The Universal Survival Income (USI)
To start getting our exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- calamities under control, we must do what, in the 1980’s, China did regarding its economy – namely, reduce the scoring of own-goals.
Specifically, in order to address our Socio-Econo-Enviro- challenges, our underlying social-systems must be nature-consistent.
Hence, completing our Universal Opportunity Infrastructure (UOI) (please see below), via implementing The USI,
is not optional but a prerequisite, which no amount of: social-workers (Socio), business-incentives including ‘free’-trade deals (Econo) or scientific-gadgets (Enviro), respectively, can sufficiently substitute.
Typical Objections to The USI:
- It’s just not right for people to get something for nothing; and,
- We can’t afford it.
- ‘It comes from a good place but the problem I have is that its ‘Universal’. I would rather it be targeted to those who need it.’ – Jim Chalmers, Shadow Treasurer (April 2020)
Regarding Objection 1:
Society’s systems should be such that they maximise citizens’:
- Willingness to put their society before themselves; and,
- Capacity to contribute to their society.
Specifically, upfront, there must be the – natural-morality ‘we’re all in this together’-consistent – Universal Opportunity Infrastructure (UOI):
- Universal Liberal Democracy;
- Universal Healthcare;
- Universal Education; and,
- The Universal Survival Income (USI).
Regarding Objection 2: The Taxpayer-to-Citizen-Transfer
All citizens are taxpayers – for example, all pay GST – so there is tremendous overlap. Adults receive: $1,500 per month and children: $400 per month such that the total transfer = $350 billion per year.
Achieved by (using 2018 figures):
- Reallocating $150 billion of the $175 billion Social Services budget, which still leaves $25 billion to top up pensions and disability payments;
- Abolishment of the Tax-Free Threshold ($35 billion); and,
- Insertion of a 20% full-breadth GST (no – it’s not regressive if the disempowered are net beneficiaries; also, the wealthy and multinationals’ capacity to avoid a GST is particularly limited), which results in $200 billion minus $60 billion (from the current 10% gap-ridden GST) equalling an additional $140 billion.
[In addition to this $325 billion total, given our current own-goal (jobs-for-jobs’-sake partially supply-driven rather than exclusively demand-driven) economy, which, regarding the supply-driven component, manifests as, what may be termed, a ‘pseudo-market’ (imagine drafting particular players to kick own-goals), there are massive human-capital, efficiency, societal-involvement and trust gains, which means, not only is The USI easily afforded, we will be, at least, twice as prosperous.]
Regarding Objection 3 – The Universal ‘Problem’:
First, targeting requires means-testing, which is an own-goal for two reasons:
- While being incredibly costly, it doesn’t produce anything we directly want such as food, entertainment etc.;
- It produces the pollutants of stigma, friction, gaps and mistakes, which sums to enormous Unnecessary Suffering.
Second, concern over wealthy citizens such as Andrew Forrest or Gina Reinhardt receiving $1500 per month is misplaced because with a 20% full breadth GST (instead of a 10% gap-ridden one), if a wealthy person spends, for example, $100,000 ($1 million) in a month, they will pay $20,000 ($200,000) in GST instead of $6,000 ($60,000) currently.
May 4, 2020
Hi
Post-lockdown, we have three main potential societal-system alternatives:
- Snap-Back to ‘normal’;
- Snap-Back ‘Plus’; and,
- The Universal Survival Income Big-Change.
Snap-Back: The same two components:
- The same Safety Net Income (SNI) System as before (and at the same payment level) – i.e. minimum wage legislation, pensions, disability allowances, unemployment benefits, student payments and the plethora of other individual and family subsidies; and,
- Enormous subsidies and tax-exemptions to the still growing social-services organisations, which, in addition to volunteers, apparently, already employ 1/9 of our workforce – if only it were an export industry instead of, via predominantly fighting only symptoms rather than root causes, massively contributing to our own-goal economy.
Snap-Back ‘Plus’: This is a Regulationist’s dream.
It takes what we had before and incrementally adds to it – for example, increasing Newstart and some other benefits.
It may be called, Safety Net Income Incrementalism Increase Creep (SNIIIC – pronounced ‘SNAKE’).
