SOUTH AFRICA - BASIC INCOME IS NOT A NEW IDEA IN SOUTH AFRICA

On why basic income has not yet been deployed

BY 

Andre Coelho

The hypothesis: basic income has not been deployed in South Africa in part because the powers that be do not let go of their interest and ability to explore people.

The following article attempts to demonstrate the validity of this hypothesis.

 Let’s begin with some background. Basic Income (BI) is not a new idea in South Africa. In fact a thorough economic analysis for BI implementation has existed since 2004. The analysis was  drawn from the work of recognized economists, specialists in the field, and the findings were summarized in what became known as the Taylor Committee. The Basic Income Coalition (composed of Black Sash, COSATU and SAAC), used these results to prove that BI is feasible, or at least should be tested, in South Africa.

More than 10 years have passed, and yet nothing resembling BI has been implemented or even tested in South Africa. Why not?

It is not due to lack of need: 54%1 of South Africans – over 29 million people – live under the country’s poverty line, and over 40% of the labor force is unemployed2. Moreover, according to the  BIG Financing Reference Group report, it is also not due to a lack of funds:

“The Basic Income Grant is an affordable option for South Africa. Although the four economists [Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI), Prof. Pieter le Roux, Prof. Charles Meth and Dr. Ingrid Woolard] posit slightly different net costs for the BIG, representing transfers to the poor of different amounts, there was consensus that the grant is affordable without necessitating increased deficit spending be government.”

In spite of this, the same report also states that government officials believe that BI cannot combat poverty. They have refused to consider a BI, despite knowing that current social assistance plans fail to reach over 50% of those living under the poverty line, or nearly 15 million people. These officials have continued to say that BI would not be effective despite demonstration by the Taylor Committee that basic income is the best way to diminish or even eradicate poverty in the shortest amount of time. They also ignore fiscal collection and social security savings when speaking of BI, which more than doubles its actual net cost of about 24 million ZAR/year (1.35 billion €/year), according to the calculations of the Taylor Committee. In short, most government officials completely ignore these very consistent and thought-out analyses from the Taylor Committee. Why is that?

Well, the answer may lie in the kind of structure of South African economy. The private sector accounts for around 80% of the country’s economy3.  The median income is 3036 ZAR/month (171 €/month)4, which is low compared to European standards. 

The relationship between the median income and the average living income is considerably higher in the UK than it is in South Africa. Moreover, the ratio of median income to statutory minimum income is also much higher in the UK. Indeed, while the median income in the UK is above the minimum income (as it should be), this is not the case in South Africa: more than half of South Africans have wages below the statutory minimum income. Finally, as we can see on the graph below, the spread of incomes in South Africa is clearly skewed to the lower end on the income axis, while incomes in the UK are much more evenly distributed around the center. 

These data show that the South African economy is impoverished compared to a country like the UK, and that most economic activity depends on a low-wage, low-skilled work force6. This situation is best maintained when a large number of poor, dependent people are craving for jobs in the economy. Given their subservient position, these millions of people will naturally accept low wages and substandard working conditions that they might not otherwise accept. They are also kept away from most schooling and higher education, which could provide them with extra skills and allow them to apply to other jobs or start their own businesses. This is convenient for large corporations, and these corporations lobby and finance politicians and governments to protect their interests by providing them with access to cheap labor and lax environmental laws. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deals, for example, are just a formally imposed recognition of the attitudes of domination that large corporations foist upon governments and the people at large.

There is a link between corporate interests and government policy. Furthermore, the implementation of a basic income would basically be contrary to corporate interests: BI would lift millions of people out of poverty, empower them to refuse conditions of exploitation and start their own business, invest in education and bettering their lives – depriving the corporations of their pool of cheap labor. Government policymakers may also respond out of ideology or prejudice, but corporate political sponsoring response must not be ruled out, given the entrenchment and longevity of their denial (relative to progressive policies like basic income).

  More information at:

A. BIG Financing Reference Group, 2004. ““Breaking the poverty trap”: Financing a basic income grant in South Africa.” Basic Income Grant (BIG) Financing Reference Group conference, Johannesburg, 24 November 2003. March, 2004.

