From a very young age we were taught that work is born with the person, that it is engraved on their skin, and accompanies them forever like the most faithful friend, as Raphael sang last century. It was like a divine curse that no one could avoid. However, in the 21st century this is also changing. And as Elon Musk says, there will be less and less work because machines will do the tasks that humans don’t want to do and they will do it better than us.
This changes everything. Until now, the circular flow of income explained in a simple way the functioning of the economy. Between work, consumption, companies and the public sector, a circular flow is generated in which money is reintegrated cyclically into the economy. Consequently, salaries were the best way to distribute wealth.
But not anymore. It is the public sector that decides how the money it has obtained from the taxes it imposes on companies and people is distributed. As a button shows. In Spain, more than 19 million people receive some income from the State, almost half of the population over 18 years old. Pensioners, unemployed, sick, poor, etc. Now what it is about is taking a step forward. The right of the entire population without any type of condition to receive from the State a basic income sufficient to be able to live without working.
What was a utopia in the 18th century is beginning to become a reality. Its author Paul Lafarge makes a Marxist critique of capitalism, which he accuses of unemployment, misery and slavery of the working class. In his opinion, with machines and the reduction of the working day, men would be able to dedicate themselves to doing what they truly like, such as creativity or the contemplative life.
Four prominent Catalan and Basque economists such as Jordi Arcarons, Julen Bollain, Daniel Raventós and Lluís Torrens have just published En defensa de la renta básica (Deusto), with the subtitle Why it’s fair and how it’s financed.
The authors defend that “every citizen receives an unconditional and universal public monetary allocation.” They maintain that with a tax on wealth, another on CO? and a third eliminating the deductions that occur with personal income tax, it could be paid without harm to the public treasury. In any case, they affirm that no matter how high its cost may be, it would always be less than not having it. Its detractors reject this thesis, arguing that it is an immoral measure and an economically unsustainable utopia.
The issue appears in the middle of the debate on the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. ERC tried to approve a pilot project in which 800 euros per month were granted to 5,000 people for two years to evaluate its impact, as is being done in other countries. The initiative declined because the PSC, Junts and the PP rejected it, but it has not been renounced. In fact, the leaders of Podemos, another of the socialist party’s investiture partners, support it.
There are many intellectuals who support the implementation of a universal basic income in the EU, so it will most likely be the next flag raised by the so-called new left. A debate that has accelerated after the pandemic and that will undoubtedly be the political battle of the next legislature.
The underlying problem, as always, is the strong State debt that already rises to 1.6 trillion, which, together with the economic slowdown, deters any social initiative attempted, especially if it is expensive.