As shown below, it magnifies the extraordinary inefficiencies of the old system, which makes our society, as a whole, poorer and weaker.
Many also want a Job Guarantee (JG) [not to mention voodoo Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)].
Note: With a JG, the effect on the economy is so pronounced, that rather than being the current ‘mixed economy’, it should be renamed a ‘JG-economy’ as, via increasingly taxing the private sector, which crowds-out business, it transitions a society towards Communism.
Universal Survival Income (USI) Big-Change: Scrap the Safety Net Income system and, at last, complete the Universal Opportunity Infrastructure (UOI) via implementing the fourth and final cornerstone – The USI.
So, what would you prefer:
- A snap-back to how-it-was;
- The snake creepist’s Safety Net Income (SNI) increase; or,
- The implementation of The Universal Survival Income (USI) plus labour market deregulation and the abolition of Centrelink?
Let’s compare….
Comparison Table: Socio-Econo-Enviro-Calamities Vis-à-Vis Alternative Societal-Systems
[Please note: ↑↑ indicates acceleration]
[Please note: This is a work in progress – any corrections/additions are welcome.]
| System Calamities | Snap-back | Safety Net Income (SNI) System Creep | The Universal Survival Income (USI) |
| Socio | Means-testing punitiveness continues. Discrimination continues. Stigma continues. Friction continues. Gaps continue. Mistakes continue. | Means-Testing ↑ – i.e. governments are increasingly incentivized to ↓ total payments. Discrimination ↑. Stigma ↑. Friction ↑. Gaps ↑. Mistakes ↑. | |
| Poverty, mental-illness, homelessness, domestic violence, escapism etc. continues ↑. | Poverty etc. ↓ due to more income for some disempowered but ↑ due to ↑ in means-testing and discrimination etc. | Poverty etc. minimised. | |
| Individuals and families continue to be forced to put themselves before society in order to obtain their Personal Survival Income (PSI), which, natural-morality (i.e. ‘society before self’) violating, trains them to be materialistic, selfish and distrustful. | Individuals and families continue to be forced to natural-morality-violate in order to obtain their PSI. | With individuals and families guaranteed their PSI, natural-morality consistent behaviour of putting ‘society before self’, rather than being violated, becomes reinforced. | |
| Interrelationship ill-health – family, society and environment – continues ↑. | Interrelationship ill-health ↑↑. | Interrelationship health is maximised. | |
| Distortionary social-status premium on paid-work over unpaid-work continues, which, among other things, leads to a misallocation of focus toward the relatively unimportant and to the neglect of the vulnerable as society’s most important job – unpaid-carer – isn’t appropriately valued. | Distortionary social-status continues. | Paid-work/unpaid-work social-status harmonisation, which, among other things, means unpaid-caring is implicitly appreciated. | |
| A person’s social-value, social-status and self-worth is disproportionately tied to paid-work, career and wealth. | The disproportionate tying of a person’s social-value etc. to paid-work, career and wealth ↑. | One’s intrinsic humanity is valued with personal attributes such as integrity and one’s contribution and sacrifice to society most lauded. | |
| Wanton Consumerism, Materialism and Wealthism continues, which detracts both from individual and societal health. | Wanton Consumerism etc. ↑. | Wanton Consumerism etc. minimised. | |
| Stress of materially keeping-up with others ↑. | Stress of materially keeping-up with others ↑↑. | Social-status no longer disproportionately tied to material possessions so can relax as it’s no longer important to keep-up materially with others. | |
| Class- & Identity- Warfare continues ↑, which, ultimately, may lead to societal collapse and/or loss of sovereignty. | Class- & Identity- Warfare ↑↑. | Class- & Identity-Warfare ↓ to occasional relatively good-natured skirmishes. | |
| People cannot say ‘no’ to working in the market, which means they need excessive protection both regulatory (legislation/courts) and representative (example unions). | People can’t say ‘no’ to working in the market. | All people can say ‘no’ to working in the market provided they are content to live on a very modest sum and can satisfy their inherent need to be useful and appreciated. | |
| Disempowered ↑. | Disempowered ↑↑. | All empowered as the Universal Opportunity Infrastructure (UOI) is complete. | |
