Unconditional basic income

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The abbreviation BOD ("unconditional basic income") is now in vogue with those who study and describe new trends in social policy. AML can be defined as a guaranteed cash income for every citizen, the receipt of which does not depend on any preconditions.

The only condition is that a person belongs to one or another state jurisdiction. At the same time, the amount of money received by a citizen must provide him with at least a minimum standard of living. In other words, AML should free a person from "slave" dependence on work, which is a source of existence for him.

Free cheese in a mousetrap

They talked about AMB at the end of the twentieth century. However, the idea was in the minds of the 19th and even the 18th centuries. Some argue that the founder of the idea of AML is the American philosopher and publicist of the 18th century Thomas Payne, but, in fact, both utopian socialists and Karl Marx and his followers should be included in the list of founders of the idea.

If we summarize the expectations that are assigned to AML, then they can be reduced to the following:

- overcoming poverty and mitigating social and property polarization;

- mitigation of the possible negative consequences of scientific and technological progress, which in the coming decades can sharply reduce the economy's demand for labor and significantly increase the scale of unemployment;

- reducing the "slave" dependence of a person on work as a source of his existence and at the same time creating conditions that could help a person to devote himself to his favorite work;

- reducing the burden on the state, which is now forced to deal with the distribution of social assistance.

The ideas of AML are already being tested in experiments, however, while they are of a local nature. The first experiments were carried out back in the 1970s in Canada. The geography of subsequent experiments is very variegated: Namibia, Brazil, India, Kenya, Germany, some Scandinavian countries, and the USA.

AML proponents sometimes recall the United States in connection with a fund that was set up in 1976 in Alaska so that residents of that state could receive certain amounts of money each year from the fund. The fund is formed at the expense of 25% of the state's profit from oil turnover. Half of the income through dividends is directly distributed to Alaska residents. Each resident receives the same amount annually. The payment is recalculated each year and depends on the income of the last five years, as well as on the number of people who should receive money. Strictly speaking, the Alaska State Foundation cannot be considered an example of an AML project. First, because the level of dividend payments is not tied to the living standards of people and can fluctuate from year to year due to changes in state oil revenues. Secondly, all residents of the state do not automatically become recipients of payments from the fund (you need a minimum period of residence in the state, you must have no criminal record). In addition, the payments received are tax deductible.

Experiment expands

It was important for the AML experimenters to understand what will be the behavioral reactions of people who begin to live off AML. Will they continue to work or will they prefer idleness, will they change the type and nature of their labor activity, will their labor productivity increase or decrease? According to the reports of most of the experimenters, in general, the results were encouraging, at least the total social and work activity of the subjects did not fall.

The clearly marked rise in unemployment in many countries of the "golden billion" in the current decade has contributed to the fact that many are talking about the possibility of implementing AML projects on a more serious scale. The biggest shifts are expected this year in three European countries - Finland, Switzerland and Holland.

Let's start with Holland. There, in the city of Utrecht, an experiment was launched to pay each resident of the city an AML in the amount of 900 euros per month. If the person is married, then in this case, the total payment for the married couple is 1300 euros.

Finland is talking about a nationwide program. The AML should initially be € 550 per person per month. A gradual increase in payments is possible - first up to 800, and then up to 1000 euros. However, in the best case, such a nationwide program can start only at the end of the current decade.

The greatest resonance in the world is caused by the plans of Switzerland. In 2013, a petition was collected there on the issue of holding a referendum on the introduction of AML in the country. The referendum is due to take place in early summer 2016. An AML is proposed to be set at CHF 2,500 (€ 2,000-2250) per month per adult. For children, the amount is set at 25% of the basic AML value. However, it is still difficult to predict the outcome of the referendum. Opinion polls show that not all Swiss are ready to adopt an AML system. At the beginning of this year, there were slightly more opponents of the system than supporters.

There are no clear answers to questions related to AML

There are good reasons to doubt that some of the positive effects recorded in local experiments with AML can be replicated at the national level. Even in Finland and Switzerland, the AML amounts are below those values that determine the poverty line … Therefore, skeptics say that AML systems can trigger an increase in poverty. Only those who are at the very bottom will benefit from the implementation of AML. There will be an effect of leveling out poverty with the overall absolute and relative growth of the number of poor in society.

