Thomas Lunde wrote,
>Given that the concept of a Basic Income, Guaranteed Annual Income or some
other variant on this theme, what would the philosophy be that could justify
giving every man, woman and child a Basic Income paid on a weekly basis with
no other qualification other than citizenship?
I'd have a look at John Maurice Clark's writing on labour as an overhead
cost (in his _Studies in the Economics of Overhead Costs_). The
justification is that a wage system is no longer appropriate to the way that
a modern economy works. The wage system is a form of contract, not a fact of
nature.
In the modern economy, the social costs of raising, sustaining, educating
and retiring the labour force far outweighs the marginal cost of each hour
of work performed. Employers don't cut those social costs when they reduce
their workforce, they only shift the costs to the state, to other workers
and other companies and to the unemployed themselves. When everyone tries to
get in on the act of shifting costs, the entire burden falls on those least
able to shift *their* costs.
A basic, guaranteed income is not a panacea and it won't solve all the
problems. But it is an important part of the solution (along with reduced
standard work time). As long as we don't see those parts of the solution
being seriously addressed by government, we can be sure that governments are
not even trying to solve the problem.
Regards,
Tom Walker
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Vancouver, B.C.
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