| Labour contribution in the market and pseudo-market (i.e. own-goal economy) is rewarded; non-market labour contribution (such as nurturing and raising children) not rewarded and, on the contrary, implicitly punished. | Labour contribution in the market and the increased pseudo-market is rewarded; non-market labour implicitly punished. | In addition to the pseudo-market being vanquished, the market & non-market labour contributions are equally valued – i.e. there is no shame in contributing to society in non-market ways such as exclusively being a volunteer. | |
| Happiness/utility continues ↓. | Happiness ↓↓. | Happiness ↑. | |
| Politics is decreasingly dealing with core societal issues and, on the contrary, is increasingly dealing with symptoms and, especially, spin. | Politics↓↓. | Politics↑↑. | |
| Societal disunity continues ↑. | Societal disunity ↑↑. | Societal unity dramatically ↑, which means we can optimally work together to maximise our UOI and solve our Socio-Econo-Enviro- calamities, which, in turn, maximises our society’s sustainable stability-prosperity. | |
| Reconciliation (Closing the Gap) ↓ – Aboriginal & Torres Strait Australians continue to be disproportionately disempowered including being disproportionately shut-out of market (as opposed to pseudo-market) paid-work. | Reconciliation ↓↓. | Reconciliation ↑↑ – i.e. opportunity (and hope) is universalised as, receiving the non-discriminatory USI, their health, education, self-representation and contribution (including, since there is natural full-employment (the pseudo-market has been dismantled), being able to, if one likes, get paid-work) will become equalised. | |
| Migrant empowerment ↓ including being disproportionately shut-out of paid-employment (particularly non-pseudo-market paid-work). | Migrant empowerment ↓. | Migrant empowerment ↑↑. | |
| Market experimentation continues to be low – i.e. artists, musicians, writers, sportspeople, scientists, entrepreneurs etc. must first focus on attaining their Personal Survival Income (PSI). | Market experimentation ↓. | Market experimentation ↑↑ as PSI is provided. | |
| For many, the supposed ‘dignity’ of compulsory paid-work is a slogan more than a reality – for instance, those who hate their job yet need to devote time away from looking after their children as they financially struggle to pay the rent. | The so-called ‘dignity’ of compulsory paid-work is increasingly a non-reality slogan. | Dignity of life per se (including deciding whether or not to enter paid-work) ↑↑. | |
| City-rural divide ↑ – i.e. less opportunities in rural Australia leads to it being gutted as the youth leave, which also causes congestion in the cities. | City-rural divide ↑. | City-rural harmonisation as, in rural towns, there is now more income due directly to The USI, cheaper housing attracts more people and the cheaper land (and an ↑ labour force) attracts more businesses including manufacturers. | |
| Minimum wage earners typically continue worrying about losing their job, their partner losing their job and whether their children will be able to find a job. | Minimum wage earners are, in the short-term, less worried about losing their job, their partner losing their job or their children finding work; however, they become increasingly unsettled as to the worth of their working-life and their country’s direction. | Minimum wage earners will keep their job and their wage plus receive $1,500 per month. Opportunities will ↑↑ in the form of more jobs, more enjoyable work-environments and upward pressure on wages, which also means they will not have to worry about their children either surviving or getting paid-work and they will be increasingly excited by the country’s prospects. | |
| The unemployed (including those who are disabled) who want work – especially real non-pseudo-market work – continue to live distressed twilight lives. | The unemployed (including the disabled) who want work – especially real non-pseudo-market work – are better-off financially and, in the case of a Job Guarantee – can readily have pseudo-market work, which, unfortunately, is typically unfulfilling. | Everyone is employed in the real market to the extent, given the going rate, they wish to be. | |
| Social-services organisations continue ↑ – i.e. they are focusing on the symptoms caused by non-optimal societal-systems (The USI absence). | Social-services organisations ↑↑. | Due to a profound ↓ in the need for help, social-services organisations radically downsize. | |
| Econo | Own-goal (jobs-for-jobs’-sake partially supply-driven rather than exclusively demand-driven) economy continues. | Own-goal plus ‘red-card’ economy. | Exclusively Demand-driven efficient economy. |
| Jobs-for-jobs’-sake continues ↑. | Jobs-for-jobs’-sake ↑↑. | ||
