Basic income as an option? (was: Re: [ox-en] New economic model for free technology?)
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 08:48:12 +0200
Hi Michel, FranzN, list!
5 days ago Michael Bouwens wrote:
Thanks for the input. I'm doing my best to understand
what you mean, but I'm not sure I'm getting it.
Franz is talking on a lot of background coming from a German-Austrian
group called "Krisis". Unfortunately to my knowledge there is very
little material of this very interesting group available in English.
During the past some 20 years Krisis made *huge* advances in applying
Marx' (not Marxian!) thinking in an analysis of current situation.
IMHO their contribution to understand what is going on this planet can
not be overestimated.
One key aspect of the theory of Krisis is that capitalism is on the
decline because the fundamental principle of valorizing of labor is
less and less possible. In the industrialized states you see this by
growing numbers of unemployment - sometimes rightly called structural
unemployment - and by more and more jobs you need to call precarious
("prekär"). Also the finance system is showing lots of symptoms of
this aspect by building up new financial bubbles which sooner or later
will burst (last in 2001, next probably soon). The key factor driving
this - and this is different to how things have been until the 1970s -
that the global capital available for investments does not find enough
productive options to invest. This is why it goes into the finance
sector at all.
Certainly the Krisis thinking is one of the basic roots of Oekonux and
so you will find often in the discussions.
Forgive me if I reiterate some points, you don't have
to reply necessarily.
Yes, peer to peer realises use value, and the market
generates exchange value. and yes, there is more and
more use value which cannot be captured. But, the
market is still expanding and intensifying monetising
many areas that were not before.
But not by taking a next step on the historical ladder but only by
expanding the current basis.
And there's a huge
reserve of exchange value in Asia, and new
pro-capitalist schemes to unearth it (microcredit,
bottom of the pyramid schemes, social capital, etc..)
But this is all on the standards and the level of early capitalism.
Capitalism as a productive system is still doing
pretty well, even as it is destroying our environment
and our psyches.
I think it is destroying itself. However, there are many on the Left
who are the first to envision capitalism until eternity. Tough...
It is not excluded that major
reforms, on a global scale, might stimulate the
economic machinery.
Reforms can not change the fundamental problem. In earlier times wars
have "solved" this problem. And if I speak of wars I mean wars between
the most industrialized countries and not these pseudo wars as in Iraq
or this civil wars like in Somalia, ...
While I'm at it: The state is already disintegrating. In some
countries the state already withered away - to make rooms for
warlords, tribal things and so on. To me these are also signs that
global capitalism is less and less able to create a viable solution.
This was different until the 1970s.
Smarter currencies systems for
example.
IMHO we already have the smartest currency system thinkable in this
historical situation. From this point on societal progress can only be
accomplished by abandoning the exchange system - which will surely
mean a new era in human history. IMHO all this talk about alternative
currency systems does not understand what money is after all. *This*
debate, however, comes up again and again here and I'm somewhat tired
arguing.
I'm open to the argument that a basic income might
weaken the capitalist productive economy, but how and
why, that I'm not hearing, or not understanding.
I guess you got FranzN wrong. That a basic income that is worth
mentioning is weakening the capitalist system is clear anyway. If
you'd have a basic income which guarantees a decent life style then
why work? Especially why work under conditions many people are forced
to work under today? No, the threat of poverty is the only thing which
can force people to work under alienated conditions. However, this is
a historical advantage because before there were only the threat of
physical force which is not better.
FranzN is arguing that any depending on a basic income is not an
option because basic income is based on a well working labor system -
which as I said above on the decline anyway. So to say the least it is
not a sustainable alternative. But anyway neo-liberal discourse will
prevent that.
For instance look at what in Germany happens. In Germany in the 1970s
we created a social helping system (Sozialhilfe) which is basically a
very low level and highly conditionalized state based basic income.
This social helping system - like all social security systems - is
destroyed more and more. The central "argument" is that labor must
become cheaper and therefore social security and the redisribution of
money from capital to labor needs to be less. This again is an aspect
of the decline of the labor system: Instead of generating relative
surplus value capital moves over to generate absolute surplus value
(expansion of labor time whithout payment, less social security, and
so on).
For instance in Germany there is a babbling sold as politics on
expanding individual labor time in life by rising the age for
retirement. In the apolitical debate called politics nowadays I'm
already amazed by the fact that there are two or three voices who
state the obvious: Before an expansion of labor time into higher ages
we should strive to employ people until the current retirement age
(65).
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
--
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