufficiently advanced, or too costly. As soon as those circumstances change, they will seek to reduce their need for human labour.
We develop technology to ameliorate the need for human toil, firstly physical, and now increasingly intellectual. This is a good thing, because the limitless potential for thought and experience represented by each and every living person, is served so poorly by people spending the best hours of their days, and the best years of their lives, engaged in futile monotony. All for what? In many cases a life of financial uncertainty, struggle, compromise, aquencence and ultimate defeat. For the lucky ones, a chance to lament what could have been, had they been something more than a cog is someone else’s money making machine.
I agree with this take. As a software engineer I have colleagues working in AI for significant labour reductions i. Our company, and can see the potential in robotics too.
At the moment certain jobs cannot be automated, but trying to compete against computers or robots by providing cheap labour is a losing battle. You can’t win long term, and by that time a way to support the losers from automation needs to be in effect, otherwise we’ll have the modern of equivalent of Nedd Ludd leading protesters to be destroying data centres.
There’s a reason so many in the tech industry are in favour of UBI – we can see how close AI and robotics are to being able to automate large amounts of the workforce.
A good recent example is self service checkouts which a few years ago were unheard of, and now are ubiquitous. And they make little to no use of AI advances like deep learning.
Rod.
The private sector will go down the road of automation with or without a UBI. If automation increases profits, they will do it.
That’s why a UBI is needed.
Universal income_ this allows people to start up their own business , allows creativity, allows someone to volunteer, removes the need for benefits for people who cannot work etc etc. ie allows far more flexibility and development potential.
A job guarantee could be the guarantee to do some dreadful job entirely unsuitable for the person’s potential skills and ability causing them to have mental health problems and potentially prevent the development of a future viable business.
My paper with Jim Jin makes the case for combining BI with a job guarantee:
Basic income and a public job offer:
complementary policies to reduce poverty
and unemployment,
Journal of Poverty and Social Justice – vol 26 – no 2 – 191—206 – © Policy Press 2018
Print ISSN 1759 8273 – Online ISSN 1759 8281 – https://doi.org/10.1332/175982718X15200701225179
UBI.
A job guarantees leads to many a problem – mainly reflected in productivity.
Forcing people to work when they don’t want to or like to, it is simply slavery.
Encouraging people to follow their own individual enterprise, social enterprise or big money earning activity would change the world.
A UBI will mean employers outgoings in wages can be much lower – ensuring startups are better resourced with workers they need and the breakeven point is much lower.
The lower salaries would also mean only people who want that job will apply.
Higher salaries can then be more related to actual profitability earned – through profit share bonuses. Or to attract the specific workers needed by the business.
Rewards by such start ups can be extended to their key employees with share distribution which engages the employees with the business development (flexibility is the key for new businesses- the job changes as more customers are found or new methods are implemented and stress is put upon everyone to ‘up their game’.
Established businesses should do the same with their employees – give them a stake holding. The wage cost savings should not be pocketed by the existing shareholders and execs and tax levels should be raised for income, dividends and capital gains to the higher levels to deal with such ‘profiteering’ from the UBI.
I’m in favour of UBI, because it applies to everyone, including all the unpaid hidden workers, such as stay at home parents bringing up their children, or children looking after elderly parents full time. Currently they are unrecognised by society, and yet they are very important. It allows everyone to contribute to the economy in some way.
It also should remove a lot of complexity (and therefore running costs) from the benefits system. I think there will still need to be benefits of some sort, but more as a top up to a UBI for particular reasons (such as child benefit).
A government backed job guarantee obviously only helps those who have jobs. How would it work for zero-hour workers? Would it guarantee the 50,000+/week footballers?
I think UBI should be instituted as soon as possible. It can be permanent, as I favour, or temporary.
Temporary UBI can have an end date set, so people can at least plan their lives. The date could be a specific date, set now, (which might be difficult as we don’t know how long a state of lockdown or partial lockdown will be in place, or how quickly ‘the economy’ can be restarted.) But to appease those who fear this will just encourage people not to work, having at least the conditions for a deadline in place might create a better political atmosphere for accepting it.
My worry about the Guaranteed Jobs idea is that I don’t trust the present UK government one inch at the moment.
Many of these jobs will be forced on people whose circumstances make it nearly impossible for them to do it. (Such as forcing somebody to move to another part of the country to take up a temporary low-paid job like fruit picking, or lose their money. And to hell with child care needs or Carer’s responsibilities.) It will be as unlikely to be administered fairly as the benefits system is now. It will also encourage employers to back off on paying decent living wages and to go for the lowest common denominator–whatever wage level the government sets.
We know we’re going to need food production to carry on and/or increase. So these jobs, and the jobs involved in getting food to the public, will certainly remain necessary. So will any other job providing necessities. However many of these workers still have their jobs, and in some cases even more have been created. (Delivery, supermarket, etc.)
It’s just that we’re not sure what other jobs will return, or in what kind of order. Therefore I think the UBI is the best solution to keep people afloat …if not permanently, at least till this crisis is well and truly over. It would create an atmosphere of huge relief, in the minds of people whose income has suddenly been stopped. There is no reason why people in receipt of a basic income (which will be enough to keep them ticking over, but not enough to really move forward) won’t be keen to also take on government-backed jobs–to increase their income and keep their job skills and routines sharp. And maybe to start a new career in place of the one they’ve had to give up.
UBI for sure. Government backed job creation as well, but not to replace UBI. That’s my vote, anyway.
