Universal Basic Income, Why Not
Not so long ago, unemployment saw as an aberration and a problem that could be solved for OECD countries, including Turkey, while unemployment, which sat in the 10% band, was perceived as a problem of governments.
Then came Covid-19. It smashed the economies.
Turkeys’ unemployment is 10%+ by TUIK data, compared to around 30% under the independent research and in its broadly defined form. The youth unemployment dimension of this rate is much more striking. The frightening aspect of this scary is that the probability of the unemployment rate falling is very low.
At this point, the question of why unemployment may never fall again comes to mind. The answer is on the historical course!
Before the industrial revolution, production was entirely dependent on human and animal power. In other words, the minority who owned the capital was fully committed to the person they would employ to produce and make money. In this order, one way or another, labor would make a sure gain and gain something in the conditions of that period. Then there was the industrial revolution. So mechanization has begun. In the order, the laborers were withdrawn from production by capital owners, and the proletarian class in the literature began to manifest itself.
The economic system separated this proletarian class from the peasants or artisans of the old at a critical point. Its dissociation was about the dominance of production tools. Because the peasants would team the soil with their person-power and-or horse plows and seeds and be fully active in all areas of production, in this process, it would give a great advantage to the capital class by fully controlling production. For example, even if some villagers were in slave status, rentiers gave half of the production profits to the ortakçı peasants in the name of ortakçılık in the Ottoman Empire. Similarly, the tradesmen dominated every step of production in their workshop. He’d have much leverage here against the capitalist. Because he knew every moment of the job, he could get a job anywhere.
Mechanization eliminated this order. Now the laborer was losing control of production. The automation that led to this was also involved in the international trade expansion. International trade and automation combination led to the formation of large volumes for factories. As the trade volume increased, Western European countries could sell large quantities of goods to all areas. This new form of production and commercial structure has also boosted the army of dispossessed in the field. There has been a significant economic change. This change brought about many ideologies and created a tremendous historical adventure that has survived to this day. But it’s over now. The modern world has collapsed, and something new is forming.
Actually, I’ve been talking about a story relevant to the laborer being excluded from the production process by the economic system and patrons. So as mechanization increases, the individual who has labor loses its meaning. Capital becomes more dependent on the owner. Dark — unmanned factories mark the high point of this addiction. In conclusion, all this tells us that human beings have been more excluded from production than ever before due to robotic systems.
As a result, developed economies such as the United States, which have been producing by robotic systems for a long time, can only create jobs for their citizens in various services sectors such as bars and cafes. And as a result, people are forced to accept even jobs that make them precariat by some giant capitalists. But despite these, millions of people are still unemployed all over the world. So this order is incapable of even providing precariat jobs.
So, what’s salvation? It’s universal basic income that seems far away now.
Historical Experience: Thinking with the Confirmation of the General Voting Principle
Today we all know that civilization (so-called) buried slavery in history. So today, we know that we won’t be the property of another human being just because we owe it to another. After all, we all are human beings. But that wasn’t the case in the past. If you owed money, you’d be a slave. But then there were thought revolutions. Everybody said, “Slavery is a crime against humanity.” So people told slavery was against the dignity of humanity.
The same, the general vote was not an innate right to us. But things have changed today. If we live in any OECD country today, we are firmly committed to the principle of general voting. We think it’s perfectly natural. However, this right did not spread immediately in history and is quite a new development from a historical perspective.
The principle of general voting spread almost a century after the emergence of the industrial revolution, resulting from the developments in England after the power of labor on production decreased.
The developments were as follows; Cities were up with former villagers who were ripped from their lands by the rentiers. The nature of the economic system made them workers of new factories in the cities. These workers received less share of the production processes that they were able to direct than before. As a result, some intellectuals who listened to the voice of the army of the unemployed living under challenging conditions revealed an ideology called socialism. But as this was happening, something else happened because Britain had customs wars.
In those days, two separate structures, which became apparent in the 19th century and had roots in the ancient British economic structure, were struggling. One of these structures was the group that dominated agricultural production in the country. Another was those who products fabrics. But the walls of the customs worked in favor of the first of these two separate camps. Because buying cheap raw materials from abroad was not possible due to the protection of domestic agricultural producers.
Ultimately, it was necessary to be a government to change the customs regime and, therefore, the economic policy. Under the circumstances, a relative agreement was essential. In other words, the circulation of cheap and abundant goods in the UK would benefit both workers and those who would produce made goods. Under the circumstances, a wing of the bourgeois class had supported the unrestricted right to vote. Two structures with the same goal spread the idea of universal suffrage.
So these events show that society did not accept universal vote suffrage at once, and the spread of voting results from the intersection of different interests. And nowadays, there is a period of change similar to when society took the same universal right to vote. So, just as the industrial revolution founded a new world, thanks to the latest technology today, a new world is establishing. This context also suggests that we’re at a time when we need to think about the universal basic income. Maybe, politicians and some segments of society won’t accept universal basic payment, and they dissent from it. However, some social and individual objections will eventually bring along significant social and structural changes.
But all that aside, actually, universal basic payment won’t bring utopian salvation to anyone. However, it is also an essential option in the face of structural and sticky unemployment, which, like Turkey, tends to park at 30%. And long story short, just as voting today is a human right, so is food, shelter, and a certain amount of education and cultural activity. Then it’s time to talk about universal basic income.
Note: The article is the translate the Turkish article.