 Notes:

 1 – World Development Indicators – Poverty headcount ratio at national poverty lines (% of population), 2010

2 – A more accurate, expanded definition of unemployment, including the so-called ‘discouraged job seekers’, according to reference A.

3 – World Development Indicators – General government final consumption expenditure (% of GDP) = 20.3. Hence Non-government (private) final consumption expenditure (% of GDP) = 79.7

4 – From the spread of households within the income distribution in South Africa, 2008.

5 – From Measuring National Well-being – Personal Finance, 2012 (UK)

6 – Higher skilled professionals are usually paid on or above the median income, so a low income distribution as shown in Figure 1 must be related with a high proportion of low skilled workers.

SOUTH AFRICA - BENEFITS OF A BASIC INCOME - DEPARTURE FROM ENTRAPMENT & LIMITATIONS

Basic income for all could lift millions out of poverty – and change how we think about inequality

BY THE CONVERSATION

The idea of a basic income for every person has been popping up regularly in recent years.

Economists, think tanks, activists and politicians from different stripes have toyed with the idea of governments giving every citizen or resident a minimum income off which to live. This cash transfer could either replace or supplement existing welfare payments.

Pilot projects and feasibility studies have been run or are under way in the Netherlands, India, Canada, Finland, France and elsewhere.

Even in the U.S., the idea finds support. Alaska, for example, already divides its oil revenues among its residents.

Most arguments in favor or against basic income have focused on its feasibility, simplicity, promotion of personal independence or effectiveness at reaching those who fall through the cracks of the welfare state.

However, the most important advantage of basic income may not be in its practical application but rather in how it could change the way we think and talk about poverty and inequality.

Benefits of a basic income

Giving every resident an unconditional grant, regardless of whether you are a billionaire or destitute, is a significant departure from our existing welfare state. The latter offers only limited and conditional support when working is not an option.

Support for a basic income comes from very disparate political and ideological circles.

Some libertarians like basic income because it promises a leaner state without a large bureaucracy checking people’s eligibility and policing their behavior. Others see it as enabling entrepreneurialism – the poor helping themselves.

On the left, many see basic income as an opportunity to plug numerous holes in the social safety net or even to free people from “wage slavery.” For feminists, basic income is a successor to the old demand for wages for housework.

Pilot projects suggest that simply giving money to the poor could successfully tackle poverty. In Namibia, poverty, crime andunemployment went down, as school attendance went up. In India, basic income recipients were more likely to start small businesses.

Jobs may not be the solution to poverty. Classified ads via www.shutterstock.com

Jobs are no longer sole answer to poverty

When discussing inequality, we usually focus on employment and production. Yet, much of the world’s population has no realistic prospects of employment, and we already produce more than what is sustainable.

Basic income, however, separates survival from employment or production.

Our current answers to poverty and inequality stem from Fordism, the New Deal and Social Democracy. They center on wage labor: get more people into jobs, protect them in the workplace, pay better wages and use taxes on wages to fund a limited system of social security and welfare.

It would seem that to get people out of poverty, you have to get them into jobs. Politicians across the spectrum agree. Is there a politician who does not promise more jobs?

In my own research on labor in Africa, however, I have found that wage labor is only a small part of a larger picture.

In most of the Global South, whole generations are growing up without realistic prospects for employment. We cannot develop the world solely by getting people into jobs, encouraging them to start small businesses or teaching them how to farm (as if they didn’t already know). The painful reality is that most people’s labor is no longer needed by increasingly efficient global chains of production.

In economic speak, a large portion of the world’s population is surplus to the needs of capital. They have no land, no resources and no one to whom they can sell their labor.

South Africa could benefit greatly from a basic income, such as the residents of this informal settlement in Soweto. Reuters

South Africa and jobless growth

Thus, to believe that jobs or economic growth is going to address this crisis of global poverty seems naive.

The example of South Africa is telling. In a comparatively rich country where youth unemployment runs at more than 60 percent, pensions, childcare and disability grants are for many households the most important source of income. Yet many slip through the cracks of this limited welfare state.