Personally I would support UBI – I am ready to retire early..!
Instinctively I would prefer JG. We saw a lot of people volunteering to help NHS etc recently and I can see that many retired people might be willing to help train people of working age to do useful work. There are countless labour intensive possibilities available – charities and associations who are e.g. restoring locks on canal might welcome the additional workers. Many environmental schemes – tree planting or, more importantly, looking after the planted trees).
JG over UBI then.
My initial response is that anyone I have ever known in a ‘job for life’ which didn’t interest them is a problem for all those around them. I suspect that any jobs guaranteed by the Government would result in resentment and non engagement rather than a sense of belonging and pride in participation.
Universal basic income is a more appealing system for me. Imagine dismantling the cruel inefficient labyrinth we have constructed to assess the deserving from the undeserving . I would like to think that a majority in the UK would support a policy to ensure that other human beings should have the basics of food shelter education and medicine. I do not think we would all stay at home watching daytime TV. I fully appreciate that there is still a strongly punitive view which would find this ridiculous and naive. The reality is that most of us want to be busy and engaged – even stretched and challenged. This crisis must have made it clear that we want more than an endless zoom party .
UBI.
With a UBI, society is (as now) forced to acknowledge which jobs are essential. UBI forces society to pay properly for the essential jobs.
Yes there will be further automation, but that can be a good thing as it allows more people to be relieved of boring jobs. Having done many a menial job, I would take issue with those who think that people who work in menial jobs are in any way fulfilled or feel they are making a wider contribution. They think only of the temporary relief of payday. Those who have to take several jobs to make ends meet would welcome UBI and a chance to have a life without endless drudgery.
A UBI allows people time to find what they really want to do. I was in my early thirties before I discovered what I was good at. Many people don’t have that chance because they’re too busy making ends meet to experiment.
A UBI needs to used alongside Labours idea for a National Education Service allowing freedom to learn throughout lifetimes.
A JG is more likely to force more people into things they don’t want to do at a minimal wage.
UBI is vital and cannot be replaced by a job guarantee, though more government run schemes to get useful things done and provide decent jobs at the same time would obviously be useful too.
UBI supports people who can’t work full time – parents, carers, people with illnesses or disabilities, students – but still allows those people to do productive work, paid or unpaid, to the extent that they personally can manage. UBI avoids the need to try and assess that from above and let’s people find their own paths with dignity.
Way too many people slip through the cracks of other systems, including our current benefits system and job guarantee schemes (look at India’s job guarantee scheme for instance). UBI is the only safety net without holes.
Richard, I know you are not exactly a Bill Mitchell fan, but this seems a fair summary in one sentence of the UBI –
“It is not a progressive position but continues the unemployment regime that suits capital – they get wage suppression from the slack and maintain sales via the UBI.”
The MMT view generally is that the JG is superior because it’s an automatic stabiliser – the UBI is not.
I get the stabiliser point
I do not think JG can be universal though
I see a policy combining going both as essential
There is this potential issue with a UBI, that it becomes in effect the pensioning off of vast swathes of the population now surplus to the labour requirements of the economy, on a subsistence allowance. Permanently cut off from any work which may allow them to improve their financial circumstances. The rate a UBI is set at, and what is done around it would determine how oppressive it becomes. However, given that the alternative for many is destitution, I think it has to be implemented, even if only as an interim step to something better thought out.
For myself, even though I advocate for a UBI, it’s not my preferred solution. I think we need to radically reevaluate what it is to be a contributing member of society and how they contribution should be rewarded. Realistically, however, that’s not going to happen any time soon.
Ross.
But why would people on a UBI not be able to work as well? (If they can find the work of course!)
The whole point of a UBI is that people can work
Of course people on a UBI can work, I just think we need to be realistic about the fact that many won’t have the option. We’ve hit the peak for the need for human labour in the economy, and demand only goes down from here.
Ross.
I agree with the last comment. But without at UBI then people would have no access to money if, as you say, (and I agree) the jobs just aren’t going to be there.
The level of the UBI (and what we all need to actually live on) will be the question.
Depends on the context. What sort of UBI? How much will it be? Will it replace existing benefits and if so which and with what and for how long and under which circumstances? Etc. etc. Don’t get me started on any job guarantee… well, ok… Hey Einstein, yeah, yeah, we know you like your equations and stuff but sorree, we don’t exist to enable people to do what they’re good at, oh no… now, here’s a nice job for you, postal clerk – how about that, hmmm? Pfffft.
Not sure if your mention of postal clerk was intentional or not? Einstein did indeed spend time working as a patent clerk/examiner, but I believe this was the time within which he began developing his theories of relativity.
A Job Guarantee is usually thought of as an adjunct of MMT though I cannot see how it is logically consistent with it – if you’re capable of spending enough money to make sure everyone is employed why do you put up with or even suggest that there is a residual stock of the otherwise unemployed who are given temporary state jobs?
Practically a Job Guarantee also would be very difficult to administer as explored here http://www.progressivepulse.org/economics/modern-monetary-theory-is-logically-inconsistent-with-a-job-guarantee but I do think there is scope for a post educational ‘internship’ job guarantee.
UBI has the great advantage of simplicity. Then we also need as many Universal Basic Services as possible to reduce the influence of the market!
There is nothing illogical about the JG being a core policy of the proponents of MMT. The alternative is that unemployment remains as the policy, forcing people out of work. The JG doesn’t force them into work, it *offers* a guaranteed job. It’s better to think of it as a temporal thing rather than being temporary – in other words, the size of the JG pool automatically varies with time in response to economic conditions.
