To each according to need...

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In the last few weeks, the Conservatives-in-Wales have turned their faux anger on the Welsh Government’s proposal to trial a Universal Basic Income in Wales, with their Finance spokesperson telling us that it would hand money to the wealthy and the MS for Aberconwy adding that it’s a step towards Wales becoming a communist state. They succeed only in demonstrating how utterly clueless they are. There’s nothing new about the idea of a UBI – in one form or another, the idea has been floating around for the last 4 or 5 centuries. And there’s nothing particularly left-wing about the idea either; there are some good right-wing arguments in favour as well.

It’s true, though, that in broad terns, the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ approach the idea from different perspectives. I can sort of see how Finch-Saunders almost has half a point about the relationship with communism. But only almost, and only half. Marx did indeed utter the phrase “…to each according to his needs”, implying that goods and services should be distributed on the basis of need rather than ability to pay, something which is anathema to modern-day Tories. It was, though, based on the questionable assumption that a developed economy could produce such an abundance of good and services that there would be no need to ration them on price (which is the basis on which capitalism works). And the first part of Marx’ phrase is omitted, because he also assumed that all in society would be making a contribution, or as he put it: “From each according to his ability”. It’s an important caveat.

From a more ‘left-leaning’ perspective, UBI is about ensuring that society provides at least the basics for all its members, and therefore inherently conveys a sense of what ‘society’ is or should be. Supporters of UBI who lean to the right tend to see it more in terms of simplicity and efficiency. A single fixed payment to everyone gets rid entirely of an overcomplicated benefits system and all the bureaucracy associated with it. (And if the same sum is also paid to pensioners, it removes another over-complicated system and the costs of administering it.) It’s true that it also involves the state paying money to millionaires, but that’s a complete red herring; a progressive tax system on all income over and above the level of UBI would mean that the wealthy simply pay more tax. And I very much doubt that the suggested target group for the Welsh trial – care leavers – contains a large number of millionaires.

Whether UBI discourages people from seeking work or not is an open question. Freed of the need to work in order to pay for food, shelter etc., there may well be some who will decide not to work at all, but then there are some who do that at present anyway. They’re more of an exception than the media would have us believe, though: most people living on benefits are either unable to work, or unable to find suitable work, rather than have taken a positive decision not to bother. It depends to a very large extent on how the level of UBI is set and how ‘basic needs’ are defined, but most people’s ‘wants’ go way beyond their ‘needs’. UBI could equally increase the incentive to find work for people freed of the daily worry about how to meet the basic costs of simply staying alive.

The bigger concerns with the proposed pilot in Wales are firstly its necessarily limited scope (given the lack of power of the Senedd) and secondly that it is being viewed as a way of simplifying the benefits system for the target group. Not only does that look more like a conservative argument for UBI, it is also likely to be of limited use in judging whether it should, indeed, become truly ‘universal’. It’s in danger of being a trial which contains the seeds of its own destruction, to adapt another of Marx’ sayings.