As a healthy adult male, you stand little chance of either receiving a government benefit or finding decent employment, as economic growth has been largely jobless. For an adult without children, disability is the only access to these crucial grants.

In the early 2000s, a movement emerged in support of a very modest Basic Income Grant (BIG) of 100 rand (less than US$12 in 2002) per month. Significantly, this campaign received the support of the government-appointed Taylor Committee. Its report concluded that a BIG was likely fiscally sustainable and would lift as many as six million people out of poverty. It argued that this result could not be achieved by expanding existing welfare programs. However, the proposal was dismissed by the ANC, which continued to see employment as the only solution to poverty and inequality.

Not surprisingly, basic income campaigns have been prominent in countries with high socioeconomic inequality, like South Africa. These countries have both significant resources and a need for redistribution. In neighboring Namibia, another country with extreme inequality, a similar campaign has received growing support.

Furthermore, as the Club of Rome already realized in 1972, the productivist bias of our usual answers to inequality – grow more, produce more and grow the economy so that people can consume more – is ultimately unsustainable. Surely, in a world already characterized by overproduction and over-consumption, producing and consuming more cannot be the answer. Yet, these seem to be the answers with which we are stuck: grow, grow, grow.

Given or taught? Two fish via www.shutterstock.com

Give a man a fish

To move beyond these defunct politics, we may need to think about distribution rather than production, a point powerfully argued by anthropologist James Ferguson. For Ferguson, giving a man a fish might be more useful than teaching him to fish.

The problem of global inequality is not that we do not produce enough to provide for the world’s population. It is about the distribution of resources. This is why the idea of a basic income is so important: it discards the assumption that in order to get the income you need to survive, you should be employed or at least engaged in productive labor. Assumptions of this kind are untenable when for so many there are no realistic prospects for employment.

This does not mean that basic income is a panacea. There are too many potential problems to list here. Yet, to give just a few examples: those countries whose populations would need it most might be least able to afford such schemes. And, basic income grants that are small enough to be politically acceptable may actually further impoverish the poorest if basic income replaces other grants.

Moreover, if people get money merely because they are citizens or residents of a country – shareholders in the wealth of that country – these claims become very susceptible to nationalist and xenophobic exclusion. Indeed, during recurrent episodes of xenophobic violence in South Africa, many explained their dislike of foreigners by accusing them of receiving welfare grants and public housing that should be going to South Africans.

Despite these problems, it is important to start experimenting with alternatives and to start thinking about distribution rather than production. After all, the welfare system that we have now also resulted from longstanding debates, experiments that were once considered unrealistic, ad hoc improvements and partial victories.

SOUTHERN AFRICA - CASH TRANSFERS, AN EFFICIENT WAY OF REDUCING POVERTY

Social protection may be the key to uplifting Africa's poor

BY Leila Gharagozloo-Pakkala

When countries first started supporting disadvantaged households with cash transfers, there was a chorus of concern: it would create dependency; these hand-outs would discourage people from working, and not reduce poverty.

Five years later, for scores of countries that are testing cash transfers and safety net programmes, the sky hasn’t fallen in. A growing body of evidence suggests that social protection measures – with cash grants leading the way – are, in fact, an innovative and efficient way of reducing poverty. Are they the most effective? Perhaps. What is certainly clear is that far from being a cost, they are an investment.

Born out of a need to respond to the economic and social vulnerabilities faced by the poorest, these measures are far-reaching. Let the numbers talk: in South Africa, the child grant reduced the poverty gap by 47%; in Kenya, unconditional cash transfers saw a 19% increase in primary school enrolment among “hard to reach” children; in rural Ghana, for every one Cedi transferred, 1.50 Cedi of income can be generated in the local economy.

There are few outlays that get a 50% return on investment. Except, it seems, in Hintalo, Ethiopia, where the transfer of one Birr can yield an 84% return, multiplying to 1.84 Birr. These are not mere percentage points. They represent the improved lives of people across the continent.

