It’s an idea whose adherents over the centuries have ranged from
socialists to libertarians to far-right mavericks. It was first proposed
by Thomas Paine in his 1797 pamphlet,
Agrarian Justice, as a system in which at the “age of majority” everyone would receive an equal capital grant, a “
basic income” handed over by the state to each and all, no questions asked, to do with what they wanted.
It might be thought that, in these austere times, no idea could be
more politically toxic: literally, a policy of the state handing over
something for nothing.
But in Utrecht, one of the largest cities in the Netherlands, and 19
other Dutch municipalities, a tentative step towards realising the dream
of many a marginal and disappointed political theorist is being made.
The politicians, well aware of a possible backlash, are rather shy of
admitting it. “We had to delete mention of basic income from all the
documents to get the policy signed off by the council,” confided Lisa
Westerveld, a Green councillor for the city of Nijmegen, near the
Dutch-German border.
“We don’t call it a basic income in Utrecht because people
have an idea about it – that it is just free money and people will sit
at home and watch TV,” said Heleen de Boer, a Green councillor in that
city, which is half an hour south of Amsterdam.
Nevertheless, the municipalities are, in the words of de Boer, taking
a “small step” towards a basic income for all by allowing small groups
of benefit claimants to be paid £660 a month – and keep any earnings
they make from work on top of that. Their monthly pay will not be
means-tested. They will instead have the security of that cash every
month, and the option to decide whether they want to add to that by
finding work. The outcomes will be analysed by eminent economist Loek
Groot, a professor at the University of Utrecht.
A start date for the scheme has yet to be settled – and only benefit
claimants involved in the pilots will receive the cash – but there is no
doubting the radical intent. The motivation behind the experiment in
Utrecht, according to Nienke Horst, a senior policy adviser to the
municipality’s Liberal Democrat leadership, is for claimants to avoid
the “poverty trap” – the fact that if they earn, they will lose
benefits, and potentially be worse off.
The
idea also hopes to target “revolving door clients” – those who are
forced into jobs by the system but repeatedly walk out of them. If given
a basic income, the thinking goes, these people might find the time and
space to look for long-term employment that suits them.
But the logic of basic income, according to people to the left of
Horst, leads only one way – to the cash sum becoming a universal right.
It would be unthinkable for those on benefits to be earning and
receiving more than their counterparts off benefits. Horst admitted:
“Some municipalities are very into the basic income thing.”
Indeed leftwing councillors in Utrecht believe this is an opportunity
to prove to a sceptical public that people don’t just shirk and watch
television if they are given a leg-up. “I think we need to have trust in
people,” said de Boer.
Caroline Lucas, the Green party’s only MP in the House of Commons,
agrees. A basic income – the Greens call it a “citizen’s wage” – has
long been party policy. It did not make the cut for their manifesto
because they couldn’t find a way to fund it.
But developments in the
Netherlands,
and a parallel pilot in Finland, have bolstered Lucas’s belief that
this idea’s time has come. The Royal Society of Arts has been examining
the feasibility of the idea, as has campaign group Compass.
To those who say it is an unaffordable pipedream, Westerveld points
out the huge costs that come with the increasinglytough benefits regimes
being set up by western states, including policies that make people do
community service to justify their handouts. “In Nijmegen we get £88m to
give to people on welfare,” Westerveld said, “but it costs £15m a year
for the civil servants running the bureaucracy of the current system. We
will save money with a ‘basic income’.”
Horst
adds: “If you receive benefits from the government [in Holland] now you
have to do something in return. But most municipalities don’t have the
people to manage that. We have 10,000 unemployed people in Utrecht, but
if they all have to do something in return for welfare we just don’t
have the people to see to that. It costs too much.”
Lucas says she will seek a parliamentary debate on the policy in the
new year, and will ask the government to look into the feasibility of a
“basic income” pilot here. “I think in Britain people have quite a
puritanical idea of work,” she said. “But this is an urgently needed
policy. With increased job insecurity, the idea of everyone working nine
to five is outdated. People go in and out of work these days.” “People
are increasingly working in what they call the gig economy. The current
system is not fit for purpose.”
The idea faces a tough political headwind, of course, not least in
the Netherlands. Last Tuesday, Johanna von Schaik-Vijfschaft, 41, could
be found updating her CV on one of the computers made available to
benefits claimants at the Utrecht council building. A cleaner at a local
department store, she had been told by council officials to find more
work than the 12 hours she currently does.
But she will be under even more pressure in a few years when her
19-year-old son turns 21 and leaves her care. Once she has no
dependants, she will lose £150 of her £500 monthly benefit payment and
come under the remit of the participation laws, legislation recently
brought in by the rightwing central government to make benefits
claimants work harder for their cash. Von Schaik-Vijfschaft could be
ordered to do some community work for the council in return for her
benefits, and will face the threat of losing more of her income if her
application rate for jobs falls away. And if Von Schaik-Vijfschaft were
to dress inappropriately for interviews or, worse still, miss an
appointment, she will lose all her benefits for a month.
The country’s second city, Rotterdam, has even trialled a “work
first” system, where aspiring benefits claimants must put on an orange
jacket and spend two months clearing rubbish before they are handed any
payments.
“Rules, always the rules,” von Schaik-Vijfschaft said. “But of course
I want to work. I want to be busy – we all do.” If the experiment can
prove that, maybe Tom Paine’s idea will have its day yet.
HOW IT WORKS
■ A “basic income”, first proposed by Thomas Paine is an income
unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without any means
test or requirement to work.
■ It is paid irrespective of any income from other sources.
■ It is paid without requiring the performance of any work or the willingness to accept a job.
■ Advocates say it will allow people to genuinely choose what sort of employment they take, and to retrain when they wish.
■ Its proponents also claim that a basic income scheme is one of the
most simple benefits models, and will reduce all the bureaucracy
surrounding the welfare state, making it less complex and much cheaper
to administer.
Kylie Jenner, Tyga kiss on Christmas Eve
Kylie Jenner, Tyga step out together after split
Flavour and baby mama Sandra Okagbue kissing
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Harrison Ford
John-Boyega
Miss Columbia, Ariadna Gutierrez gets sex tape offer
Miss Columbia Ariadna Gutierrez
Ik Ogbonna in a black and white ensemble
IK Ogbonna's new car
Ik Ogbonna with his wife and child