| An ↑ percentage of Public Service jobs are jobs-for-jobs’-sake ones. | ↑↑ percentage of Public Service jobs are jobs-for-jobs’-sake ones. | Public Service becomes leaner and far more efficient, which releases talented people into more productive avenues including through the abolition of Centrelink etc. | |
| Own-goal pseudo-market – i.e. instead of a ‘4-0’ GDP, it’s ‘3-1’ (a win of just half from the resources expended) – continues ↑. | Own-goal pseudo-market ↑↑. | Efficient economy where the pseudo-market no longer exists and GDP represents the full value of resources expended. | |
| Business’ distractive secondary focus of also necessarily being a social-service entity continues ↑. | Business’ social-service secondary focus ↑↑. | Businesses focus exclusively on their businesses – i.e. on keeping their customers and employees happy. | |
| Paid-worker conscription continues, which detracts from productivity – i.e. there is excess one-bad-apple-spoils-the-barrel whining, politicking and other non-optimal behaviour. | Paid-worker conscription continues, which results in continuing deleterious work-environment and productivity. | Volunteer paid-workers replace conscripts, which delivers a massive productivity boon. | |
| High non-GST tax continues. [A full-breadth GST is capable of drawing enormous revenue yet is predominantly non-distortionary because everything rises by the same %.] | Non-GST tax ↑. | Non-GST tax ↓. | |
| Hire & fire legislation continues, which is a drag on business and a strong deterrent against paid-work. | Hire & fire legislation ↑. | Hire & fire legislation is minimised as it is now predominantly superfluous as no one must necessarily be in paid-work and, in addition, there is full-employment, which means they can easily find paid-work elsewhere. Hence, better than any regulation or representative, employers must, permanently, be on their very best behaviour lest their employees abandon them. | |
| Inefficiency continues. | Inefficiency ↑. | Efficiency maximised. | |
| Unemployment continues, which means the Job Guarantee is increasingly likely. | Unemployment ↑, which means the likelihood of the Job Guarantee ↑↑. | Full-employment, which is achieved naturally – no impetus for JG. | |
| Union militance (including advocation for increasing regulation) continues. | Union militance ↑ especially advocating for the Job Guarantee. | Unions (particularly enterprise rather than industry ones) become far more relevant (yet shed their militance) as an employee-employer facilitating go-between. | |
| The symptom-attacking social-services organisations continue to disproportionately grow and, as this occurs, disproportionately skew the market via their tax-exemption status and, especially, through attracting incredibly talented employees. | As Socio-Econo-Enviro-problems ↑↑, social-services organisations ↑↑. | The end to symptom-attacking social-services organisations leads to the release of a second-wave (i.e. after the Centrelink etc. dismantling first-wave) of extremely talented people into the economy. | |
| With citizens forced and trained to be materialistic, selfish and distrustful, this particularly manifests with company and PAYE taxpayers because, having done as directed and obtained their Personal Survival Income (PSI) – including those in the jobs-for-jobs’-sake pseudo-market – they, to an extent understandably, tend to have little to no sympathy for those who haven’t, for whatever reason, done the same. Hence, these profit and income taxpayers, tend to continue to be both selfish such that they want to keep as much money as they can and distrustful that the government is wasting ‘their’ taxes. Hence, they are prone to corruption including tax minimisation, avoidance and fraud. | Tax-payer materialism, selfishness and distrust ↑↑, which means corruption (including regarding tax) also ↑↑. | Tax-payers become enthusiastic members of society who rightly value contributing and who now believe their taxes are being spent wisely and efficiently. | |
| As well as producing some of the goods & services we desire (such as food, clothing, housing, furniture, cars, computers, entertainment etc.), our society is also funding such pseudo-market dead-weight bureaucracies as Centrelink and the plethora of job-search and training organisations. | Production of the goods & services we desire is increasingly crowded-out by excessive business and personal income tax to pay for the own-goal pseudo-market portion of the economy. | The market is exclusively dedicated to producing the goods & services we desire. | |
| Australia’s production of non-agriculture non-mining tradables (including manufactures) continues to be globally uncompetitive. | Tradables’ uncompetitiveness ↑↑. | Australia’s tradable industries are competitive, which leads to massive new export industries arising particularly in rural and northern Australia. | |