Wintala Enselesi and Safia Lapukeni are widows. I met them last month in Malawi. Both can now send their children to school, provide meals and healthcare to their families, and accumulate assets. All from a monthly $8 grant.

Threats and opportunitiesWhy does all this matter? In Eastern and Southern Africa alone, nearly half the population lives on less than $1.25 (R11.11) a day, and some countries in the region post the highest levels of income inequities in the world. This socioeconomic context is a concern. One in every 11 children born still dies before their fifth birthday; nearly 20-million children are not in school; and almost half of the world’s new HIV infections occur in this region, with a heavy burden directly and indirectly on children.

Such social-economic threats come against a backdrop of an unprecedented demographic shift, according to a recent report by United Nations Children’s and Education Fund (Unicef), Generation 2030 Africa. 

On current trends, 1.8-billion babies will be born in Africa in the next 35 years. By 2050, Africa is projected to be home to one in every four of the world’s inhabitants.

Africa’s growing population presents an unparalleled opportunity and several challenges. The opportunity lies in the potential for a demographic dividend of sustained rapid economic growth in the coming decades.

Investment in the children of Africa is the continent’s best hope to set the right pre-conditions for this potentially massive and transformative demographic dividend. Get it right, and the continent will see sustained rapid economic growth in the coming decades. Growth that would support a prolonged economic boom that could contribute to dramatically reducing poverty in Africa.

And yet Africa’s demographic dividend is far from guaranteed by its changing demographics alone. Reaping it will require the right pre-conditions. Reaping it will require investment. And there is no cheaper and more efficient investment than social protection.

Boom or burdenHowever, without the right pre-conditions, Africa’s demographic boom could turn into a demographic burden, with mass deprivation, unemployment and low productivity – with inherent risks to stability and security. History has demonstrated that shared growth is an imperative for development; it has shown that where economic prosperity is not shared, it can be disruptive and destructive.

Fortunately, the benefits of investments in children are trans-formational. Child-sensitive social protection is proving to be Africa’s most effective instrument for tackling poverty, addressing vulnerability and closing the gap on inequality.

This is not to call cash transfers the magic wand, but time after time, they transform lives.

At the Sixth International Policy Conference on the African Child, held in October this year, Graça Machel added her voice to this argument, saying social protection investment has huge inter-generational impacts. 

In the same meeting, the former president of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano said: “There is no better time to be courageous, and to putting in place commitments to comprehensive social protection.”

This is the moment to ensure all families, even the most excluded and marginalised, are reached by social protection. Children are regularly referred to as defining our future. It follows that it is governments’ present investment in them that matters most.

Leila Gharagozloo-Pakkala is the Unicef regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa.

SOUTH AFRICA - BASIC INCOME WILL SAVE MANY MILLIONS FROM STARVATION AND MISERY...THE WAY TO GO!

Idea of jobs for all blinds us to need for welfare

BY JONNY STEINBERG,

SOUTH AFRICA

"IF WE create enough jobs to keep the youth off the streets, we will be saved. If we cannot, South Africa will implode." I put the statement in quotation marks because it has become a gospel truth. Question it and you risk being declared insane.

And yet it is wrong. If we are honest with ourselves, we have long ago given up trying to employ everyone, or even to halve unemployment. The idea that job creation will save us is just a habit of thinking. And it is a dangerous habit. If we don’t shrug it off, we may, ironically, bring on our worst fears and destroy our country.

South Africa started bleeding jobs in the mid-1970s, along with much of the rest of the world. We have been bleeding jobs ever since. Look at the graphs and it is as clear as daylight. Over the past 40 years, the rise in the unemployment rate has at times stalled, at times even reversed by a few percentage points. But the deep trend is clear. It hasn’t mattered who has been in power or whether our political system has been a racial dictatorship or a democracy, or whether our labour law has been rigid or flexible — we cannot employ everybody. We can’t even come close. To think that we can is to indulge in millenarian thinking, as if Jesus will come and remake the world, as if there is a thing called magic.

Deep down, we know this. For while we talk about creating jobs, we have been doing something else — we have been handing out grants. Some say that it is a stopgap measure, just to tide us over until jobs are found. Others say that it is creating a culture of idleness from which there will be no return.