UBI on its own will effectively subsidise low private sector wages, but provide the spending power which will boost private sector sales. This clearly benefits the private sector, and poses inflationary risk.
It sounds like there may be a consensus in favour of having a mixed JG/BI system, which hopefully can avoid the pitfalls of the UBI on its own.
If UBI alone is proposed and all other benefits (barring maybe disability) withdrawn the result would be exceptionally bad news and a withdrawal by wealth from the concept of universality of other benefits e,g. free health and education
The logic would be ‘we’ve paid you – why do you need more?’
This is why I think a balance is required
A UBI can be part of a safety net
But a JG is another essential part – so long as it is optional and there is an alternative in the safety net
There have been a few recent posts and articles on JG vs UBI:
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/04/26/8-reasons-why-the-snp-should-back-the-job-guarantee/
Pavlina Tcherneva, of course: https://youtu.be/3SnlQx1ZI5Q
My own comments here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1466864300089196/permalink/2712388548870092/
I like the idea of universal basic services so that food, housing, transport, education and health are free and unconditional then a bit of cash on top. Offer great incentives for people who do actually important stuff like collecting the bins and delivering goods and operating the utilities etc.
OK. I’m going to stick my neck out here and start the ball rolling.
I’m not aware of all the arguments, but will throw my tuppence in.
I’m inclined towards a UBI rather than a Job guarantee.
I can remember, back in the day, the good olde YTS scheme. Rounding up a load of kids in the back of a transit and dropping them off in a field to repair a drystone wall (that had been in disrepair for 100 years ore more and is no longer needed).
I would worry that a Job Guarantee scheme would effectively be making jobs up just to justify giving people the money they need to survive.
David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs is a very entertaining book on the subject of pointless work. Some very funny anecdotes but with a serious question underlying the book.
I have a few utterly bullshit jobs in my time.
All work involves some form of consumption. Consumption is something we need to be reducing to tackle climate change. We should be paying people to stay at home. The old mindset of a person’s worth being related to the work they do, needs to be flipped on its head. Anyone undertaking a bullshit job should be shamed for the unnecessary consumption they are generating.
Work opportunities are going to have to reduce for us to tackle climate change. (As 12,000 BA workers are about to find out) AI is also going to chip away at jobs from the innovation side.
If we are all to work, then we will all need to be doing less hours for there to be enough work to go round.
I see a UBI as the best way of supporting people through the transition that we all need to take.
Off now to find a few bullshit jobs round the house to keep me sane through lockdown!!!
Very good Vinnie, I agree 100%
Both. They perform different functions.
A job guarantee is by far the better and more progressive, long-term route to an independent life. Nevertheless, there will be exceptions; some people will not be covered by a job guarantee either through physical or mental health problems; or care commitments, or some other cricumstance that does not occur to policy makers, bureaucrats or even those members of the public who have nothing better to do than fret about the ‘scrounging’ to which the tabloid press prefer to deflect public attention, over real failures of policy or administration.
The only way to ensure all of the public has a proper ‘safety net’, is to have three tiers of cover. First, people who can take care of employment themselves, but who know a job guarantee is there if required; then those who require a job guarantee as their starting point in employment. Finally, a fall-back for those who are not captured by the employment market, or the job guarantee, who are assured in all circumstances, of a UBI.
I consider this framework, or something very like it, essential to the nature of civil society. Civil Society’s first duty is to all its people. I am not a Kantian rationalist, but I think such a framework is fulfilled best as the practical purpose illustrated by one characterisation of the practical effect of Kant’s Categorical Imperative: that each person should treat himself and each other person “never merely as a means, but always at the same time as an end in himself” (Immanuel Kant, ‘Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals’, HJ Paton translation, p.95). You will simply have to forgive Kant his 18th century sexism. In describing treating people as means but “at the same time” as ends, I think this lends itself to the transactional (means-end) nature of employment, including the case of the Job Guarantee, but as a matter of practical reinforcement of the public obligation to each person (of Government, standing for Civil Society); the UBI alone provides the absolute guarantee that the person will also be treated, in all circumstances, “as an end in himself”. This is his fundamental right in Civil Society.
I rest my case.
I have much sympathy with it
Am time constrained so briefly – why does it have to be either or? For example, as I understand it, Bill Mitchell’s position has always favoured a JG scheme as a ‘buffer stock’, which wouldn’t be compulsory nor is it seen as a panacea. The government (Employer of Last Resort) would pay a proper living wage until the recipient could get better employment.
If, for whatever reason (and there would be many), the unemployed person was unable to accept the government’s job offer the there could be a UBI-type alternative which might not pay quite as much but would be adequate on which to live and provide a realistic stepping stone towards independent commercial activity.
It’s a complex question to which there is no one-size fits all answer, and will differ from one society to another. But the underlying premise is that a sovereign, currency issuing government such as the UK can and should provide the requisite financial stability to abolish unemployment. That’s the general insight provided by MMT, isn’t it?
Bill – along with Randy Wray – has covered the topic extensively over the years and I think their deliberations are worth taking on board. Here Bill writes specifically in regard to the GND, which makes interesting reading – http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=41150.
On balance I conclude that in order to eliminate unemployment, reduce inequality, promote an economy that supports ecological sustainability, ensure a ‘just transition’ and generally improve the well-being of a nation – it will require a fair and balanced combination of both a JG & UBI.
