Gail Stewart wrote under the thread Basic
Income:
"In the early 1970's in Canada, with the
threat of
"automation" in the offing, the social policy struggle at
departmental level was between income maintenance on the one
hand and community employment on the other. It was an
unequal struggle: guaranteed income prevailed and guaranteed
employment was never seriously examined. At Cabinet level it
was another unequal struggle: between the new economic
circumstances of 1974, and a guaranteed income. The
guaranteed income lost.
"automation" in the offing, the social policy struggle at
departmental level was between income maintenance on the one
hand and community employment on the other. It was an
unequal struggle: guaranteed income prevailed and guaranteed
employment was never seriously examined. At Cabinet level it
was another unequal struggle: between the new economic
circumstances of 1974, and a guaranteed income. The
guaranteed income lost.
Thomas:
Wow! What a posting. Thanks Gail.
The first thing that struck me was the depth of information on which I have no
background. Having read through twice, I find myself in the position of
reading a "new" subject in which I am not totally sure that I
understand the nuances of vocabulary that obviously
have been used by the writers over time so that words often have a wider meaning
than a newcomer would perceive. For example - Canadian
Franchise.
What immediately struck me though was the two
dichotomies you present and how they resolved
themselves in the real world rather than the world of ideas.
Dichotomy 1
1. Income maintaince versus community
employment
2. Guaranteed
income versus guaranteed employment.
The dating of 1974 is seminal because of the
change brought about by two things.
1. President Nixon took the American
dollar of the gold standard.
2. OPEC upset the industrial world by
raising oil prices.
As I try and put this into a sequence, I think I
understand you to be saying that at the governmental level, the two dichotomies
were being seriously discussed, possibly with a leaning toward Income maintenance and a guaranteed Basic Income. Current
events of the day eliminated or weighted decisions towards other choices - the
results of which we are living with in 1998.
There is a third consideration, rarely spoken
off but real none the less and that is the weight of the United States on our
options. Nowhere is this more noticeable than our inability to revise our
Marijuana laws. With the United States leaning
on our legislators with the implied threat of dissatisfaction and implied
threats, we continue to have a similar policy to the US. The last time we
acted independently in a major action was when the US repealed alcohol and we
didn't. As it turned out, Canadian entrepreneur profited handsomely - a
fact well noted and remembered by the Americans.
It is likely - nay probable that our
explorations with a Basic Income presented our southern neighbours with a change
to radical for them to contemplate. Though that is not entirely fair as
LBJ and Nixon both investigated and were willing to act on some form of Basic
Income and Milton Friedman had proposed the negative income tax model as a
method of finance. However by 1974, I think we might agree that the
American initiatives lost favor and that this probably had a significant effect
on the decisions of Canadian politicians.
Practically, Canadian politicians probably had
no choice and like the current impending Gulf War, we may have to choose sides
even though on a purely Canadian viewpoint we would not initiate that action
unilaterally.
The Canada Franchise has recently been brought
to the
attention of the Minister of Finance, who has read of it
with interest and copied this response to the Minister of
Human Resources Development and others.
attention of the Minister of Finance, who has read of it
with interest and copied this response to the Minister of
Human Resources Development and others.
This is indeed truly exciting a perhaps a valid
reason why a grassroots debate come education process should take place in the
medium of the Internet on Lists like FutureWork. One of my thoughts to
those who have queried the costs of such a system of
income redistribution of a Basic Income and to which I have replied
"wait" is that I think an education process arrived at through
discussion of the philosophy of "why" is more important than
"how", without negating that in the future, that will have to be an
important discussion. The fact that you have presented us with historical
evidence that I, at least, was not aware of is very important. So to end
this little essay, it would seem to me and I hope to others, that a Posting of
the Canadian Franchise be posted into this discussion ASAP.
Respectfully,
Thomas
Lunde