But if we are honest, it is what we do now and what we will keep doing forever. It is a substitute for work and it holds the country together; it has saved many millions from starvation and misery.

If we accept that welfare is permanent, we must go the whole hog; we must start giving grants to the one category of poor people entirely excluded from them — young men. Some say that this would spell disaster; the youth would never look for work again. But that is dead thinking that made sense long ago, in a time when jobs were plentiful. There isn’t sufficient demand to employ this country’s young men. We will either give them grants or they will get nothing. They are our fellow citizens, after all. To put some money in their pockets to spend as they wish is to confer upon them some dignity.

There is another argument against resigning ourselves to mass unemployment. If we do not create work, it is said, the jobless will revolt. But that is no more than a mantra; it does not reflect what is actually happening in the world. Look around. Who is revolting? It is not the unemployed. It is people with union jobs — platinum and gold mineworkers, grape workers. Why are they revolting? Mainly because they are forced to feed the many who do not work. Their wages are paying for the education of nephews and nieces, for the funerals of relatives, for the half-dozen members of their families who cannot find a job. They are stumbling under the burden. That is why they are so furiously angry.

We have lifted some of the weight off their shoulders by paying pensions to the elderly and child-support grants to needy mothers. But had we gone the whole hog and paid a basic income grant to all, we would have freed mineworkers and others from an intolerable responsibility. There may well have been no Marikana, no Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, no demands to double gold mineworkers’ wages. Our country would surely be more stable.

If we shake the cobwebs from our minds, it becomes a no-brainer. Mass unemployment is a fact. Somebody has to pay for it. Too much of the burden is falling on the shoulders of those who earn R5,000 a month. We are redistributing from the poor to the very poor. It is a ridiculous situation, palpably and egregiously unfair, a recipe for disaster. It is the well-off who should be putting money in the pockets of the unemployed. Here, then, is the irony in all its splendour. We fear that if we do not create jobs for all, South Africa will explode. But precisely because we fail to accept that there are no jobs for all, we are creating the sort of country that may well explode.

The productive economy is going to have to support the unemployed forever and amen. We should recognise that as an unalterable fact. If we shift the burden of support from the working poor, if we put it instead where it belongs, on the shoulders of people like you and me, we may just be okay.

•  Steinberg teaches African Studies at Oxford University

SOUTH AFRICA - (UBI) TIME TO THINK BIG AGAIN

Time to think BIG again?

Leon Schreiber says new research has highlighted the benefits of a basic income grant

Social Assistance: A BIG Hole in the Safety Net

Social security is a highly contested policy arena in all democracies. Proposed reforms are often overtly ideological, leading to gridlock because of entrenched partisan positions. In the public realm, sober debates about these vitally important issues are rare, but it is crucial to have them if we are ever to realise the potential of effective social assistance policy in alleviating poverty and inequality.

There are a whole host of powerful policy tools available which can go a long way in addressing the challenges we face - if these programmes are designed and implemented effectively. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that social security is of the utmost importance in combating poverty and inequality.

Developing effective solutions to the challenges of social security in South Africa needs to be preceded by accurately assessing the current state of affairs. However, this is precisely where the high levels of ideological entrenchment inherent to this process complicate matters. Interpreting the situation through differing ideological perspectives means that vastly different conclusions will be reached about the type of reforms that are needed - and I am sure that there will be vehement objections that the following analysis is too ‘left wing'. But I have previously written about potential reforms which would probably be too ‘neoliberal' for others.

I would like to suggest that instead of attempting to classify discussions about social policy into neat ideological brackets, we should simply look to the Constitution to guide us. While it is impossible (and probably undesirable) to suggest that ideology can or should be removed from the debate so that completely ‘objective' problems and solutions can be identified, this must not prevent attempts at discussions which avoid dogmatic rhetoric. One such attempt is undertaken here.