This is my view
In my view there’s no reason we couldn’t have both. In fact I’d go for the “Transformation Trifecta” of…
1) Universal Basic Income
2) Universal Basic Services
3) Job Guarantee.
I really need to write a paper on that…
best
Howard
Smart
And right
I did allow for ‘other’ in my question
You have hit the target
I must read Anna Coote’s new book on UBS
A further thought, on the subject of JG in particular.
JG/MMT advocates, as I mentioned above, portray it as offering ‘good’ jobs for societally useful purposes – so they are wanted by by those who have them, and society. But the point of JG jobs is that – as a society – we don’t actually want them, we want people in ‘normal’ jobs (many of which should be those the JG advocates propose, but that’s something of a different issue). But many of the ‘normal’ jobs on offer are ‘bad’ jobs: ‘low’ paid, no prospects, precarious, uncertain (zero) hours, etc. – that people see as undesirable. (And many are through intermediaries or sub contractors)
So, two points:
There is a contradiction floating round in the JG proposition.
What do we do about ‘bad’ jobs? (A future question of the day?) Is a ‘National Work Service’ (as a universal employer) either practicable, or the answer?
.
Actually, the point of JG offering good jobs is to flush out the bad jobs in normal work by giving choice which brings pressure to bear on employers
I think JG makes slightly more sense, however it would be good to extend some existing universal benefits to more people.
For example the ten years before SPA (which has risen substantially) can be particularly tough, so it might be good to have UBI for those ages (as a sort of reduced state pension), and the person would still be obliged to pay NI as a normal worker.
Other example child benefit should be continued after age 18 and paid to the child up to the age of 21-25 as they adjust to uni or work.
long term unemployed should be on a UBI and allowed to keep it for a year after being employed. Obviously some of those groups maybe could be catered for by JG but that mechanism might be to prescriptive for all people so flexibility in the policy would be needed.
There are a lot of pro-UBI comments based on the sociological/ wellbeing aspect without wider economic and practical considerations. All very good and laudable, but incomplete in their understanding. The JG is a far more mature and sensible solution. The UBI is an appealingly simplistic solution. Once the nature of money and currency is understood in the context of the state and the part taxation plays it casts UBI is a less favourable light. There are a fair number of general misconceptions of the JG in these comments. For instance, it is not compulsory, and it is not workfare. Assumptions in the UBI camp also include the assumption that other elements of the social safety net will still be there – welfare and disability benefits. There is no guarantee of that, And there is also the assumption that many other issues can be solved with regulation. Legal limitations invariably come with complexity, loopholes, and unexpected side effects. It’s better to design a system that has less requirement for regulation at the outset.
The most fundamental flaw in the UBI is its inability to grasp the purpose of the state’s power to issue currency. It does so in order to coerce people to sell their goods and services to the state so the state can provision itself with nice things. You know, roads, sanitation, defence, healthcare and all that malarkey. That isn’t a nasty sort of coercion – but it can be depending on how the state does things (who you vote to be in charge).
The state does this by imposing a tax which is only payable in its currency. The tax doesn’t pay for the service the government provides, it just provides the leverage the government needs to engage and employ people to do those useful things.
Once you understood that this is necessarily how a state functions for the benefit of everyone if handled fairly and equitably, it makes sense. If handled badly and people forget how it’s supposed to work, you get the dysfunctional society we have now where inequality is embedded in the system.
In order to solve the dysfunction the idea of dumping an arbitrary sum of money in everybody’s bank account is going to fix things. In effect expecting the private sector to solve a public sector problem – unemployment.
It won’t.
We will still need road builders, teachers, policemen, doctors, bin men, shelf stackers, bus drivers, plumbers, joiners, farmers and growers etc.
Without the need to earn the state’s money by selling your labour there’s going to be less need to engage in productive, socially beneficial work. There is just as much validity in the point that people will be self motivated to do their own thing as there is the opposite, that people will just do nothing – so lets leave those two self cancelling points aside.
If the UBI is paid at a subsistence rate it will be absorbed into living costs and eradicated in an aggregate rise in the relative level of poverty. In that case UBI will just end up being corporate welfare by enabling employers to pay below minimum wages, knowing the UBI will tip up incomes. This was the case with Working Tax Credits, and is now the case with UC.
Dumping cash in everyone’s bank account is an absolution of the state’s responsibility to carry out its prime function which is to organise the resources of the country (human and material) for the benefit of all. It formalises the abdication of the government’s responsibility.
A state funded Job Guarantee scheme is a better idea all round. In brief a JG is:
Voluntary
Available to all
Permanent ‘employer of last resort’ scheme
Centrally government funded, locally administered
Sets a fair, living wage floor and conditions
Economically counter-cyclical
Retains skills and employability
Improves bargaining power of labour
Works in conjunction with a Basic Income scheme (but not a UBI)
Provides a buffer stock of employed/ employable labour instead of unemployed labour
It is not ‘workfare’
Employment is proven to enhance self esteem
What about the private sector? What specific jobs will a job guarantee entail? The state can’t hire people to work in restaurants or make washing machines. How can a job guarantee keep private business going?
People work in restaurants and make washing machines right now. And they continue to do so because they need to earn the state’s tax credits. In a downturn or recession, those people might find themselves out of work. If they end up unemployed, they have less, or no money. Other businesses then suffer because there’s less money going round the economy. People then try to save more because money is tight, so even less gets spent. It’s a vicious circle.
Now, suppose a JG scheme exists.
