Progressive Acceptance of Basic Income in the Kingdom of Spain
and the Republican Justification of this Proposal[1]

Daniel Raventós
Universitat de Barcelona
danielraventos@ub.edu

Good morning. I am very honoured to be with you today and I should like to thank our hosts for making this possible.

I will not speak about conceptual issues of Basic Income because Guy Standing has already done so in detail.

Today, 22 May 2004 is an unpleasant day for those who thought that monarchies are obsolete. Today is a very strange day in the Kingdom of Spain. A royal wedding that will cost the citizens a lot of money[2], uselessly squandered, is taking place in this country. This is one more reason for being happy to be in Turkey with you and very far away from all this craziness, not to say obscenity.

But, as you all know, the Kingdom of Spain has its own deep-rooted republican tradition. It is therefore appropriate to begin my talk today on the “Progressive Acceptance of Basic Income in the Kingdom of Spain and the Republican Justification of this Proposal” with a short introduction about the democratic republican justification of Basic Income, which has become an integral part of the debate around the world (to give one example, next September the tenth congress of the Basic Income European Network will have not just one but two panels on “Basic Income and Democratic Republicanism” and this is an indicator of the progressive acceptance of the interrelatedness of the two issues). Of course, by “republican justification” I am referring not to Spanish republicanism but the long tradition of political thought that began in antiquity and is still very much alive today.

The republican tradition revolves around the assumption that freedom is not possible without the socio-economic independence of the individual. Hence, the great economic inequalities that exist at the beginning of the 21st century, inequalities that generate huge asymmetries of power, create a problem of lack of real freedom for the greater part of the population, which does not have its material existence guaranteed and is submitted to the whims of those who have accumulated huge fortunes. It therefore makes no sense to propose a trade-off between freedom and equality. It makes no sense, for example, to push for greater freedom at the price of less equality, given that the absence of equality jeopardises freedom. This lack of freedom – to reject, to decide, or to do – is what is suffered by those who only survive with the permission of another – like the precarious wage-earner worker who does not know if he or she will still have a job next week; or the long-unemployed woman who must suffer the social stigma caused by dependence on public subsidy, if she is lucky enough to have it. Basic Income – defined as income paid by the state, as a right of citizenship, to each member of society, whether he or she wants a paid job or not and independently of other possible sources of income – constitutes, in societies at the beginning of this century, an instrument that is capable of guaranteeing the right of material existence for the whole population, in keeping with the republican ideal.

In the Kingdom of Spain, the proposal of Basic Income has gone beyond discussion in small circles to become, in a few years, part of a wide social debate. Some have said that while the Kingdom of Spain took longer to enter the debate than other European countries, it is also the place where it has extended most quickly. After the end of 1999, when the concept was familiar to only a few dozen people, it rapidly spread to become known to tens of thousands[3]. The social debate may be “wide” because it involves unions, political parties, social movements and citizens concerned about the weakest and most excluded circles of society, but it is not yet extended enough.

A brief history. (Let’s start with the bad news)

Before 1999, or the beginning of 2000, few people in the Kingdom of Spain supported the proposal of Basic Income. A succinct summary of this journey through the desert could be as follows:

In 1988, the magazine Zona Abierta published a double issue (46/47) on Basic Income that was partly the translation of the number of Theory and Society where Robert van der Veen and Philippe van Parijs’s seminal article “A Capitalist Road to Communism” was originally published. In this same issue, appeared a number of outstanding social theorists like Erik Olin Wright, Jon Elster, Alec Nove, Adam Przeworski and so on. This edition of Zona Abierta didn’t have much echo, at most some academic discussion. In 1991, the Foundation of Marxist Investigations published a little book entitled “A Capitalist Road to Communism. The guaranteed social wage”, a transcription of some conference papers discussing the proposal of van der Veen and van Parijs. Among the contributors to this book were the prestigious Fernando Aguiar, Andrés de Francisco and Antoni Domènech. Neither did this lead to any significant social debate. It was still the journey through the desert.