| City congestion continues ↑. | City congestion ↑↑. | City congestion ↓ and rural towns become increasingly populated, prosperous and lively. | |
| The North’s relative proximity to Asia remains uncapitalized upon due to our uncompetitive regulated labour market, which means. instead of benefitting from their proximity to Asia, on the contrary, they suffer from their relative distance to the major Australian cities. | The North’s relative subsidized reliance on taxpayers ↑↑. | The new business competitiveness unleashes our North into leading our vibrant engagement with Asia and beyond. | |
| Our current own-goal (jobs-for-jobs’-sake partially supply-driven rather than exclusively demand-driven) economy continues. | While in the short-term Aggregate Demand ↑ a little, which is good as it adds to the demand-driven side of the economy, overall, our economy devolves beyond an own-goal economy, into, what may be termed, an own-goal plus red-card one. | There is a massive economic renaissance – i.e. instead of an own-goal economy, we have an exclusively demand-driven one with: an efficient labour market system; businesses exclusively focused on their business; and, a willing volunteer paid-workforce. | |
| Enviro | Materialism (i.e. the utility gained from showing-off one’s material prowess) and its associated wastage continues. | Materialism ↑↑ | Materialism minimized as people care far less about one’s wealth and far more about one’s societal sacrifice and contribution, which means there is far less of a social-status premium to be gained by flaunting one’s wealth. |
| With paid-work the source of the lion-share of environmental destruction (especially in the current natural-morality-violating self-before-society economy), paid-work is both high and inefficient – i.e. it neither optimally produces the goods and services we desire nor, due to jobs-for-jobs’-sake, necessarily what we desire at all. | Without a Job Guarantee (JG) paid-work ↓ and inefficiency ↑. With a JG, paid-work ↑ and inefficiency ↑↑. | Paid-work is efficient (the pseudo-market has been dismantled) and there is natural full-employment (though, since full-employment is defined as ‘anyone who wants paid-work at the going rate can get it’, not necessarily more paid-employment). | |
| With the societal-systems non-optimal, citizens are far more discontent than they should be so, increasingly futilely, they seek happiness via wasteful (environment-damaging) goods and services. | Citizen discontent ↑↑, which leads to ↑↑ environmental damage. | Citizens are vastly more content with materially much less, which fundamentally assists the environment. | |
| Social-status is disproportionately correlated with environmentally-unfriendly excessive-income, career, wealth and expenditure. | Social-status is increasingly disproportionately correlated with environmentally-unfriendly excessive-income etc. | Social-status is correlated with contribution and sacrifice to society, which, among other things, is environmentally-friendly. | |
| The dead-in-the-water recycling industry continues to require subsidizing. | The recycling industry’s subsidizing needs ↑↑↑↑. | With a deregulated labour market, the recycling industry can be operated on a market basis. | |
| Environment-related-Scientists can’t survive without paid-employment or grants, which often skews their scientific focus including concentrating on applying for grants. | Environment-related scientists continue to have their focus skewed; however, due to the relatively far more inefficient economy, there’s less finance available. | The USI will provide environment-related scientists with a basis to live on, which will translate into a boon for scientific discovery and innovation. | |
| [International Environment] Sovereignty-risk ↑ [especially, with regard to China]: Australia’s sphere of influence (example, the Pacific); territories (example, Antarctica); and, the mainland plus Tasmania. | With ↑↑ economic decay, our sovereignty-risk ↑↑ such that we are unable to defend our sovereignty and will, inside the next three decades. almost certainly forfeit it. | Sovereignty-risk dramatically ↓ as our efficient exclusively demand-driven economy means, with our prosperity at least doubled, our diplomacy and military can easily be radically n-tuple upgraded – i.e. with our military such a comparatively fractional component of the budget, if need be, it can easily be doubled, tripled or, even, quadrupled. | |