Those people finding themselves laid off will not be unemployed if they choose to join the JG scheme. The work they can accept could be anything. Not making washing machines or in restaurants, but providing services in any number of ways that could be found locally. They won’t necessarily be lowest common denominator jobs – litter picking etc, but social care, public transport, publicly owned utilities. Of course, looking at the world through our eyes we see so much privatised industry. The covid crisis must surely have proved that private enterprise is incapable of responding to a crisis. There’s no way privately run national infrastructure, transportation, communication and clearly healthcare, is able to corral resources to the extent necessary, so therefore it makes sense for these things never to be privatised in the first place.
So there would be plenty real jobs to do under a JG with a properly run state.
The economic effects of a downturn would be mitigated. The unemployed would find JG jobs to do. They would continue with normal consumer spending – so other businesses would not feel the knock-on effects. The JG scheme then keep the people in the private sector (washing machine and restaurant business) in jobs, and the JG scheme automatically stabilises the situation by keeping the income and household and business payments flowing – as we’ve seen is really necessary in the covid situation.
To quote Bill Mitchell: “It is not a progressive position but continues the unemployment regime that suits capital – they get wage suppression from the slack and maintain sales via the UBI.”
Malcolm, i fear you have overlooked a major human desire in your analysis – self improvement. That is, such things as luxuries, careers & financial independence. When you worry that no one will want to deliver public services (why not also private? A jobs a job after all), you disregard the simplicity of UI over JG.
People will want new cars, luxury holidays , bigger houses and savings and bigger pensions. That’s why they will want to sarn more.
Some people will be happy with enough, so what? There will be no poverty and the other safety nets will not disappear.
We would not (all) turn into dilettente trustafarian bullingonians!
I still say UI above JG.
The major aspect that UBIers are willfully blind to is the economics. I’ve tried to make it clear this is where UBI fails. Self improvement – I did say that there are people who have a certain drive, and possibly just as many who have none. Self improvement is the core argument of UBI supporters, all the time, and I’ve debated it with many. Sometimes we get the ‘J K Rowling’ fallacy of composition argument. Yes, there are a number of people who would take a UBI and do something like that. But a JG can do the same – you can come up with a business plan and do it on the JG scheme, or you take a Basic Income and do it that way. There is a version of this in France where creatives who work on ad hoc events can register in a scheme called ‘intermittent du spectacle’, perfectly suited to a JG. And I’m not against a BI (minus the ‘U’) as a backstop – perfectly feasible, but not a UBI.
The most frightening thing about UBI is that it was a proposal of Milton Friedman. One of the architects of our neoliberal era. Now why would a neoliberal propose something that sounds so egalitarian?
Malcolm.
I think that the jobs just aren’t going to be there in the future.
Infact, the jobs need to not be there if we are to avert climate chaos.
The old conventions will no longer apply. Jobs for all is just not realistic or desirable going forward.
We have to drastically cut our consumption.
We may drastically cut our consumption
There is another ‘option’ which does not get covered nearly so much but which Im pleased to see Peter and Joe mention, and that is Universal Basic Services. The proposition that there should be a set of public services which ensure that everyone has the essentials – for me reflecting Amrtya Sen’s ideas in Development as Freedom. It builds on the public services that already exist, so many of which were put in place by the post war Labour government but both restores and adds to them. There are the obvious components such as health, education, and housing but one might add transport, child care and yes, broadband as an essential without which its is near impossible to survive in today’s world. Thats not an exhaustive list.
A critique of UBI is firstly that to be sufficient to make an impact, it would be extraordinarily expensive. Secondly, that the narrative of ‘scroungers’ is quite deeply in embedded in society and UBI would feed into that narrative and hence not get wider public support. Put crudely, UBS is an easier sell to the public. It does nothing to restore and rebuild public services and even, some on the right like to argue, supports a libertarian narrative that it enables people to be more free of the state and choose for themselves
I’m more wary of jobs guarantee as feels to me to be a simplistic solution to the symptoms of more complex underlying problems, and risks becoming something between the Victorian workhouse and Soviet workers producing things that nobody wants or needs. Surely its much better to be tackling the chronic skills and education gaps on the one hand (taking a lifelong view) together with a serious industry strategy (though really this needs to be across all sectors), and tackling the degradation in employment terms and employer responsibilities. The Green New Deal could well be a part of this in taking a systemic and systematic approach to tackling climate change as well as social and economic problems. It recognises (well at least some versions do…) the need to develop new and existing skills as well as the industries and sectors that would provide the jobs, and potentially rebuild ‘left behind’ areas.
Anna Coote has a new book out on UBS
Howard Reed has just suggested the same idea
Great minds…
And I see that there is a letter from a wide range of Parliamentarians, all parties except Tories, MPs and Lords, supporting the introduction of UBI, at least on an emergency basis
https://alexsobel.co.uk/press_release/175-mps-and-peers-sign-letter-in-support-of-emergency-universal-basic-income-as-coronavirus-destruction-deepens/
I think this is important
We are going to see unemployment on unprecedented scales soon
The post lockdown era is going to see a horrible economic climate – maybe worse than now as it will be very, very hard to be a viable business
I would suggest combining elements of UBI, GND and JG as follows:
1/ UBI replacing benefits and tax allowances as far as feasible.
2/ Recognise that UBI provides a jobs subsidy from public funds to a business by that business reimbursing state, in full or part, for cost of its employee UBI.
