Abstract
Government. If you can't overthrow it, then you might as well make it work for you, rather than the other way around. The same goes for the international banking system and whole global economy. In the end, it's our game. We can change the rules any time we want, if most of us can agree on a better way. For now, we're all playing in antiquated systems designed by well-intentioned people who had no idea where technology would take us and who are long since dead and buried. These systems got us to where we are today, and many of us can be thankful for that, but they may not be the best ones going forward. The distribution of wealth around the world and within the United States has become absurdly imbalanced to the point of immeasurable tragedy. Perhaps it's time to think about starting something new that is more compatible with the 21st century and our modern technology and populations. Maybe we can use something other than physical dollars that can be created in an open process of democratic consensus among a vast network of millions of people like scientists, engineers, economists, ethicists, physicians, academics and other educated and responsible groups; maybe even any and every person who wants to weigh in and respond. Maybe not. The whole point of the new game would be to keep the citizens' trade running smoothly in all places. Maybe it's time to do a grand experiment in self-regulation. We could design a primarily electronic currency in a way which allows all people to participate in commerce, maintain optimal physical health, and become educated in rational and critical thinking. One option is to have something like an "allowance" sufficient to live on that is paid to all law-abiding citizens whether they work or not, to guarantee a minimim standard of living for everyone, including the least among us. This is a form of an "Unconditional Basic Income Guarantee." It would allow us to end poverty and starvation permanently, and to restore civility to civilization. It has the potential to transform our current economies of what amounts to state-owned human beings living as the productive money-making property of banks and rulers into economies of free people serving themselves and each other. It would enable us to get millions of cars off the roads. It would dramatically reduce crime and its motives. It would provide our species' most creative people the time they require to maximize their creativity for the benefit of all humankind, and a mechanism for rewarding them fairly for their creations. It would allow the rest of us the time to explore and develop our own personal gifts on our own natural schedules.
If we can come up with something better and decide to move ahead with it, then getting to there from here in the most peaceful and least disruptive and traumatic way will take a lot of open discussions, private conversations and intelligent planning. We haven't done this before for one major reason: we didn't have the resources to make it happen. Fortunately, we now at last have the tools to get this job done the right way. It's time for all of us to start this extremely serious conversation in earnest, rather than dismissing these ideas as fanciful daydreams and futile hopes. It's time to Think BIG.
Biography
Ken Meyering is a 43-year old undergraduate student in the United States. He is currently learning the computer technologies that he will use to develop his "define.com" website into a large scale cloud computing application which collects and serves multimedia content in most of the Earth's human languages, while providing free web-based "show and tell" language training to help improve the rate at which we communicate across cultures. He can be reached via e-mail at: feedback4 (at) define (dot) com.
Introduction
World War II and the Cold War left Americans with a strong visceral hatred of Communism and Socialism as practiced in Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, Cuba, China and elsewhere. These nations included totalitarian leadership and little freedom and democracy for the citizens and their markets. Americans became champions of free trade and Capitalism. However, capitalism in the United States is beginning to fail the middle class as a result of globalization and corporate consolidation. The great masses of middle class capitalists are finally running out of capital. This is evidenced by our $11 trillion national debt, massive budget deficits, rising unemployment and recent near catastrophic banking crisis. This is not due to a lack of entrepreneurial spirit and creativity, but instead is a result of many entrepreneurs outsourcing their manufacturing to other nations rather than paying the much higher middle class wages in America. Their reason is simple: if they were to pay middle class wages in the U.S., their products would be too expensive to compete globally and with foreign imports. There is nothing morally wrong or illogical here from a common sense business perspective, as consumers obviously prefer lower prices over "Made in the USA." It has finally become apparent to many that globalization is seriously threatening to destroy the quality of life for most Americans, as they are quite literally running out of productive jobs, money and credit in spite of much cheaper consumer goods.
