GUY STANDING

Basic Income:
A Guide for the
Open-Minded

Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS

New Haven and London
First published in the United States in 2017 by Yale University Press.
Contents
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Penguin Books Ltd,
London, as Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen.
Original edition first published by Penguin Books Ltd, London.
Text copyright© Guy Standing 2017. The moral right of the author
has been asserted. PREFACE ix

All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including CHAPTER 1
illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections Basic Income - Its Meaning and
107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for
the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Historical Origins

Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for

CHAPTER 2
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Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017941042 CHAPTER 4
ISBN 978-0-300-23084-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) Reducing Poverty, Inequality and 71
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Insecurity
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
CHAPTER 5
95
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The Economic Arguments

CHAPTER 6
109
The Standard Objections
CHAPTER 7
127
The Affordability Issue

CHAPTER 8
155
The Implications for Work and Labour

CHAPTER 9
185
The Alternatives

CHAPTER 10
217
Basic Income and Development

CHAPTER 11
247
Basic Income Initiatives and Pilots

CHAPTER 12

The Political Challenge - How to

279
Get There from Here

APPENDIX: HOW TO RUN A BASIC INCOME PILOT 299

LIST OF BIEN-AFFILIATED ORGANIZATIONS 317

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 321

NOTES 323

INDEXES 349
CHAPTER 1

Basic
Income- Its
Meaning and
Historical
Origins
 BASIC INCOME - ITS MEANING AND HISTORICAL ORIGINS

The Roots of Basic Income

Several candidates jostle for pride of place as the originator

of the idea that the state should provide all its citizens with
a basic income. Sir Thomas More, in his fictional vision of
the island of Utopia (literally, 'no place'), published in Latin
in 1516, is commonly identified as the first to picture a
society with a basic income.
However, there is a case for going much further back, to
Pericles and Ephialtes, who in 461 BC triumphed as leaders of

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CHAPTER 1 BASIC INCOME - ITS MEANING AND HISTORICAL ORIGINS

the 'plebeians' in ancient Athens. It was Ephialtes, in fact, remarkable feature inserted in the revised Magna Carta was
who initiated democratic reforms that involved paying citi- the right granted to widows to 'reasonable estovar of
zens for jury service. Shortly afterwards, he was assassinated common'. Every widow had the right to a basic income, in
(allegedly by his political opponents), and Pericles, his the form of the right to take food, fuel and housing materials
second-in-command, then took over. So, although it was from the commons.
hardly the ideal omen, we could say that Ephialtes was the It was nevertheless Thomas More who first depicted what
true originator of the basic income, or at least the 'citizen's a society with a basic income might look like. In a novel jus-
income' variant. tification that is not without modern parallels,4 he saw basic
The essence of ancient Greek democracy was that the income as a better way to reduce thievery than hanging, then
citizens were expected to participate in the polis, the political the usual punishment. One of his characters says:
life of the city. Pericles instituted a sort of basic income grant
No penalty on earth will stop people from stealing if it is
that rewarded them for their time and was intended to
their only way of getting food ... Instead of inflicting these
enable the plebs - the contemporary equivalent of the pre-
horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to
cariat - to take part. The payment was not conditional on
provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that
actual participation, which was nevertheless seen as a moral
nobody is under the frightful necessity of becoming first a
duty. Sadly, this enlightened system of deliberative democ-
thief and then a corpse.
racy, facilitated by the basic income, was overthrown by an
oligarchic coup in 411 BC. The road was blocked for a very Ten years later, a Spanish-Flemish scholar and friend of
long time. More, Johannes Vives, submitted a detailed proposal to the
The medieval roots of basic income can be found in the Mayor of Bruges for ensuring a minimum subsistence for all
epochal Charter of the Forest, which was issued alongside the city's residents; this led to a brief trial of the idea in the
the Magna Carta in 1217. (Although the original Charter of town of Ypres. For this reason, some credit Vives with being
Liberties of June 1215 is often referred to as the Magna Carta, the first to initiate something like a basic income. But in his
it was not given that name until a shorter version was issued model the assistance (food) was targeted on the poor only.
in 1217 after certain sections were moved to and elaborated Vives was also a proponent of 'workfare', making the poor
in the forest charter.) The Charter of the Forest asserted the labour in return. Still, More, Vives and others helped to legit-
rights of the common man to subsistence and to what were imize the idea of publicly funded and publicly provided poor
called estovars, the means of subsistence in the commons. In relief, rather than reliance on discretionary charity by the
the thirteenth century, every church was required to read out Church or the rich.
the Charter to congregations four times a year. One In the centuries after More, a few other thinkers followed

