Writing in The Economist, Guy Standing argues that a basic income system can help communities with rescue, resilience and revival
THE COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a surge of interest in basic income as a way of compensating people for the economic hardships imposed by lockdowns. As a modest, regular, equal payment to all individuals, regardless of income or employment, basic income is fair, non-discriminatory and comprehensive—unlike the emergency safety-net schemes that governments have scrambled to put in place.
Yet in some ways, we have been there before: the era prior to the second world war and the welfare state. In an epoch-defining British government report in 1942, William Beveridge said it was “a time for revolutions, not for patching” what ailed the economy. The challenge was to slay what he called “five giants” that held back people and society itself: Disease, Idleness, Ignorance, Squalor and Want. The report set the agenda for post-war welfare states.
That is why the response to the covid-19 crisis requires the same muscular response as Beveridge unleashed in the 1940s, which preserved a market economy rather than eroded it. It should not only comprise “rescue” measures, because it would be ludicrous to simply return to the situation before the novel coronavirus.
The pandemic has highlighted the insecurity of gig-economy workers in the precariat, who cannot afford to stay at home or self-isolate, putting their own health and that of others at risk. In practice, despite gestures in their direction, they are largely excluded from emergency income-support measures. But they would be reached by a basic income system.
Next, resilience. Existing government measures are hand-to-mouth efforts that do little or nothing to strengthen resilience to current and future shocks. For that, people need some degree of security. Basic income has been shown to improve IQ and decision-making. It also alleviates economic uncertainty, today’s main form of insecurity. Individual resilience feeds into community resilience. If everyone has basic security, social tensions and crime can be expected to decline.
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