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.
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