Other skeptics emphasize that economic growth will slow down or even an economic recession will begin. People will prefer an idle lifestyle, the reserve army of labor will be reduced and there may even be a shortage of workers. Overcoming this deficit will require an increase in wages in the economy. Simply put, economic development will be complicated by the reason that money from the sphere of production will be redistributed to the sphere of consumption, the established proportions in the economy will be violated.

There is another large group of skeptics who fear that the introduction of AML will stimulate the immigration of large numbers of people to a country with an AML system. Today Europe is choking on refugees from the Middle East. And the appearance in Europe of the "carrot" in the form of AML will only intensify the influx of refugees who will seek to legalize themselves on the European continent.

Finally, the issue of funding sources for AML programs is extremely important. The amounts required for such programs are impressive. In Finland, according to some estimates, it will need 40 billion euros per year. In Switzerland, an amount of 208 billion Swiss francs (approximately 190 billion euros) was named. AML advocates believe that the bulk of the funds should come from the state budget - from that part of it that today makes up various social assistance programs. In some EU countries, there are dozens of such programs. Most of the government officials are engaged in distributing budgetary funds among the population in the form of benefits, benefits, pensions, scholarships, etc. The elimination of such social programs and a sharp reduction in the state apparatus at the expense of officials serving them will provide the lion's share of the money needed to pay AML. That said, even AML advocates admit that additional sources will be required. First, it is not excluded that some of the current taxes will increase. Second, new taxes and fees are being proposed. For example, targeted taxes (fees) at the expense of natural rent in special AML funds. Something like the Alaska Oil Fund. There are even such exotic proposals as the introduction of a tax on air and water. They also remembered the "Tobin tax", which is often called the Robin Hood tax. The tax is a taxation of international (cross-border) financial transactions of a speculative nature. However, transnational banks and corporations have successfully resisted the introduction of such a tax for four decades.

The number of AML-related issues is growing. There are no clear answers to these questions yet, and the sharp intensification of campaigns in favor of AML implementation in all EU countries is alarming. Observing this kind of interest in the problems of social justice, social security, social security of the common man in the West, one begins to wonder about its causes. More recently, when the USSR and other socialist countries existed, Western propaganda actively criticized their social policies. Social programs in socialist countries were characterized as “communist populism”, “socialist egalitarianism”, “social dependency”, etc. But the AML programs promoted in the West cannot be compared with social programs in socialist countries. Those programs were targeted in nature, and did not represent a banal distribution of equal portions of money to all residents.

The topic of public consumption funds in the USSR remains taboo

I dare to suggest that the interest of Western society in the programs of "unconditional basic income" (AML) is fueled by the world oligarchy. This is part of the overall project for the transition to a new world order.… The model of capitalism today has exhausted itself for many reasons, and world oligarchy(they are also the owners of the money that owns the printing press of the Federal Reserve) begins its global "restructuring". Namely: to the construction of a new slave system, the cleansing of the planet from the "surplus" population and the formation of a "new man". The ideas of AML imposed on people can be understood only in the context of these plans.

AML is a continuation of the course of the global elite on the degradation of man … At first, the owners of money cultivated greed and the desire to consume, now the cult of idleness comes to the fore. Man without difficulty finally turns into an animal. AML is designed to speed up this process. The decomposition of a person is only an intermediate goal, it is the preparation of conditions for his destruction(plans to depopulate the world's population were outlined back in the 1970s in the works of the Club of Rome).

In addition, AML is a means of final dismantling of the state. People are given money to “buy social services”. People are left alone with giant corporations that are gradually replacing the state. In fact, AML is not such a definite income. It is very dependent on the will and decisions of the owners of the money, for whom it is enough to carry out their kabbalistic manipulations with money so that it turns into waste paper. "Zeroing" AML will be only a part of the global project of "zeroing" the debts of the owners of money.

It is noteworthy that when discussing the AML problem, the experience of the USSR and other socialist states in solving social problems (pensions, medical care, education, assistance to young families, etc.) is hushed up in every possible way. The very topic of social consumption funds in the Soviet Union is taboo. All this once again suggests that the AML system is aimed not at solving the most acute social problems of Western countries, but at strengthening the power of the owners of money.

AML can be called capitalist leveling, which will inevitably be followed by concentration camp leveling. Taking these considerations into account, I believe that AML should be deciphered not as "unconditional basic income", but as "banking-oligarchic dictatorship."