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CHAPTER 1 BASIC INCOME - ITS MEANING AND HISTORICAL ORIGINS

in his footsteps. In France, for example, Montesquieu's Spirit of communist fervour and the paternalism of social
of the Laws of 1748 asserted, 'The State owes all its citizens a democracy.
secure subsistence, food, suitable clothes and a way of life Across the Atlantic, contributors included the :flamboyant
that does not damage their health.' Later, the Marquis de Henry George, whose book Progress and Poverty (1879) sold
Condorcet, an enlightened man for his time and place, millions and whose influence was widespread and prolonged.
argued for something similar. The guillotine that ended his Another influential publication was Edward Bellamy's novel
life in 1794 again symbolized a road not followed. Looking Backward! (1888), describing in detail a United States
However, perhaps the most influential advocate in the in the year 2000 that credited all citizens with an equal
early phase was Thomas Paine, the great republican and income.
author of The Rights of Man. The key assertion was not in his In Britain, William Morris's radical futuristic novel, News
widely distributed pamphlet Common Sense (1776) that from Nowhere (1890), written in part in reaction to Bellamy's
inspired the American War of Independence, a copy of which book, envisaged a cooperative craft-based society in an
was said to be in every cabin in America, but in the core of England of 1956. The novel itself was too earnest to be
his seminal essay 'Agrarian Justice', written in 1795. 5 There regarded as great literature, but Morris captured something
he proposed what might be called a 'coming-of-age' capital special in portraying a society where, with a basic income
grant as well as a basic income for the elderly, both remark- granted by the state, people pursued work as creative activ-
ably innovative proposals for his time. ity, not as labour for bosses. It was a vision of work soon to
Paine's radical contemporary in England, Thomas Spence, be lost in the dour 'labourism' of both socialists and com-
also argued for a basic income as a natural right, as a matter munists in the early decades of the twentieth century, which
of justice. He envisaged a sort of 'social dividend' derived made income and benefits dependent on jobs.
from land rents paid into parish funds, with the proceeds What might be regarded as the second wave of proponents
distributed equally between all inhabitants on a quarterly came in the wake of the First World War, in the writings of
basis. Bertrand Russell, Mabel and Dennis Milner, Bertram Pickard,
In the nineteenth century, a few writers toyed with some G. D. H. Cole and the disciples of Henry George. 6 Walter van
version of a basic income. In continental Europe, French, Trier wrote an engaging doctoral dissertation identifying the
Dutch and Belgian thinkers were prominent in this Milners as the pioneers of a basic income (which they called
phase, notably the socialists Charles Fourier, Joseph Charlier, a 'state bonus') as practical policy. 7 Shortly after them, writ-
and Franc;ois Huet, who in 1853 advocated an unconditional ing in the 1920s, came British engineer C. H. Douglas,
transfer to all young adults, funded by taxes on inheritance founder of the 'social credit' movement and the first propon-
and gifts. But they were to be marginalized in the burst ent inspired by a technological vision of a widening divide