| Wasted regional/global leadership. | Adverse regional/global leadership – i.e. if other countries follow this example, we will have exported mayhem. | Massively positive regional/global leadership: Authoritarian nations’ leadership and citizens (including mainland Chinese citizens) witness an unignorable sustainable stability-prosperity society;Developing nations similarly adopt The USI, which, particularly assisting their subsistence farmers, vastly reduces land-clearing and their fertility rate. | |
| National catastrophe. | Vastly hastened plummet into national catastrophe. | National salvation – it’s impossible to save the environment without The Universal Survival Income (USI) so, currently, we are investing time and resources digging ourselves an acceleratingly greater hole. | |
| Funding (2018 figures) | Cost: General Revenue $175 billion ↑. | Cost: Without a JG, greater than $200 billion; With a JG, limited only by the total ever-shrinking GDP. | Transfer: Previous Centrelink etc. $175 billion;Abolish tax-free threshold ($35 billion).Install 20% full-breadth consumption tax as replacement for distortionary gap-ridden 10% one (net $140 billion). Plus enormous other savings and benefits including vast increase in tax revenue due to ↑ in societal unity, ↑ trust and the business renaissance. |
Behold, The USI’s clear benefits relative to the unintended consequences of our 260-year trial with the regulation-excessive Safety Net Income (SNI) alternative.
The current SNI is, akin to the White Australia Policy, uncivilized.
That is, in plain bureaucratic sight, the SNI formalises discrimination, bigotry and cruelty.
In addition, as well as it being the source of indescribable incomprehensible intergenerational Unnecessary Suffering, it is also irredeemably unsalvageable.
In conclusion, snap-back and snap-back plus make our Socio-Econo-Enviro- calamities worse, which shouldn’t be surprising given those challenges, rather than resulting from Big Oil, billionaires or other non-systemic scapegoats, are all own-goal products of our current non-nature-correlating societal-systems.
Hence, we can no longer be content to waste resources attacking only symptoms – if we keep doing what we’re doing (let-alone continually doubling-down into doing more of it), our problems will only accelerate (and, we are already in the final phase).
Alternatively, with the USI at our fingertips, we have the Reform of the Century potential for a massive millennial-long societal renaissance.
That is, with The Universal Opportunity Infrastructure (UOI) societal-systems completed, each cornerstone will compliment each of the three other cornerstones.
For example, with The USI in place, this will dramatically assist many children’s homelife, which will markedly help their health, their education and their future capacity to participate in the Liberal Democratic process.
Thus, while it is natural and reasonable to be wary (and even fearful) of Big Change, we must implement The Universal Survival Income because – as with all The Universal Opportunity Infrastructure’s cornerstones – it is nature-consistent, which means its absence is unnatural.
Accordingly, while the SNI is the devil we know, humanity’s future depends on replacing it.
The Universal Survival Income (USI):
It’s not that it is the solution;
It’s that its absence is the problem.
[Without The USI,
it’s impossible to make manageable
any single Socio-Econo-Enviro- problem
let-alone make manageable all of them.]
Thank you.
Best regards
Paul Ross
Founder
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation (Australia)
https://citizens-dividend.org/
https://www.facebook.com/paul.ross.798
https://twitter.com/paulross2
P.S.: On the separate issue of the Australian government’s Covid-19 plan, while it has done a tremendous job battling the disease’s spread, The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation is confused as to its end-objective.
That is, does the Australian Government wish to:
- Eradicate Covid-19 from Australian territory and then, presumably, implement a 2-week compulsory quarantine (paid for by the recipient) for anyone coming in until there is a vaccine – this seems to be what Daniel Andrews is advocating; or,
- Keep the Covid-19 case-load health-system manageable, which, with just a handful of daily new cases, would beg the question as to why we are locked-down and not following the example of, for instance, Sweden?
Given we are close to eradicating C-19, why not complete the job – i.e. then there will be no second-wave?
Yet, if the government’s goal is to eradicate it, why, on the verge of success, is it prematurely lifting restrictions?
Whatever the end-goal, it would be beneficial if the government informed us so we can all be on the same page and have the opportunity to debate it.
