The battle between capital and labour may be surpassed by the battle between the working class and the not working class.

Rana Foroohar announces, “The age of wealth distribution is coming and will have major investment consequences”, “The age of wealth accumulation is over” August 5.

Indeed, but two questions stand out. 

First, for wealth to be redistributed some assets of the wealthy must be sold and, since precisely because of that there might be less interest among other to acquire those assets, the value of these could fall… with unexpected consequences. Here’s an example, what is best for New York City keeping property taxes and property values at current values, or increasing the taxes running the risk that property values fall and wealthy property owners run away somewhere else?

The second question is who is going to redistribute? Will a mechanism like an unconditional universal basic income be used, or will the usual redistribution profiteers be in charge of it?

Foroohar also announces, “Another battle will be between capital and labour.” That battle will always be present but, in these times when robots and AI seem to threaten jobs, the real battle could end up being between the working class and the not working class.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2012/04/we-need-worthy-and-decent-unemployments.html

@PerKurowski

For social harmony, in our time, we need a big enough and a small enough universal basic income.

Sir, Chris Giles refers to a “1994 OECD study [which] contained a warning of the dangers in store for countries that failed to tackle problems in their labour markets. “It brings with it unravelling of the social fabric.” “Improve employment rates to tackle inequality” February 15.

Giles opines, “Flexibility and social protection is a winning combination for advanced economies. While it does not prevent all employment problems, whether you take a right-of-centre “work not welfare” attitude or a left-of-centre “a hand up not a handout” stance, in general the combination works.”

I agree! An unconditional universal basic income, large enough to allow many to reach up to whatever jobs are available, is “a hand up not a handout”.

And an unconditional universal basic income, small enough so as not allow many to stay in bed, is also “work not welfare”.

So what’s keeping an UBI from being implemented?

To begin there’s not sufficient recognition of the real conflicts, basically a class war, between those who having a job want better pay and those who want a job at any pay.

But, first and foremost, it is those who profit, politically and monetary, on imposing their conditionalties when redistributing tax revenues, who strongly oppose a UBI, since it, naturally, would negatively affect the value of their franchise.

PS. The Chavez/Maduro regimes are clearly outliers among the redistribution profiteers but just as an example I once calculated that the 40% poorest of Venezuela had received less than 15% from the Bolivarian Revolution than what should have been their allotment had Venezuela’s net oil revenues been shared out equally to all. On the other side many of the odious profiteers pocketed many thousand times what should have been their share.

@PerKurowski

There's a new class war brewing, that between employed and unemployed.

Sarah O’Connor, discussing the challenges of the Gig economy writes, “Offering employment benefits to drivers might well help to snap up the best workers and hang on to them. But if customers were not to shoulder the cost, investors would have to.”“Uber and Lyft’s valuations expose the gig economy to fresh scrutiny” January 2.

Sir, to that we must add that if the investors were neither willing to shoulder that cost, then the gig workers would have to do so, or risk losing their job opportunities.

That conundrum illustrates clearly the need for an unconditional universal basic income. Increasing minimum wages or offering other kind of benefits only raises the bar at which jobs can be created, while an UBI works like a step stool making it easier for anyone to reach up to whatever jobs are available.

Sarah O’Connor also mentions how a collective agreement was negotiated between a Danish gig economy company and a union. Great, but let us not forget that in the brewing class-war between employed and unemployed, the unions only represent the employed… and we do need decent and worthy unemployments too, before social order breaks down.

PS. There's another not yet sufficiently recognized neo-class-war too. That between those who have houses as investment assets and those who want houses as homes.

@PerKurowski

One country, setting the example of a very high carbon tax, and sharing out all its revenues equally among all its citizens, would be a real game changer, in so many ways.

Sir you correctly argue, “Time is running out for us to halt dangerous rises in temperature…this is no longer a scientific or technological challenge, it is far more a political and social one.”, “How to rescue the global climate change agenda” December 27.

But when you hold “The depressing reality about climate change is that we could solve the problem, at manageable cost” that is not necessarily so. Sir, let’s face it, the truth is that there are way too many whose real interest, more than solving the challenges of climate-change, is to profit from the process, whether financially or politically, whether they are aware of it or not.

I’m as concern as anyone with the problem but in my case I really did not mind so much president Trump’s blindness, since I have always thought of the Paris agreement in terms of being just an interesting photo-op that would serve as a very dangerous pacifier.

So to align political and social incentives; to allow the market signaling how the problems should be best tackled; and to keep costly profiteering out of the process, I have for years thought the best alternative is a very high carbon/pollution tax which revenues are shared out in their totality equally among all citizens.

Why does that idea not meet more interest? The answer is clearly that the redistribution profiteers see that route as one that could very dangerously affect the value of their franchise, since there could be pressure for the revenues to be redistributed to all, a sort of unconditional variable basic income, should also for instance include all income generated by any existing gas/petrol taxes.