Social protection policies are traditionally divided into three groups: labour protection, social insurance and social assistance. Labour protection entails the enforcement of minimum standards to protect people within the workplace - although this is largely applicable to the formal economy and presents significant challenges in the case of the informal economy. Contributory pensions, health insurance and unemployment insurance meanwhile are all classified as social insurance schemes, whereby individuals pool resources through the regular payment of contributions to the state or a private provider in order to protect themselves against a shock or permanent change to their livelihoods. It is clear that social insurance is more appropriate for the better-off sections of the population, as its contributory nature presupposes the availability of a regular income, while its aims are principally to prevent individuals from falling into poverty.

Because of this limitation, social assistance programmes become vital in cases of widespread poverty where many people are not formally employed. Social assistance comprises non-contributory transfers to ‘those deemed eligible by society on the basis of their vulnerability or poverty' (DFID, 2005: 6). While all three are important elements in the broader system of social security, the focus here will be on the final category: social assistance policy.

Due to widespread unemployment and impoverishment, the special relevance of social assistance in South Africa is clear. The country has a long history of non-contributory social assistance programmes. These were initially developed in the pursuit of creating a welfare state exclusively for whites and included elements like a Disability Grant (DG) and a generous Old Age Pension (OAP) to support impoverished elderly persons.

Social assistance programmes aimed at child rearing were also created, including the State Maintenance Grant (SMG), Foster Child Grant (FCG) and the Care Dependency Grant (CDG). However, state support was uneven and racially skewed. While racial equity was achieved fairly early-on with regards to the OAP, severe discrimination and maladministration persisted especially with regards to the SMG into the 1990s.

Following the transition to democracy, social assistance came to enjoy a privileged status in the Constitution's Bill of Rights, as Section 27 (1) (c) states that ‘everyone has the right to have access to...social security, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependents, appropriate social assistance'.

Section 27 (2) elaborates by requiring that ‘the State must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of [this] right'. This resulted in significant reforms being undertaken since 1996, although some important features of the historical approach were maintained. This continuation in the patterns of social assistance provision played an important role in creating the crisis we face today.

This is due to the fact that - while important reforms were enacted - the underlying assumptions of the South African social assistance system were not fundamentally transformed. The initial design of the system was influenced by British welfare models and aimed to assist white people in South Africa. As is the case contemporarily, impoverishment and unemployment were certainly much lower amongst white South Africans at that time than it was amongst other racial groups, and this meant that the social assistance policy had to respond to a fairly familiar set of challenges that partially legitimised the use of European welfare approaches: providing support to the elderly and to those on the ‘margins' in the context of an industrialising society.

Problems of impoverishment, unemployment and a whole host of other phenomena - including ‘non-traditional' family structures - were deemed ‘limited' and ‘marginal'. But social problems, poverty and unemployment are certainly (and never were) ‘marginal' challenges in broader South African society. Single (mostly female) parents, child-headed households, joblessness, and poverty - these facts of life are certainly closer to the norm in modern South Africa than notions about full employment and limited poverty. So the question is a simple one: do we have a social assistance system that responds to these societal facts? The answer is probably no.

This is not to deny the significance of the reforms already undertaken. A great deal has been achieved in equalising access to social assistance across all racial groups, and policy changes such as the one that brought about the CSG and abolished the SMG have gone a long way in responding to the realities of raising children in South Africa. Grants, ranging from the pensions to those supporting children, have made a significant contribution in the fight against poverty.

But the assumptions underlying them have not changed significantly. This is because the system continues to pretend that we live in a society where unemployment and poverty are abnormal. It continues to operate under the paradigm of the previous approach by supporting only those deemed ‘worthy' - as if poverty is not really widespread. It basically says: ‘the only people who need help are the elderly, mothers, children and the disabled. The rest of society can support themselves and therefore do not require assistance'. This patently ignores the South African reality, where so many people are not even able to find work.

The result is that we have a system which basically consists of a gaping hole with a limited safety net inside; catching some people but allowing very many others to simply tumble into the abyss. Aside from certain short term programmes, social assistance is basically non-existent for impoverished, able-bodied citizens of working age (between 18 and 60) who are unable to find work. This is simply because - despite all the evidence to the contrary - the assumption still persists that full employment is the norm and that unemployment and poverty are marginal. This delusion is a serious indictment of our societal attitude towards reality. Despite the evidence slapping us in the face every single day, we are still unable to be honest about the challenges we face - so how can we ever begin to remedy them?