3/ UBI cost to businesses involved to be waived in part or whole according as jobs are seen to be of value to the local and wider community – ideally including a global element. The criterion of usefulness should fit into the requirements of a GND and have a balance of inputs from the values of local and wider community.
4/ Such initiatives to improve employment options (in addition to, or replacing, existing ones) as may be reckoned of value to fit into the above framework.
Interesting….especially re employment
I think that it should be a mixture – it should be flexible. There is so much work to do in our neglected communities that a jobs guarantee could soak up all that needs to be done in some areas but not others – which is why it should be managed locally by local authorities. I also think that UBI can also be hitched up with volunteering and community work as an incentive.
Thats about the sum of it – it needs a mixture of approaches, and there is no one silver bullet, fun though it is to pit them against each other. We need decent public services, possibly across a wider set of services than are currently provided. We need an adequate form of income for those who are unable to work or who are between work, not least to allow for people to retrain and reskill. And then we need to ensure that there are decent jobs available that meet society’s needs – and some wants as well – in a sustainable way.
Plus PSR you’ve added the local point – one centrally defined size does not fit all, though a degree of coordination is needed along with collective support for the most disadvantaged areas
On the other hand all the comments in the thread did not assume the choice had to be binary. I will not list them all but, as I understand them and just for example, Mr Gordon, Mr Green, John D, myself; and of course Richard (whom I do not claim to speak for), who wrote in support of several comments favouring a joint JG/UBI.
Indeed
The problem is a Tory government and a Tory Party and most of its wealthy members will not have the slightest interest in either a UBI or Job Guarantee scheme. They can just about tolerate the Treasury throwing billions of £s to big business to keep them afloat for what the see as a temporary economic downturn due to the pandemic. Although the discussion about UBI and JG is very interesting and puts a human perspective on economic and social policies that most readers of this blog are concerned about, for Tories they only see these schemes as pie-in-the sky utopian dreams. If there is not a market solution the are not interested and will only see UBI and JG as a tax burden and an interruption to getting back to business as usual; ie keeping wages to a minimum and the maximisation of profit and dividends.
The UK has a long history of under-valuing the Arts and the contributions that artists of all disciplines make to the nations’ cultural health. UBI could provide a much-needed boost to artistic output by enabling creative artists to devote more time to developing their talents and producing more output instead of having to spend most of their time doing menial and often tedious jobs just to pay the rent and put food on the table.
At present the processes of seeking and, and if lucky, getting funding to create new work are very time consuming and onerous. For instance, I’m familiar with one of the most-widely used Arts Funding Plans in Scotland whose application forms exceed 30 pages (not counting a variable number of additional supporting documents) and require man-weeks of preparation, editing etc to meet entry criteria. Once submitted, the adjudicating processes can easily take 2 to 3 months, so the entire cycle, whether successful or not, can involve the applicant putting his/her career on virtual hold for between 4 and 6 months.
This strikes me as a rather silly way to encourage artistic creativity, but the harsh economic truth of creating substantial new works is that such works probably wouldn’t ever see the light of day without the funding, given the precarity of most free-lance artists’ income streams and their need to eat and live. UBI could cause a flourishing of cultural activity simply by allowing artists to do what they are most talented at, instead of spending most of their time working in pubs, shops and restaurants.
JG, without a doubt.
UBI is highly dangerous. Especially if it is linked in the peoples mind with the government now able to ‘print’ money / MMT. If UBI is deployed, and there is inflation, the right wingers will be pointing at MMT and saying ‘LOOK – TOLD YOU PRINTING MONEY DOESN’T WORK’.
And then we’ll be back to austerity * 2.
We have one chance at this. UBI is far too dangerous to even try.
It should be avoided at all costs and should never be associated with MMT.
You are a rare voice saying so…
This obsession with a single-stop, all-purpose JG solution is beginning to appear ideological, if not downright neurotic.
When the Adam Smith Institute support something you’ve got to pause for thought…
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/universal-basic-income-adam-smith-institute-austerity-libertarian-a8167701.html
Indeed…..
At last the penny may have dropped with the Adam Smith Institute – for capitalism to work, people need a disposable income.
The rich do not buy more jeans, shoes and bed sheets just because they have more money. They are not just the economy – nor just the big financial deals in the city of london either.
The rest of us is the economy too.
JG first but backed up by UBI. We need both.
I’ve thought and read about this a long while. This is very relevant to political activists now – we had regional zoom meeting today and this was part of our discussion as part of improving economic Resilience.
The details need working out – when to pass from JG onto UBI. Some individuals have complex and challenging circumstances e.g. bipolar individuals.
I think that’s a really interesting point
I think that people here do not see one or the other as necessarily right but the two plus a guarantee of services as key as a really interesting idea
I detect an underlying theme to these contributions; to choose the policy that we find most attractive and then assume desirable consequences without really having any basis for doing so. Personally, I’m attracted by the UBI as I’m a bit of a utopian and imagine this will free people up to
– improve themselves through education,
– do work that they enjoy and/or find interesting,
– do work that is socially useful or
– start up exciting new businesses
rather than just doing what it takes to put bread on the table.
But will it? Or will it just encourage idleness? And we all know whose hands the devil makes work for!
I suggest that we look at the question from the other direction. We define the society that we would like to evolve and then work backwards to determine the policies that are most likely to cause that evolution to take place. This will require a great deal of ground breaking psychological and sociological research and analysis that is way beyond my comprehension.
I do however feel that this is the right way forward; a proper analysis of cause and effect rather than just picking a cause and ploughing forward with blind assumptions as to its effect.