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CHAPTER 1 BASIC INCOME - ITS MEANING AND HISTORICAL ORIGINS

between economic output and workers' incomes and pur­ Conservative MP. But the 'labourist' version of the welfare
chasing power. He was to have a bevy of like-minded thinkers state prevailed, tying income and benefits to the perform­
in the twenty-first century. ance of paid labour, and the basic income road was not taken,
As a general principle, Russell stated the aim of basic again.
income clearly: The Frankfurt School psychoanalyst Erich Fromm advo­
cated a 'universal subsistence guarantee' in a famous 1955
[T]he plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this:
book, The Sane Society, and in a later essay, 'The Psychological
that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries,
Aspects of the Guaranteed Income'. But the labourist welfare
should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and
state was then in its ascendancy and his voice and that of
that a larger income - as much larger as might be warranted
others went unheeded.
by the total amount of commodities produced - should be
What might be called the third wave came in the 1960s,
given to those who are willing to engage in some work
predominantly in the United States, at a time of rising con­
which the community recognizes as useful ... When
cern over 'structural' and 'technological' unemployment.
education is finished, no one should be compelled to work,
This was famously associated with the 1972 proposal by
and those who choose not to work should receive a bare
President Richard Nixon for a Family Assistance Plan, a form
livelihood, and be left completely free. 8
of negative income tax. He refused to use the term 'guaran­
Russell's statement was one of many similar calls in a teed annual income', and it would be an exaggeration to see
very charged social context, a time of economic misery fol­ Nixon as a convert to the basic income cause. He believed in
lowing the carnage of the Great War of 1914-18, which had supporting 'the working poor', by which was meant those in
decimated the industrial working class of Europe. But the low-paid jobs, ignoring the many forms of unpaid work.
Labour Party, which discussed the ideas of basic income and Nevertheless, the measure was an advance in the basic
state bonuses at its annual conference in 1920, formally income direction. It passed in the House of Representatives
rejected them the following year. It was a missed opportunity but died in the Senate, despite overwhelming support in
to advance a different form of society. public opinion polls. Ironically, the reform was killed by
Subsequently, there were a few lone voices in the United Democrats, some on the specious grounds that the proposed
States, most notably Senator Huey Long. In Britain, the vari­ amount was not enough. It was yet another instance of a
ous related proposals figured peripherally in the debates on road not taken. The era of tax credits emerged in its stead.
the formation of the welfare state, notably in the early work Earlier, in 1968, an astonishing 1,200 economists from 150
of James Meade and Juliet Rhys-Williams (1943), which was universities had signed a petition in favour of a negative
taken forward by her son Brandon after he became a income tax. And, although forgotten for many years, in 1967,

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 BASIC INCOME - ITS MEANING AND HISTORICAL ORIGINS
CHAPTER 1

shortly before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King wrote a wide range of economists and commentators have come
as follows: out in support of some variant or another of basic income,
often associated with fears of technological unemployment,
I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove growing inequality and high unemployment.
to be the most effective - the solution to poverty is to Supporters in this fourth wave include: Nobel Prize win-
abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the ners James Buchanan, Herbert Simon, Angus Deaton,
guaranteed income ... New forms of work that enhance Christopher Pissarides and Joseph Stiglitz; academics Tony
the social good will have to be devised for those for whom Atkinson, Robert Skidelsky and Robert Reich, former
traditional jobs are not available ... a host of positive Secretary of Labour under Bill Clinton; prominent economic
psychological changes inevitably will result from journalists Sam Brittan and Martin Wolf; and leading :figures
widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual in the BIEN movement, such as German sociologist Claus
will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in Offe and the Belgian philosopher Philippe van Parijs.
his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income Latterly, the idea has been taken up by Silicon Valley
is stable and certain, and when he knows that he has the luminaries and venture capitalists, some putting up money
means to seek self-improvement.9 for the cause, as we shall see. They include Robin Chase, co-
There were many other advocates around this time, though founder of Zipcar, Sam Altman, head of the start-up incuba-
most seem to have supported a means-tested guaranteed tor Y Combinator, Albert Wenger, a prominent venture
minimum income. They included a string of Nobel Prize- capitalist, Chris Hughes, co-founder ofFacebook, Elon Musk,
winning economists - James Meade, Friedrich Hayek, Milton founder of SolarCity, Tesla and SpaceX, Marc Benioff, CEO
Friedman, Jan Tinbergen, James Tobin, Paul Samuelson and of Salesforce, Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, and Eric
Gunnar Myrdal. The idea was also supported by other prom- Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet, Google's parent.
inent economists, such as J. K. Galbraith, and by sociologists, Some people have rejected basic income on the rather
most notably New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, crude reasoning that support from this quarter means it
who, although a Democrat, had a strong influence on Nixon's must be wrong! All that can be said at this stage is that the
proposed Family Assistance Plan. 10 breadth of support, from across the political spectrum, from
The fourth wave could be said to have started in a quiet business executives to trade union leaders to social activists,
way with the establishment of the Basic Income European and across all disciplines of the social sciences, promises a
(now Earth) Network (BIEN) in 1986. After attracting a more robust movement than at any time in the past.
steady stream of converts, the wave gathered real momen- Looking back at the four waves of advocacy, the :first, dis-
tum in the wake of the :financial crash of 2007-8. Since then jointed wave can be characterized as responses to the