There have been attempts at altering these assumptions and introducing innovative programmes that would enable the social assistance system to reflect reality. The most significant were the proposals that emerged from the Taylor Committee on Comprehensive Social Security for South Africa to implement a Basic Income Grant (BIG). This would basically entail something like paying a grant of R100 per month to every single South African citizen and then recouping it from wealthier recipients through the tax system. Unfortunately, the suggestion of introducing a BIG became precisely one of those ideological ‘discussion deal breakers'.

While acknowledging the importance of fiscal responsibility, it was erroneously deemed in some quarters to be a dangerously unaffordable suggestion that would sap people of the desire to work. But that response just again proves our society's delusional misconception that if all the unemployed people just wanted to work, they would find a job and be financially secure. The BIG has since faded from public discourse and, with it, the only serious attempt at fundamental transformation.

But there is an opportunity to revisit the debate in the face of new evidence. One of the indictments of the suggestion was that no other country implements a BIG on a large scale. Alaska in the United States is the most significant example of something akin to it, as citizens there all receive a share of the State's oil revenue. But there was very little in the way of scientific proof that a BIG specifically would be effective. That has now changed, due to a pilot project run by the Basic Income Grant Coalition in Namibia.

This group consisted of researchers, clergy, social policy experts and other academics. Through funding received via donations, they paid a monthly grant of N$100 (R100) per month for two years to every resident of Otjivero, a very impoverished village 100km from Windhoek. They deliberately followed a scientific approach to legitimise their findings. I urge you to read the full assessment report, but some of the most important results included that:

• Household poverty had dropped significantly. Using the food poverty line, 76 percent of residents fell below this line in November 2007. This was reduced to 37 percent within one year of the BIG. Amongst households that were not affected by in-migration, the rate dropped to 16 percent.
• The BIG resulted in a huge reduction in child malnutrition. Using a WHO measurement technique, the data shows that children's weight-for-age has improved significantly in just six months from 42 percent of underweight children in November 2007 to 17 percent in June 2008 and 10 percent in November 2008.
• The BIG has contributed to a significant reduction in crime. Overall crime rates - as reported to the local police station - fell by 42 percent while stock theft fell by 43 percent and other theft by nearly 20 percent.
• The introduction of the BIG has led to an increase in economic activity. The rate of those engaged in income-generating activities (above the age of 15) increased from 44 percent to 55 percent. The BIG thus enabled recipients to increase their work both for pay, profit or family gain as well as self-employment
• The BIG contributed to the reduction of household debt with the average debt falling from N$1 215 to N$772 between November 2007 and November 2008. Savings increased during that period, which was reflected in the increased ownership of large livestock, small livestock and poultry.

Statistics like a reduction in food poverty from over 70 percent to 16 percent really speak for themselves. This innovative study proves what powerful tools we potentially have at our disposal. But despite its potential, a BIG is patently not a panacea for all the problems we face. It can be but one element - all be it a very significant one - in a much broader change that needs to happen.

Suggesting a possible fix to the social assistance system does not deny that the deep crisis in education should urgently be addressed, or that laws and regulations hampering the creation of small businesses are less important. Of course it would be preferable to have no person relying on social assistance in order to survive. Of course full employment would be indescribably wonderful. But those possibilities are not on the immediate horizon and we need to recognise that fact.

It is also worth restating that financial concerns are real, but this should not prevent the introduction of effective policies that can fundamentally transform our social assistance system. The bigger obstacle is probably the ideological one, but this is actually not an ideological issue - it is a Constitutional imperative. By failing to address the hole in the safety net, we are technically not giving life to the fundamental Constitutional requirement that social assistance should be given to all who need it.

That should resonate, as every day we hear claims about how every single South African loves the Constitution. One can only hope that this love is not conditional upon ideology and whether falling helplessly in love with that document suits us in a particular case. It should apply across the spectrum and we should not be too cowardly (or delusional) to face a challenge which so fundamentally impacts the lives of an overwhelming number of our fellow citizens.

