NYTimes.com: They See It. They Like It. They Want It. They Rent It.

[Lifset, Reid]

Dear all,

This is an interesting combination of the circular economy (renting rather than owning) and a new form of consumption.  It would be interesting to know what the lifespan of the rental goods is under these arrangements.

From The New York Times:

They See It. They Like It. They Want It. They Rent It.

Owning nothing is now a luxury, thanks to a number of subscription start-ups.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/style/rent-subscription-clothing-furniture.html

 

Reid Lifset

Research Scientist, Resident Fellow in Industrial Ecology

Editor-in-chief, Journal of Industrial Ecology

 

 

School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Yale University

195 Prospect St

New Haven, CT  06511

reid....@yale.edu

+1-203-432-6949 (tel)

@JIndEcol

 

 

[Suez Jacobson]

Here's an article that some might find interesting. An idea for classes.

Wild gratitude,

Suez

wildhopefilm.com

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wildhopefilm.com

“I feel the possibility of a frugal and protective love for creation that would be unimaginably more meaningful and joyful than our present destructive and wasteful economy.” Wendell Berry 

suezwrites.com Pithy Prose for a Purpose

suezwrites.wordpress.com Creative Meanderings

[Tom Abeles]

Hi Reid:

1) The rent to rent/own has a lot of data because of its established business from simple hand tools to cars, planes and what-nots. In fact the airlines lease (rent) the planes and separately the engines.

2) For the current industry, such as clothes, it's fashion and not the fabrication. Life cycle costing basically says that the companies know the life and use/turnover and thus the renter will pay that cost plus overhead plus profit. Basically, its not an environmentally friendly business. One pays for the externalities, the convenience, ego or prestige. In the case of jet engines, there is a service component and benefits such as making sure the engines don't fail at 36,000 feet.

--

[JOHN DE GRAAF,* JOHN DE GRAAF]

Some good news worth letting people know about:  https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/8/18656710/new-zealand-wellbeing-budget-bhutan-happiness

New Zealand is breaking new ground here.

John de Graaf

www.johndegraaf.com

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/CAC0ykQFzo4jcUW0C16anVhHVU47rZ%2BSKmSTR_duEHN3CxT52fQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Robert Rattle]

"...UBI ... could break the link between work and consumption."

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-universal-income-can-help-us-mitigate-our-climate-emergency-here-s-how

[Tom Abeles]

this article spends 90% of its text to reviewing the problems and spends no time in dealing with how a UBI will change consumptive patterns to effect a positive direction towards climate change and sustainability in general. It is another example of the disconnect between academic theory and practice and why academics wonder why.

tom 

tom abeles

On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 8:19 AM 'Robert Rattle' via SCORAI <sco...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

"...UBI ... could break the link between work and consumption."

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-universal-income-can-help-us-mitigate-our-climate-emergency-here-s-how

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[JOHN DE GRAAF,* JOHN DE GRAAF]

Actually, Tom Abeles, with all due respect for your many great contributions to this listserv, I believe you are being the over-critical academic here, and the one disconnected to practice.  The article really only spends the first half on the problem--or less--then discusses donut economics and makes a good case for UBI and re-wilding, two things that could actually have a practical, not theoretical impact.  What is it about us that we so quickly rise to criticize.  thanks, Robert Rattle for sharing this.  I do think GBI can help cut the consumerism/work link.  And reforestation/rewilding must be a key part of the Green New Deal.

best,

John

John de Graaf

www.johndegraaf.com

On June 13, 2019 at 6:42 AM Tom Abeles <tab...@gmail.com> wrote:

this article spends 90% of its text to reviewing the problems and spends no time in dealing with how a UBI will change consumptive patterns to effect a positive direction towards climate change and sustainability in general. It is another example of the disconnect between academic theory and practice and why academics wonder why.

tom 

tom abeles

On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 8:19 AM 'Robert Rattle' via SCORAI < sco...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

"... UBI ... could break the link between work and consumption."