The fact that the U.S. economy is still functioning today is largely a result of the help of China, a Communist state with 1.3 billion people. A complete economic collapse is being averted only by the private and secretive Federal Reserve Banks printing unimaginable amounts of currency, which they are lending to the government with interest, which is then lending it interest-free to some of the nation's most mismanaged and greedy corporations, with no formal strings attached and little accountability. Much of it is now unaccounted for and lost to history. Those too-big-to-fail corporations in turn lend it at usurious rates back to the citizens so they can stay trapped in credit card debt that pays for goods and services mostly imported from other nations. So most of the money ultimately leaves the United States, but the citizens and their future offspring are then held responsible for paying back the private Federal Reserve Banks that printed it out of thin air in the first place. Do the math. Follow the money. Wall Street has finally completed their takeover of our democracy in a financial coup d'état. Something is very wrong with this picture.
Soon, our machines and computers will have biological precision, and we will finally achieve the science fiction dream of having our creations perform our work. However, our economies are not prepared for such widespread unemployment. Throughout history, our lives have revolved around us working hard just to survive. Those who didn't have jobs were left to fend for themselves. But what do you do in an age of material abundance when all practical needs can be satisfied but earnings are so scarce that only a few can share this abundance? It may be time for the U.S. to begin considering alternatives to pure capitalism. We may need to embrace an economic system that includes an unconditional basic income to all citizens regardless of employment status, so that everyone can participate. This paper proposes that instead of waiting for nanotechnology before we are forced to create this social safety net during a state of panic, we should begin the transition as soon as possible on a global scale, by starting with the poorest populations, as it will have immediate benefits to all of humanity. The root causes of many of Our World's most urgent problems (overpopulation, widespread disease in undeveloped nations, mass starvation, and violent religious extremism) are poverty and ignorance. Both of these core causal factors can be addressed most efficiently by providing the poor and unemployed with unconditional incomes.
The Problems
Over 25,000 human beings die each and every day as the result of poverty and starvation. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US $1/day. Moderate poverty is defined as living on less than US $2/day. There are currently over 1.1 billion people living below the extreme poverty level, and 2.7 billion people living below the moderate poverty level. For most of these people, jobs are scarce or pay only what amounts to slave wages. For them, a very substantial living income would be only $10/day. That would be enough to pay for food, clothing, shelter, medicine, water, and education. Just raising their income to this modest level would begin transforming theirs from undeveloped nations into developing ones. A large number of social scientists and economists, including multiple Nobel Prize-winners, have analysed the issue of poverty and unemployment at great depth and have concluded that the simplest and most efficient solution is to completely replace the existing hodgepodge of international aid programs, domestic welfare programs, and paltry voluntary poverty relief efforts with an Unconditional Basic Income to be provided directly to the poor, without intermediaries.
In the past, before the world was so connected, Americans didn't need to worry themselves with the plight of the poor on the other sides of the planet. The tragedies occurring in distant lands were not issues of immediate importance. However, with modern travel and electronic communication, and the globalization of markets, we are all interlinked now as never before. At no time has this reality hit home harder than when foreign nationals committed acts of terrorism in our country that were so devastating they will be impossible to forget. The American public has been led to believe that this terrorism is the result of religious extremism and the cultural differences between Christianity and Islam. This is not the whole truth. There is a deeper reason that so many young Muslim men are turning fundamentalist hatred, and that is the financial inequality between America and the rest of the world. In the end, the real cause of terrorism is poverty and economic injustice.
Americans will spend an estimated $1.5 trillion dollars fighting the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq, which were wars of choice launched hastily with little forethought in response to the murder of 3000 Americans. This amount of dollars is on such an large scale that it is difficult to fathom. To make it more comprehensible and concrete, imagine that same amount of money being used to provide a $10/day Basic Income Guarantee for 400 million people for a full year. This sort of expenditure to help the poor would have won more good will around the world than have the destructive wars and subsequent attempts at nation building. But most Americans would never even consider contributing to a Basic Income Guarantee for others until they themselves are forced into poverty by circumstances of history. But Americans do not like to pay income taxes, and this is especially true of the wealthy. So where will this money come from, if not income taxes? A fair solution would be to have a flat consumption tax, to replenish general accounts and prevent runaway inflation. If you save your money, you pay no taxes. If you decided to buy something, a small percentage of that gets recirculated back into the system for redistribution to provide a basic income guarantee.
