Universal Allocation
* Book: - L'Allocation Universelle. Y. Vanderborght et P. Van Parijs. La Decouverte,
URL = https://www.editionsladecouverte.fr/l_allocation_universelle-9782707145260
Summary
From the reading notes of Michel Bauwens, 2006:
The universal allocation is a income given by a political community to all its members, on a individual basis and without any control or demand for reciprocity.
Chapter 1: History
It was mentioned for the first ime in Thomas Moore's Utopia in 1516
J. Vives, in Louvain, outlined the very first detailed plan, for the Bruges' city council, but his proposal demanded work in exchange and was the inspiration for the poor laws and the workhouses in the UK
In 1883, Bismarck, the German Chancellor, generalized social insurance, inspired by a proposal from Condorcet (1795). It excluded the non-salaried however, and distinguished assistance from insurance. However, it is the start of what would become the 'social state' or the 'welfare state'.
Beveridge, in a report from 1942, re-introduces the idea of assistance, in the form of a minimum wage for households, which will be implemented by the National Assistance Act of 1948. It will be followed in Europe (Belgium, 1974). But, these measures are conditional (they include the control of resources, family conditions, willingness to work).
It would crop up regularly in the 19th cy and was taken up by John Stuart mill. But it was not really debated until after 1918 (by Bertrand Russell f.e.), pushed by Labou in 1920. But Beveridge's social insurance plan, followed throughout Europe, would settle the debaete for decennia The debate would restart in the US in the 1960s.
It came in different flavors:
- 1) the negative tax proposal by Milton Friedman. It's overt aim was to simplify social transfers ('Capitalism and Freedom, 1962) (x part of the taxes, in a flax tax regime would not have to be paid, favoring the poorest)
- 2) Robert Theobald's 'Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution: a minimum income to insure consumption in the context of ongoing automation
- 3) James Tobin, in 1965, proposes a minimum income that is higher than current transfers, to reduce poverty. This was expressed by the 'demogrant', a cash outlay incorporated in the McGovern platform of 1972.
McGovern would lose these elections and a alternative negative tax proposal by Nixon was derailed by Watergate.
The debate mostly continued in Canada, with many reports on a 'annual guaranteed revenue'. The topic again disappears until the 1980s.
The new debate was especially strong in the Netherlands, where both a party (De Radicalen) and a union (Food union, the 'Voedingsbond') supported it. In Germany, the Greens take the lead. In France, it is the intellectuals such as A. Gorz and J.M. Ferry. They see it as a means to develop a socially useful quarternary sector. The BIEN would be instrumental in federating these hitherto isolated efforts, and rapidly evolved from a Belgian ('Collectif Charles Fourier') to a European, to a world network. In 1982, Alaska launched its Permanent Fund (A.P.E.C.), with oil revenue used for paying out a national dividend to all its 6-month plus residents.