17
16
 CHAPTER 1

conflictual emergence of industrial capitalism, imagining a

· way to adjust society to preserve communities and the values
of 'work' against advancing proletarian 'labour'. The impetus
for the second wave was primarily social justice, the need to
right the wrongs of the First World War and the decimation
of the working class. But it was crushed by the juggernaut of
universal labourism espoused by social democrats, commu­
nists and Fabian socialists.
The third wave reflected the fear of technological un­
employment and faded as that fear receded. The fourth wave
has been spurred by the emergence of mass insecurity and
rising inequality as well as by concerns about labour dis­
placement by robotics, automation and artificial intelligence.
Basic income now appears to be more deeply embedded in
public debate, helped by the realization on the left that
labourism has run its course, and on the right that chronic
insecurity and inequality have made the market economy
increasingly unstable and unsustainable.

18
Notes
CHAPTER 1: BASIC INCOME - ITS MEANING AND
HISTORICAL ORIGINS

1. J. Cunliffe and G. Erreygers (eds.) (2004), The Origins of Universal Grants:

An Anthology of Historical Writings on Basic Capital and Basic Income.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. xi.
2. B. Ackerman and A. Alstott (1999), The Stakeholder Society. New Haven: Yale
University Press. B. Ackerman and A. Alstott (2006), 'Why stakeholding?',
in E. 0. Wright (ed.), Redesigning Distribution: Basic Income and Stakeholder
Grants as Cornerstones for an Egalitarian Capitalism. London and New York:
Verso, pp. 43-65.
3. G. Standing (2006), 'GIG, COAG and COG: A comment on a debate', in
Wright (ed.), Redesigning Distribution, pp. 175-95.
4. L. Bershidsky (2016), 'Letting the hungry steal food is no solution',
Bloomberg, 4 May.
5. T. Paine ([1795] 2005), 'Agrarian justice', in Common Sense and Other
Writings. New York: Barnes & Noble, pp. 321-45.
6. B. Russell (1920), Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism and Syndicalism.
London: Allen & Unwin. E. M. Milner and D. Milner (1918), Scheme for a
State Bonus. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. B. Pickard (1919),
A Reasonable Revolution. Being a Discussion of the State Bonus Scheme -
A Proposal for a National Minimum Income. London: Allen & Unwin.
G. D. H. Cole (1929), The Next Ten Years in British Social and Economic Policy.
London: Macmillan.
7. W. van Trier (1995), 'Every One a King', PhD dissertation. Leuven:
Departement de Sociologie, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
8. Russell, Roads to Freedom, pp. 80-81, 127.
9. M. L. King (1967), Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community? New
York: Harper & Row.

323
 NOTES

10. For a selection of statements and analyses, see J.E. Meade (1972), 'Poverty
in the welfare state', Oxford Economic Papers, 24(3), pp. 289-326. J.E. Meade
(1989), Agathotopia: The Economics of Partnership. Aberdeen: Aberdeen
UniversityPress. J.Tobin (1966), 'The case for an income guarantee', Public
Interest, 4 (Summer), pp. 31-41.
11. M. Samson andG. Standing (eds.) (2003), A Basic Income Grant for South
Africa. CapeTown: University ofCapeTownPress.
12. For example, A. Beattie (2016), A' simple basic income delivers little benefit
to complex lives', Finandal Times, 3 June.

324