The Debate over Solutions
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. devoted an entire chapter to the subject of a basic income guarantee in his final book, "Where do we go from here?" (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). He was working to convince the establishment of his time that the issue of poverty is not a racial one, but is universal, and that the public values towards the poor were misguided. He wrote, "I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective--the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income."
Reverend King was a very practical man. He explained the problem in simple terms:
"We have come to the point where we must make the non-producer a consumer or we will find ourselves drowning in a sea of consumer goods. We have so energetically mastered production that we now must give attention to distribution. Though there have been increases in purchasing power, they have lagged behind increases in production. Those at the lowest economic level, the poor white and Negro, the aged and chronically ill, are traditionally unorganized and therefore have little ability to force the necessary growth in their income. They stagnate or become even poorer in relation to the larger society."
"The problem indicates that our emphasis must be two-fold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available."
In these statements King was directly addressing the counter arguments to his basic income guarantee proposal. The first argument is the well-known Republican and Libertarian anti-taxation stance: coercive taxation by the government for social programs is unfair and unconstitutional, and ineffective. They feel that the private sector is more effective at delivering services. For example, recently the Libertarian U.S. Representative Ron Paul wrote, "no one can deny that welfare programs have undermined America's moral fabric and constitutional system. Therefore, all those concerned with restoring liberty and protecting civil society from the maw of the omnipotent state should support efforts to eliminate the welfare state, or, at the very least, reduce federal control over the provision of social services." The anti-taxation side claims that giving money to the poor is an unfair drain on the productive that rewards the lazy, and that the productive do not receive any benefits in return for their sacrifice. Many religious conservatives argue that from the Christian standpoint, charity is an act of giving that God wants to be of a person's own volition as a measure of their beneficence and determinant factor in the reward or punishment they receive in the afterlife.
King addressed the financial reciprocity issue by pointing out that money provided for the poor was not being thrown away into a bottomless pit, but rather was being immediately channeled back to the producers, since the poor would become new consumers of goods and services. Because the poor need to spend proportionally larger amounts of their money just in order to survive, this money is actually being used very directly and effectively to stimulate the whole economy, and is far from wasted. The irrational conservative Christian belief that God needs charity to be voluntary in order to measure a person's goodness is simply not logical and can't be countered rationally except by using some competing form of dogma that substitutes one set of unknowable conditions with another.
Other arguments implied that the poor were morally inferior to the working class, due to their lack of character. The welfare philosophies of that time, as they are still, were based in a large part on the on belief that the "character" or moral fiber of the poor could be improved, since its absence seemingly results from, as King states, "multiple evils: lack of education restricting job opportunities; poor housing which stultified home life and suppressed initiative; and fragile family relationships which distorted personality development." These different apparent causes were, and are still are, being addressed separately. There are programs to improve housing, programs to improve education facilities, and programs to provide family counseling services. There are unemployment programs that encourage people to regularly seek work in order to continue receiving conditional benefits. The operating theory is that by correcting these contributing factors, the poor will adopt better values, be more motivated to work, and be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to become productive members of the society. Unfortunately, by dealing with all of these issues indirectly through a plethora of inefficient bureaucracies, the desired solutions never reach the poorest of the poor, who are the ones most in need. These approaches all end up failing because they are indirect strategies filled with red tape and administrative overhead. On this point, the Libertarians and Republicans are correct, government is horribly wasteful and slow. Modern thinkers with much more training in economics than Rev. King have come to the same conclusions as King. In the final analysis, the best approach is to provide an unconditional direct income payment. They have advanced and extended their theories to include all of humanity, not just the American poor.
The Intelligent Solution (In the past would have been...)