A few years later, between 1994 and 1998, some magazines (Viento Sur, Papeles de la FIM and Mientras Tanto) published a handful of articles on Basic Income. Neither did these have any great repercussion, although the end of such an arid journey was now in sight. In 1998, a seminar on Basic Income was held over several days in Barcelona and although one might have lamented the absence of repercussion in the media, symbolically this marked the end of the bad times.

It is, as I have already pointed out, from 1999 onwards, but in particular starting from 2000, when the social proposal of Basic Income begins to have in the Kingdom of Spain public repercussion that was hitherto unknown. Some of the bigger newspapers (El País, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, El Periódico, La Gaceta de los Negocios, Egunkaria, besides other local newspapers), as well as some well-known magazines of considerable diffusion (Claves de Razón Práctica, El Viejo Topo, El Ciervo, Sistema) devoted some articles and interviews to advocates of Basic Income. Many radio and television stations have also interviewed defenders of Basic Income over the last four or five years. It is at this point that Basic Income can be considered to have reached the public arena of social debate.

And now the good news

This is reflected in the following ten examples:

1) Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), the biggest union of Catalonia and the Kingdom of Spain, has made a proposal that, while it is not exactly basic income as defined by Basic Income European Network, it does seek to universalize certain social benefits.

2) Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds-Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (ICV-EUiA), an eco-socialist and leftist organization with 9 members in the Catalan Parliament after the last elections (at the end of 2003), held a seminar on Basic Income in January 2002.

3) Some members in the Parliament of Catalonia (for example, Carme Porta, of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, a pro-independence, leftist and republican party with 23 members, and José Luis López Bulla, of the already mentioned ICV-EUiA), presented in May 2002, a Basic Income Bill for all citizens[4].

4) The 2001 summer school of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) winner of the last elections to the Spanish Parliament (a couple of months ago), was entirely devoted to Basic Income for Citizens and one of the heads of Economic Policy of this party, Jordi Sevilla, now Minister of Public Administration in the new Government, has advocated this social measure many times (although the details of the programme differ considerably from what is understood by Basic Income in the BIEN framework). In fact, I have participated with him on several panels and I can assure you that Jordi Sevilla is very well informed about Basic Income. He will be a special guest speaker at the BIEN Congress in September[5].

5) The Basque union Ezker Sindikalaren Konbergentzia (ESK) gives unconditional support to the Basic Income proposal (see, for example, their publication Gaiak núm 4, November 2002, entitled “Toward the Attainment of Basic Income”). On International Women’s Day, 8 March 2003, this union published posters stating, “Never have so few contributed so much to so many: We want unconditional individual Basic Income now!”

6) The 16th Congress of the Communist Party of Spain, at the end of February 2002 approved a resolution in defence of Basic Income[6].

7) The Department of Justice, Employment and Social Security of the Basque Government co-organized, with the Basic Income Network Association (RRB) in December 2002, the Second Symposium on Basic Income.

8) The General Workers Union (Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT) held in Zaragoza a cycle of conferences throughout spring 2003 on topics that “could be a good starting point for revitalizing the left ideologically”. Basic Income was the subject of one of the conferences.

9) More recently, at the end of last year, the Department of Social Welfare of the Barcelona City Council, helped to organize the Third Symposium on Basic Income.

10) And, finally, in point 5.5 of the programme of the present Government of Catalonia that was elected at the end of last year, it is stated as a priority: “To redefine the Minimum Income of Insertion so that it becomes a basic income of citizenship, and to study the different proposals for its progressive setting up”[7].

These are 10 very representative examples of the fact that, as I stated above, “while the Kingdom of Spain took longer to enter the debate than other European countries, it is also the place where it has extended most quickly”.

But, as I have also said, this is not a very extended social debate because most citizens don’t know about this proposal, either approximately, and still less in precise terms. There are still millions who have not heard a single word about Basic Income.

Prospects

In a few months, in September this year, Barcelona will host the Tenth Congress of the Basic Income European Network. We will be honoured with the presence of many specialists and defenders of Basic Income. I have no doubt that this event will represent a greater social penetration of the Basic Income proposal. For example, the Minister of Social Welfare of Catalonia, Anna Simó, is a special guest of the Tenth Congress of the Basic Income European Network. I had a long interview with her in April and we drew up a detailed agenda of meetings with government officials for the next six months. This is very good news for Basic Income in Catalonia.