Thanks George
I like the idea
I frequently do that: here’s the conclusion, now, how do we get there?
Richard, do you see any change of Wales getting the future it wants with these advisors?https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2020-04-29/wales-coronavirus-jeremy-miles-gordon-brown/?fbclid=IwAR1WjY7C5oo027ibJ1oCJwMM5Wx39p2umCjJZCWWUuwwzWDT_ZGUbbDin9A
An unpopular former prime minister who failed to regulate as he should have done
A neoliberal micro economist who does not comprehend the real purpose of tax and likes austerity
And a director of an energy company with a difficult history
Not good…..
Here comes the status quo of failure for Wales
“I suggest that we look at the question from the other direction. We define the society that we would like to evolve and then work backwards to determine the policies that are most likely to cause that evolution to take place.” You have lost me.
Frankly I do not understand any of this. How do we work backwards from effect to cause for a society we want to evolve, that doesn’t yet exist? Suppose you can even identify that final society, if that cause and effect has never before existed together, or even rarely existed; how can you possibly work out with any certainty what “the cause” was (supposing it is even so conveniently simple as to have just one cause), solely from the effect alone? This is the problem of experiment in social science; if you have cracked it I suspect there is a Nobel prize to be won.
Meanwhile, you are going to have to unravel all of that and explain it in rigorous detail. Incidentally, evolution has explained causal relationships within the parameters of both causes and effects when these are given, and when elements of both can be observed and determined; such as the case of artificial selection from known stochastic outcomes; but predicting future evolution on the basis of a speculative outcome is quite another kettle of fish altogether. Allow me to go out on a very long limb here; I doubt if Mendel could have produced the genetic laws of segregation and independent assortment on the basis of a single seedling of peas, and no experimental results; at least that is my hypothesis, without the proof of course.
Ta!
But that is the social science conundrum: identifying cause is hard
Nor is it agreed upon
Social science is a lens: a way of viewing the world. It is intensely subjective, whatever economists want to claim for it
So identifying cause is not the issue. What you can assemble is selectively chosen evidence for which, at best, a credible interpretation can be offered that some might agree with
That’s as good as it gets
Richard,
I do not know if your system change affected my comment, but for the second time my comment became detached from the intended placing; this time ‘George’, from whom my quote refers. I confess I was attempting a little dry humour with the comment (which never seems to work!).
My comment was a response to George’s argument, which I thought unsatisfactory. There is, however an important issue here. What separates the social sciences from the physical sciences tends to be the experimental method. One of the features of economics that really irritates me is the importation of mathematical techniques; which has given the econometricians the illusion that somehow this ‘hardens’ the economic science. Since they do not have the experimental method to test the mathematics there has been nothing stopping them departing reality, and going on riots of pointless modelling, of nothing at all.
At the same time, it is not the case that there is no use of the experimental method in social science; psychologists undertake experiments of behaviour. In economics I believe quasi-rational economics may be an attempt to address the problem in economics, and in the case of evolution, Modern Evolutionary Economics (Nelson, Dosi, etc.) bases its methods on evolutionary biology. Here I suspect the problem of the mathematical economists thinking they have the answer to everything has already raised its head, by quickly moving in to the territory (e.g., Jason Potts; I think Potts has conceded some problems in the application of it by some early mathematical evolutionary economists, but I stand to be corrected on that).
The problem is everything is contested ground, but the ground itself is not stable.
Finally, where is this comment going to land? Who knows!
I agree with you on the pseudo maths, which is the kindest way to describe it
And I hope this lands in the right place….
Allow me to clarify my objection to George’s argument. This was the starting point:
“I detect an underlying theme to these contributions; to choose the policy that we find most attractive and then assume desirable consequences without really having any basis for doing so.”
This was just a straw man. It may have applied to some comments (there are currently 70+ on the thread), I couldn’t say, but it didn’t apply to mine, nor a number of others. He then presents his solution as if it is the only one that is based on evidence to support it: the “basis for doing so”.
He then proposes a method that looks to me like a simple thought-experiment, which may be based on no evidence at all, and then provides the “basis for doing so”; which is “the policies that are most likely to cause that evolution to take place”. Thus, an appeal back to causation, which is what gives his case credibility. But the basis of that “likely causation” itself depends on the fact that examples of both the cause and effect being tied together presumably already exist, or evidence that would give you the idea that that cause will produce precisley that effect; i.e., it has to be based on some characterisation of actual experience of both. But George’s argument “backwards” does not entail that link, unless he already knows such a link is established – in which case the justification for the argument is, that it isn’t “backwards” (you cannot independently infer causes from effects); thus, it is just a thought experiment, I submit because he in fact is choosing “the policy that” he finds “most attractive and then assume desirable consequences without really having any basis for doing so”. This is just sophistry.
You should have a combination:
1) A basic level of welfare, perhaps similar to what we have now so around the £6-7000 pa you get from Universal Credit. For this you don’t have to do anything other than make a claim.
2) A job guarantee position for those that wish to take one at a real living wage, say £10 / hour though maybe varying by location. These jobs to include things needed by the GND such as insulating all our houses, plus things local communities want done (care, cleaning the beaches, wildlife restoration, etc).
3) Private Sector jobs.
4) Public Sector jobs.
So it is then quite clear that the JG is not workfare as you can live on welfare if you wish. But welfare is not a subsidy to private sector employers, and there is no need for a minimum wage as nobody will accept anything less than the JG rate of £10/hour. And providing folk with a job and making them feel a valued part of society satisfies the Minsky condition from the 1970s, i.e. being part of the community.