James Meade, a longtime BIG advocate who won the Nobel in 1977, commented on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, the primary architect of the modern Western "Keynesian" economic system. He said we must approach the "economic-social-political-environmental problems of our time" as a whole that involves the entire planet, and not just nations. We need to think on a much larger scale than we are used to. Meade emphasizes that it is absolutely urgent that we push to create a system of global federalism at all levels, from the local on up. He argues that we need a single world currency and a mechanism for worldwide public finance, including the basic income to every man, woman, and child. He says this is absolutely necessary if we are really serious about eliminating poverty, preserving peace, and maintaining a healthy environment. He emphasizes that this task of changing our public discourse is momentous, but necessary. We have all been indoctrinated by our systems to identify first with our nations. We must begin thinking on a higher level and start changing our loyalties. Our planet depends on this, according to Meade.
Perhaps the internet will evolve into such a mechanism for worldwide public finance?
Conclusion
Times have changed a lot since the days of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. We have made tremendous social progress. However, we have not found a way to end poverty and starvation. In America, we have just experienced a near total collapse of the economy, averted only by printing money and giving it directly to the richest of the rich: the largest corporate banks. Many Americans are now questioning the soundness of unfettered capitalism and outrageous executive pay. Millions of people have voted for significant increases in public funding of healthcare and education. In spite of what a clear majority of American citizens support, we are seeing the lack of true representation in the U.S. Congress. The fear mongers are making loud cries that "Socialism," the great Cold War Evil, is on the rise. However, if for no other reason than pure self-interest, Americans may soon need to change their attitudes about the distribution of wealth and shared social responsibility.
One of our logical and reasonable options is to create an entirely different economic model that is not based on the scarcity of physical currency, but instead on credits created democratically in an open, peer-reviewed, consensus-based process which includes millions of our brightest minds. In this sort of system, income taxation would be completely unnecessary, as would be thousands of bureaucracies at all levels charged with collecting and spending the peoples' incomes. This would be replaced by a flat consumption tax. Defining that intelligent system is our grand challenge. These decisions should not be left to a bureaucracy of secretive elites.
In the search for these solutions, don't look to the U.S. Congress for guidance. The levers of power are misplaced there in the hands of a miniscule non-represantive group of people, the majority of whom put their own interests in power ahead of the people's interests in freedom, health and happiness. As Americans grow more sophisticated and informed, it has become nearly universally accepted that most in Congress have become tools of Wall Street. It seems insane that 304 million Americans are represented only very indirectly and inefficiently by a paralyzed group of 535 fallible and corruptible human beings, especially in the Age of the Internet. This is not the best democracy we can come up with. As the younger generation becomes the new majority, and if technology continues advancing at its present rate, it is becoming increasingly likely that there will be a Global Basic Income Guarantee implemented within most of our lifetimes, and the poor in the U.S. and around the world will finally have a chance of sharing the many rewards of human progress.
Annotated Bibliography
The World Health Report 2008. Geneva, Switzerland: The World Health Organization, 2008. Print.
This is the annual World Health Report from the World Health Organization. This report contains statistics about world health issues, such as mortality rates and causes of death.
"Factsheet: Global Financial Crisis and Impact on Developing Countries." Global Monitoring Report 2009. 2009. The World Bank. 5 Jun 2009
This is a summary by The World Bank of how the current global financial crisis is affecting the developing nations of the world.
Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. 1. New York: Viking Press, 2005. Print.
Dr. Kurzweil explorers the historical rates of progress for intelligent life. He shares graphs and statistics showing the timeline of human evolution and human technology, and demonstrates that the progress is exponential. When combining this with Moore's Law, the observation by Intel cofounder Gordon Moore that computers double their power every 18 months, Kurzweil hypothesizes that it is very likely that we will have computers with more intelligence than all the people on earth combined within our lifetimes. With this level of artificial intelligence, the machines should be able to solve the engineering problems that are beyond human abilities now, which will ignite an ever accelerating advancement.