Our planet that I often refer to as our pied-à-terre needs a champion that decides to go down this route to set an example to follow. My grandchildren are Canadian so I would love Canada showing the way.

PS. This is exactly what I proposed how Mexico City should tackle its serious pollution problems in a letter you kindly published in May 2016.

@PerKurowski

We need worthy and decent unemployments

Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf’s “Work in the age of intelligent machines” June 27.

In 2012 (while I was still not censored in Venezuela) I wrote an Op-Ed titled “We need worthy and decent unemployments”. In it I held “The power of a nation, and the productivity of its economy, which so far has depended primarily on the quality of its employees may, in the future, also depend on the quality of its unemployed, as a minimum in the sense of these not interrupting those working.”

That is the reason why I am absolutely sure our societies have to start urgently, even if from a very low level, to implement an unconditional universal basic income (UBI).

And referring also to Sarah O’Connor’s “Minimum wage laws still fall short for those on the bottom” June 27, let me point out that while minimum wages raises the bar for the creation of jobs, UBI is a stepping stool that allows you to reach up to the mostly low paying jobs of the gig economy. 

PS. You want to increase the minimum wage $2 per hour? Better pay $2x40x4 $320 in universal basic income to all.

@PerKurowski

A Universal Basic Income must be a hateful concept for those who profit politically or economically, or both, on conditioned redistribution

When FT at long last allows for a strong defense of a Universal Basic Income Dr. Guy Standing writes: “Most believe the BI should be clawed back from the rich in tax. This is administratively easier, more equitable and efficient than targeting by means-testing. The latter has high exclusion and inclusion errors, low take-up and poverty traps, inducing bureaucrats to use intrusive behaviour tests.” “Universal basic income would enhance freedom and cut poverty”

That is a very delicate way to express it, because, as the title of this comment states, there are also some very darkly motivated objections to a Universal Basic Income.

http://myubi.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-universal-basic-income.html

@PerKurowski

On the issue of a Universal Basic Income everyone must take side. You are either with the citizens, or with the redistribution profiteers.

Sir, Richard Milne, with respect to the trial on Universal Basic income in Finland writes: “Ilkka Kaukoranta, chief economist of the SAK trade union confederation, is sceptical of the trial. Unions believe that taking away the conditionality of benefits — the requirement that their recipient has to look for work — would undermine the welfare system, leading to cuts. ‘A conditional safety net is the only way to combine a high level of benefits with a high level of employment,’ he says” “Finland puts ‘money for nothing’ policy to the test” January 29.

Let us be clear the “un-conditionality” of the Universal Basic Income threatens, directly, the franchise value of the redistribution profiteers. And, if this is not made clear, and they are immediately denounced at all time, we citizens do not stand a chance.

Is it going to be a world in which all of us are given some income that would make it easier for us to get out of bed and reach up to the new economy appearing, or is our only chance to survive to master the art of sucking up to the redistributors. 

In my saddened Venezuela, the current government offers, by means of food bags known as “CLAP”, much better chances of survival to those who bow their head and humiliate themselves by supporting it. Is that what you want? 

http://myubi.blogspot.ca/2017/01/my-universal-basic-income.html 

@PerKurowski

FT, are you aligned with the interests of redistribution profiteers and besserwissers, or with citizens’?

Sir you refer to that “Next month, Switzerland will hold a referendum on whether to introduce an Unconditional Basic Income”, and then you opine “this measure seems premature today [though] it is worth running data-driven pilot projects to test the concept’s future viability. More effective tax regimes and smarter forms of wealth redistribution will be needed to ease our social strains.” “Bring on the robots but reboot our societies too” May 7.

I come from Venezuela, where the poor, from that so lauded 21st Century Socialism, have not received more than about 15 percent of what should have been their individual share of the fabulous oil revenues over the last 15 years, tops. So please don’t tell me an unconditional universal basic income, in this case funded by oil revenues, “seems premature”… it is way overdue.

And Sir, why do we really need to test the hypothesis that people know better what to do with their own resources than what the governments with other’s resources? Is that to find ways to help profiteers and besserwissers to keep control over the redistribution?

As I have written to you I support a worldwide gas/carbon tax which revenues should be paid out by means of a universal basic income, in order to align the incentives in the fight against climate change and against inequality.

And I also support a social pro-equality tax, which revenues should be paid out entirely by means of a universal basic income, from citizens to citizens, so as to avoid all the dangerous populist and demagoguery intermediaries.

Sir, if we can separate all the redistribution from governments’ normal functions, then we will also be able to make these perform better for us. For instance, we might suddenly realize that all tax evasion and tax avoidance put together could be less than government waste.

PS. And bring on the robots to bank regulations. These at least have smaller egos that stand in their way of admitting and learning from their mistakes. The robots would, long ago, have eliminated the risk weighted capital requirements for banks, which only dangerously distort the allocation of bank credit to the real economy, for absolutely no good reason at all. 

@PerKurowski ©