Humanity is being confronted by a perfect storm of Socio-Econo-Environment Catastrophes including:
1. Social:
a. Internal: mental illness, domestic violence, drug & alcohol abuse etc.
b. External: our weaknesses boost Democracy’s enemies, which is currently enhancing international rivalry such as with China, Russia, North Korea and Iran;
2. Econo: absolute poverty, relative income inequality, unemployment, homelessness etc.; and,
3. Environmental: ecosystem destruction, species extinction, human population explosion, plastic islands, climate change etc.
Hypothesis: This is due to a single foundational ‘Society-Individual Interface’ contradiction whose deleterious effects are cascading through every facet of society.
The relevant contradiction is the partial absence of the natural-morality-derived ‘Universal Opportunity Infrastructure’ (UOI), which consists of the four cornerstones:
- Universal Liberal Democracy – [In Australia] Yes;
- Universal Healthcare – Yes;
- Universal Education – Yes;
- Universal Basic/Survival Income (UBI/USI) – No, not yet.
The Socio-Econo-Environment-Harmonising Universal Survival Income (USI):
It’s not that it is the solution;
It’s that its absence is the problem.
The Taxpayer-to-Citizen-Transfer [Note: Unlike the Current System, this is not a ‘cost’ but a ‘transfer’.]Around $18,000 per year x 18 million (non-incarcerated in-country adult Australian citizens) + $5,000 x 4.5 million (children) = $350 billion (2018 figures).
This may be achieved by:
1. Reallocating $150 billion of the $175 billion Social Services budget (yes, we are already spending half of what we need), which still leaves $25 billion to top up pensions and disability payments;
2. Abolishment of the Tax-Free Threshold ($35 billion); and,
3. Insertion of a 20% full-breadth GST (no – it’s not regressive if the disempowered are net beneficiaries; also, the wealthy and multinationals’ capacity to avoid a GST is particularly limited), which results in $200 billion minus $60 billion (from the current 10% gap-ridden GST) equaling an additional $140 billion.
In addition to this $325 billion total, there will be massive human-capital, efficiency, societal-involvement and trust gains, which means, not only is the USI easily afforded, we will be, at least, twice as prosperous such that it will amount to a win-win-win in which all community segments – the wealthy; the middle-class; and, the currently disempowered – all win.
In the process, the economy will also be transformed from an ‘environment-destroying jobs-for-jobs’-sake’ ‘own-goal’ one to ‘an efficient production of goods and services we desire’ one.
Then, there is the massive permeating benefit of achieving full-employment.
That is, with everyone both taken care of and invested with the freedom to say ‘no’ to an employer plus the rectification of the present social-status premium on paid-work over unpaid-work, which will dissipate the stigma of not having paid-work, this means there will be a massive flow of power to the disempowered and working classes, which will result in a workers’ paradise.
Yet, this workers’ paradise will enable significant labour-market deregulation (i.e. everyone is already being looked after so, while we may continue to feel an emotional attachment to, for instance, economy-wide minimum-wages, in practice, there will no longer be a need for them).
And, this means our 5.7 million volunteers can get paid something and our young, elderly, relatively unskilled, disabled, unpaid-carers, 600,000+ unemployed and 1.1 million+ underemployed can, if they desire, get paid-work (or, more work) and, generally, there is full-employment such that ‘anyone who, at the going rate, wants a job, can get one’.
In addition, the USI will eradicate the current welfare-to-paid-work distortion where there is a disincentive to acquire paid-work because, in doing so, one loses one’s welfare.
Furthermore, full-employment will result in wages and conditions being bid-up.
And yet, business, as well as benefiting from deregulation, rather than having to tolerate the current crop of unhappy conscripts, will benefit from an army of volunteer workers, which given, with regard to morale and productivity, ‘one bad apple spoils the barrel’, will deliver massive productivity efficiencies.
This means our tradables’ sector – especially manufacturing – will roar back to life.
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation’s Commitment:
1. Short-term (interim) – At the 2022 Australian Federal Election (unlike in 2019), at least one registered political party will have the USI as its signature policy such that the USI is an election issue; and,
2. Medium-term (end) – At the 2025 Australian Federal Election, the winner has a mandate for the implementation of a USI, which it then prosecutes.