I also want to mention that several members of my association, in collaboration with some foundations, are preparing for Catalonia and for the Kingdom of Spain, some specific and precise models for financing Basic Income. At the BIEN Tenth Congress we will be able to present some data. I can already advance a little.

First of all, let me say that I think, like others, Basic Income is matter of both social and fiscal policies.

In very detailed research on financing Basic Income done by a team of which I am a member, leaded by professor of Econometrics of my university, Jordi Arcarons, it is very easy to demonstrate by simulation the distribution of income that an implementation of Basic Income could allow. It depends on the tax rate and the amount of Basic Income of course (the team works with amounts of 5.000-6.000 euros a year for adults and fifty per cent of that for minors), but in almost all simulations, the poorest 40% of Catalonia would gain and the richest 20% would lose (this research refers to Catalonia, but its methodology is applicable to other countries). Traditional indicators on progressive tax reform and income distribution (Gini, Kakwani and Suits, for example) show these egalitarian tax effects that benefit in particular, but not only, the poor. Let me insist on this idea. Basic Income is not only a proposal against poverty. Basic Income is a proposal to improve real freedom of citizens too.

To conclude, Basic Income both in Catalonia and in the Kingdom of Spain has overcome an important stage: that of the normative or ethical justification. This area is now well covered and, I would say, we have won this battle. I have been accompanied on this trip to Istanbul by a friend from our association, Francisco Ramos who has just presented a doctoral thesis that aimed, inter alia, to provide a good foundation for the normative justification of Basic Income. It is one of the brilliant examples, but, and this should be underlined, it is no longer an isolated one. Now it is necessary to demonstrate that financing is possible. I believe that we have shown clearly that Basic Income is a just and democratic measure. Now we should prove that it is financially feasible. We have always stated that a social proposal such as Basic Income, should first demonstrate that it is fair, and later (if the first condition is met), demonstrate that it is financially possible. And this we have done very precisely. We have shown which part of the population benefits, and which part loses, and what each person gains or loses with respect to the present situation.

We are in that second stage and, I am convinced, we shall also come through it with flying colours.

When only a few people decided to create our association at the beginning of 2001, we could not imagine that Basic Income would be so well-known and so much debated only three years later. But here we are! I would like to think that this is an encouraging story for all of you here today.

Thank you very much.

Istanbul, May 2004

NOTES

1 I am very grateful to Julie Wark for her patient English language supervision of this text.

2 Officially, the figure is “more than 4,000,000 euros” (US$ 4,800,000). This includes hairdressing for wedding guests… See, for example, http://www.esfazil.com/kaos/noticia.php?id_noticia=2507

3 Interest in Basic Income as a possible democratic measure in poor countries has also increased recently. For the case of East Timor see Casassas-Raventós-Wark (2004): “Oil in Troubled Waters” (available in http://www.nodo50.org/redrentabasica/textos/index.php?x=299). For Brazil see for example, http://www.ingresociudadano.org/Novedades/brasil/08-01-04.htm.

4 See www.redrentabasica.org

5 We have now been told that Jordi Sevilla will be unable to attend the Tenth BIEN Congress.

6 A resolution from which I extract these paragraphs:
“With Basic Income, the conditions for negotiation of the sale of the worker’s labour power would improve substantially.
With Basic Income, many young people would not have to accept precarious jobs and many women would acquire freedom to make certain decisions.
The introduction of Basic Income would eliminate poverty.
The introduction of Basic Income would enable us to confront a productivist and environmentally predatory model that mortgages the well-being of future generations with the argument that it is necessary to produce more in order to fight against unemployment.
The introduction of Basic Income would free citizens of presently existing requisites and invasion of the private sphere to determine if a person has a right to the dole. These conditions represent social stigmatization and naturally lead to “fraud” through the unemployment and poverty traps (I accept a job, I lose the dole, I work without a contract and illegally… and so on).
Evidently, from our point of view, the introduction of Basic Income should be accompanied by reforms that substantially increase progressive taxation in the system.”

7 For further details of the ten points, see www.redrentabasica.org.

Basic Income: Overcoming Insecurity in a Globalizing World. Istambul, May 2004