"The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: Final Words of Advice. " New Pittsburgh Courier [Pittsburgh, Pa.] 16 Jan. 1999, City Edition: C5. Ethnic New swatch (ENW). ProQuest. HCC Library, Des Moines, WA. 28 Apr. 2009
This article reminds us that in Martin Luther King's final book, "Where do we go from here?" he devotes an entire chapter to the Basic Income Guarantee. He reminds us that there are twice as many poor whites as blacks, so this is not simply a race issue. An income guarantee would be the simplest approach to ending poverty, as efforts to fight it by addressing its many independent contributing causes have been mired in bureaucracy and have been unsuccessful. We have improved education and housing, and provided counseling to the poor, but poverty has not gone away. King was convinced that ultimately, the most direct approach would be the most effective. Turning the nonproductive into consumers by providing them with a guaranteed income would drive demand, which would keep up with high production.
Sean Butler. (2005, July). 'Life, Liberty and a Little Bit of Cash'. Dissent, 52(3), 41-47. Retrieved April 27, 2009, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 873720221).
The author discusses the idea of a basic income guarantee and suggests that it would actually be highly beneficial to capitalism. He mentions the stories of some of the early proponents of the idea, and how Alaskans already receive part of the State's oil wealth through the Alaska Permanent Fund and support the idea. He states that unlike unsuccessful programs in pre-1989 communist states, the income should be guaranteed to all citizens regardless of their wealth.
Karl Widerquist. . "Rereading Keynes: Economic Possibilities of Our Grandparents. " Dissent 1 Jan. 2006: 85-87. Research Library. ProQuest. HCC Library, Des Moines, WA. 28 Apr. 2009
The author explores some of the ideas of the famous economist John Maynard Keynes(father of Keynesian Economics). He mentions how during the depression, it was expected that future generations would need to work less and less, however, it has turned out to be the other way around. Keynes, the most influential economist of the 20th century, predicted in 1930 that the average living standards in the US and Europe would be 4-8 times greater in a hundred years. He was right. The real income in the US is five times greater now than in the Depression. His theory predicted that economic productivity would continue to rise dramatically, and that humanity would grow beyond the struggle for existence. This would ultimately result in our being devoted to finding ways to spend our abundance of leisure time. He guessed that the little work that was left would be spread out through the whole society, and that the work week would only be 15 hours. However, this turned out to be incorrect.
Rifkin, Jeremy . The End of Work. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995. Print.
This book is reviewed by political activist Roedy Green. The book is based on the simple premise that ultimately machines will replace many human workers, and that the profits will go 100% to the owners of the machines, and none to the workers who have lost the jobs. With nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, this trend will continue for white collar intellectual jobs. The author explores some of the potential social alternatives if this scenario plays out. The short term solution is to reduce the work week from 5 days to 4, thereby increasing the number of people employed. One of the proposed long term solutions is to provide a basic income guarantee to all. Rifkin suggests that the widespread loss of work can spell the end to civilization as we know it, or it can signal the beginning of positive social transformation.
Frankman, Myron J.. . "A Planet-Wide Citizen's Income: An Espousal. " Labour Capital and Society 37.1&2 (2004): 150. Alt-Press Watch (APW). ProQuest. HCC Library, Des Moines, WA. 14 Apr. 2009
Globalization has resulted in the increasing dismantlement of the social safety net in the U.S.. There has been a relentless effort to label the social programs as enabling a "race to the bottom." Frankman believes that we must look at the world problems of poverty as a whole and solve it through a planet-wide Basic Income Guarantee. He also supports a single world currency and a system of public finance. This will be extremely difficult, since we have been systematically conditioned to think nationally rather than globally. We need to have a "Declaration of Interdependence." Statistics show that the ratio of income distribution between the richest 20% of nations and poorest 20% is growing alarmingly. It was 3:1 in 1820, and 74:1 in 1997. For a global BIG to work, we need to begin to think about redirecting trillions of dollars from richer to the poorer nations, rather than billions. Up to $6 trillion could be collected by eliminating international tax havens. We must begin immediately.
Paul, Rep. Ron. "Oppose the Federal Welfare State." LewRockwell.com. 13 Feb 2003. U.S. House of Representatives. 5 Jun 2009
Ron Paul is a leading Libertarian politician who opposes all taxation and government programs. He believes that the private sector should be held responsible for everything except for defense. He has consistently opposed all welfare programs, and has fought to eliminate them.
Useful Links
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network