We should also follow some of Richard’s proposals so we stop taxing jobs (Employers National Insurance) and start taxing capital. Otherwise you are just encouraging employers to replace people with capital (robots).
You can also learn from history as ancient Rome had a UBI, the Imperial Dole of bread and circuses that was paid out to Freemen in Rome because there were almost no jobs as the slaves (robots) did all those. It led to a lot of idle folk who had little incentive to do anything except agitate and the Emperor was always keeping a close eye on the Plebs (around 15% of the population) in case they started a riot or coup.
Somebody has already pointed out the UBI (in isolation) was a proposal from Milton Friedman, who was of course the architect of the Chicago School monetarism (1979 TV series ‘Free to Choose’ for example). So I can’t remember who, but somebody recently said UBI was a neo-liberal wet dream. Once we all have some money then you have the perfect excuse to marketise everything because we can now use our money to pay for education, health, etc. A bit like Mrs Thatcher and her school vouchers.
There is absolutely no shortage of jobs that should be done, whether that is clearing the ‘township flowers’ (what they call litter in South Africa), getting rid of Japanese knotweed, plastics on the beaches, etc. None of those will ever be tackled by ‘the market’.
I have a major disability and crashed out of work years ago because of it. If I have to pick one or the other, I choose the UBI, not the JG.
That way, everyone gets their UBI and there’s no stigma in receiving it. The right-wing press would no longer be able to inflict their toxic “scrounger” narrative on disabled people, nor would the DWP be dragging disabled people through the disgracefully bad application and assessment process.
Some people with disabilities requiring personal assistance or expensive equipment would still need extra funding, but that could be delivered as a separate top-up to the UBI for those who needed it.
Child benefit and bereavement benefits could also be delivered as a top-up to the UBI.
Having said all that, I do agree with the other commenters above who say that there’s a place for both the UBI and the JG.
I also agree that we could eliminate personal tax allowances to offset some of the cost of the UBI. People wouldn’t lose money, because the UBI would more than cover the extra tax – the UBI would only have to be £2500 per annum to offset the entire personal allowance for income tax – and they would still keep a worthwhile percentage of their earnings for every hour they chose to work.
This discussion is very timely and also leads into a discussion on the concept of work.
Work can be fulfilling, but for many it is an addiction. Five days drudgery, then the complementary addiction of sport and alcohol on the weekend.
I should re-read David Graeber’s chapter on work in ‘Bullshit Jobs.’
There is so much unnecessary (and often harmful) work, and so much work that needs doing; in particular, caring for each other and restoring the planet.
I don’t see that a market economy can be the framework for what is needed.
So, yes, a UBI at least in the short term while we undergo a revolution in work that has been forced on us.
A Job Guarentee offers security and worth to those who can take PAID work, as labourers, but a lot in home caring are not paid.
UBI offers dignity and worth to everyone, as citizens, as persons.
Maybe JG has a place, but alongside UBI and UBS.
Guy Standing is a leading proponent of UBI, and he makes a compelling case for UBI. Bill Mitchell is a leading proponent of the JG, and he makes a compelling case for the JG. They both make rather less compelling cases for not implementing UBI (Bill), and not implementing a JG (Guy). They both seem to view these proposals as anathema to each other. It seems to me, however, that there is no reason why some form of UBI and JG cannot coexist. Indeed, I would say that the UBI and JG need each other. Without UBI, the JG risks being little more than workfare. Without the JG, UBI risks being, as Bill says, little more than a ‘neoliberal con’, that is, ‘serfdom without the work’. As it happens, Bill Mitchell is on record as saying that there is actually no reason why UBI and JG are mutually exclusive, it’s just that he prefers to focus on the JG. I quoted his precise words in this respect, and provided a link to the reference, in a post to this blog a few years ago. Unfortunately, it is so long ago I cannot find the evidence, but he did say it!
The third instalment of my perfect fantasy trilogy would be, as others have suggested, UBS. This extends the spirit of universalism of UBI (and the NHS!), and could conceivably be linked to the JG, but is not a necessary precondition or accompaniment for either of these.
UBS stands on its own
But it’s necessary either way
Bit of a throwaway line from Bill Mitchell, but you mentioned it here in 2018 –
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/05/05/the-case-for-a-job-guarantee-in-the-uk/
The precise quote is “I grant you that the basic income policy and the Job Guarantee could be complementary but I generally prefer to concentrate on the latter.”
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=37109
Apart from the macroeconomics, I think Bill’s reason for his concentration on the JG is obvious. The UBI on its own will leave you with the NAIRU, and he abhors the idea that people, especially young people, are effectively consigned to the scrap-heap by the unemployment buffer stock.
I accept that point
If anyone needs convincing, I recommend you watch the linked video of Bill Mitchell in 2012.
He expands on the point about people being consigned to the unemployment scrap-heap.
I found it both convincing, and moving –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayJnDb4K08M&feature=youtu.be
UBI has got to be better than the Universal Credit nightmare we have currently. A JG has got to be better than the Unemployment Guarantee that the Neoliberal Empire is predicated on. There are many possible designs of both UBI and JG; if we want a progressive version, we have to design it that way. For example, it is not hard to envisage improvements on the Tory version of Child Benefit we have currently: a payment which is grudgingly called a benefit, it is not awarded to all parents, and not paid for all children, and it is set at a very low rate.