Leon Schreiber is a South African PhD student in Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. The views expressed are his own. This article first appeared on his blog at http://theschreiberei.wordpress.com/. He can be followed on Twitter here.

FINLAND - BASIC INCOME COURSE INFORMATION (24 OCT - 12 DEC 2016)

SOS10.1.3 Universal Basic Income: New Avenues in Social Welfare Policy 5 ECTS

Periods

   

Language of instruction

English

Type or level of studies

Advanced studies

Course unit descriptions in the curriculum

• SOS08.3 Practices of governance and politics
  Participation in course work
• SOS10.1.3 Labor markets, the use of labor force and employment security
• SOS6.1.3 Theme course in social policy
• SOS6.3.3 Theme course in sociology

Sosiaalitieteiden tutkinto-ohjelma
School of Social Sciences and Humanities

Learning outcomes

In this course students learn to critically examine the arguments in favour and against basic income and to place the basic income model within the broader context of challenges to and reform of the modern welfare state. Students will also learn to differentiate different basic income models, and to understand the practical and political challenges that emerge when moving from a social idea to a social policy. Students will be expected to critically engage with a key aspect of the basic income debate, conduct personal research to come to a better understanding of the problem and start to formulate a solution to the challenge identified. Throughout this course students will gain understanding of the practical problems of social policy design and implementation.

General description

he idea of granting each citizen an individual and unconditional regular income without any means test of work requirement has gained my prominence across Europe (and beyond) in the last decade. In June the Swiss will vote on a referendum to institute a basic income. Basic income features prominently in public debates across Europe and several parties have adopted it in their respective election programs. The Netherlands and of course Finland are in the process of starting a multi-year basic income experiment, while most recently France and Portugal are exploring the same idea. The purpose of this course is to offer students a thorough introduction about basic income as a social policy instrument. The course outlines the main characteristics of basic income and explores how it differs from traditional income support policies. In addition, the course provides a critical overview of the reasons for and against a basic income as well as reviewing a number of practical and political challenges that need to be overcome. Finally, the course offers a series of lectures that focus on basic income in the Finnish context, including an updated account of the ongoing preparation for the basic income experiment scheduled to start in January 2017.

Course Structure

This course consists of a series of lectures (roughly one hour) by UTA faculty or guest lecturers, followed by a short discussion session with the students. The course is divided in three large components covering the reasons for introducing a basic income, the political and policy challenges faced by the basic income model, and a section discussing basic income in the Finnish context (including the upcoming basic income experiment). Students are expected to  one required reading in advance of the lecture to familiarise themselves with the topic. Lectures will be recorded and (together with presentation slides) made available to students.

https://basicincometampere2016.wordpress.com/

Lectures

Monday 24.10. “Introduction - Basic Income: From Idea to Policy”
Jurgen De Wispelaere, University of Tampere

Monday 31.10. “Basic Income and Technological Unemployment”
Ville-Veiko Pulkka, University of Helsinki/Kela

Monday 7.11. “Basic Income and the Welfare State”
Bettina Leibetseder, Johannes Kepler University (Austria)

Monday 14.11. “Basic Income and Health"
Evelyn Forget, University of Manitoba (Canada)

Monday 21.11. “Basic Income and Reciprocity”
José A. Noguera, Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain)

Monday 28.11. “The Politics of Basic Income”
Jurgen De Wispelaere, University of Tampere

Monday 5.12. “The Finnish Basic Income Debate”
Johanna Perkiö, University of Tampere

Monday 12.12.“The Finnish Basic Income Experiment: An Overview”
Olli Kangas, Kela

Teachers

Jurgen de Wispelaere, Teacher responsible

Teaching

24-Oct-2016 – 12-Dec-2016

Lectures

Lectures

Mon 24-Oct-2016 - 5-Dec-2016 weekly at 14-16, Linna 5026
Exceptions:

7-Nov-2016 at 15 –17 , Linna 5026

Seminar (date and place tbc)

Evaluation

Numeric 1-5.