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-universal-income-can-help-us-mitigate-our-climate-emergency-here-s-how

 

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[Gough,I]

This paper makes no reference to the extensive critical  literature on UBI - ethical, fiscal, consequentialist - let alone to arguments that it will exacerbate commodification and undermine sustainability. I cannot supply refs on iPhone but will soon. Ian Gough

Get Outlook for iOS

---

From: sco...@googlegroups.com <sco...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of JOHN DE GRAAF,* JOHN DE GRAAF <jo...@comcast.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2019 3:52:11 PM
To: tab...@gmail.com; Robert Rattle
Cc: SCORAI Group
Subject: Re: [SCORAI] Here's How a Universal Basic Income Can Help Us Mitigate The Climate Emergency

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/2130528479.408033.1560437532233%40connect.xfinity.com.

[Gough,I]

Apologies for my short and abrupt sentence yesterday. I think the simplest way of elaborating some of the arguments I alluded to is to reprint a section from my 2017 book Heat, Greed and Human Need: Climate Change, Capitalism and Sustainable Wellbeing (Edward Elgar):

The illusions of Universal Basic Income

 

A growing number of social movements, such as the Basic Income Earth Network, are calling for a universal unconditional basic income (UBI) for all citizens or residents of a territory. Not all of these are motivated by environmental concerns, but it is notable that UBI has been promoted since the early 1970s by green parties and degrowth advocates (Daly   ; greens   ; Schneider et al 2010). This section briefly reviews the case for and against a UBI and how it may or may not fit with degrowth scenarios.

 

A UBI is an unconditional payment made regularly to every individual as a right of citizenship. It would aim to provide ‘a basic amount on which every citizen can survive’, usually excluding highly variable expenses such as housing or extra costs for disability living. A UBI would ensure a minimum income for all citizens as of right rather than in response to their particular circumstances, or as a benefit earned by paid work and social contributions. There are several arguments made in its favour with a link to sustainability and post-growth. First, it would provide more freedom of choice over citizens’ life courses; it would promote a better work-life balance, enhance gender equality and expand choices between paid and unpaid work. It might enable more people to contribute to the ‘core economy’. Second, it is claimed it will provide a solution to the labour market disruption that, it is assumed, will be caused by automation and will address intensifying precariousness, especially for young people. Third, it is ‘minimally presumptuous’: a UBI entails no official enquiries into a person’s activities or household arrangements, in sharp contrast to assistance benefits in many welfare systems (Goodin, Robert, 1992). Consequently, it could reduce division and stigma and enhance social solidarity (Torry etc).[1]

 

Yet, all extant proposals for UBI envisage a supplemental benefit well below national poverty lines and minimum wages, let alone the decent living standard promulgated in Chapter 7. This is because of the arithmetic: a full UBI would absorb a tremendous share of national income and require big increases in taxation. As the economist Tony Atkinson explains, if a 20% tax rate is needed to pay for all other government spending, then to provide a basic income set at only 30% of average income would require additional taxation of 50% of average income -  a total tax take of 70%. This level of fiscal exaction would be still greater in a postgrowth economy.

 

The recent upsurge in interest in UBI is partly due to a renewed concern that digital automation will destroy large numbers of jobs and intensify the precarity of life for millions of people. Yet this vision of a surge in labour productivity is precisely the problem according to Jackson (2009) and other advocates of post-growth. An equally likely future scenario is one of low economic growth or ‘secular stagnation’.[2]

 

There are powerful normative arguments against UBI stemming from a wider conception of wellbeing. Liberal and libertarian arguments for UBI stress its role in achieving real freedom for all by enabling all to choose freely between work and leisure (van Parijs 1995). But from a human need perspective, participation in productive and reproductive activities, as well as contributing to collective welfare, is a crucial component of self-respect, contributes to cognitive development and provides a site for purposeful socialisation. These benefits from participating in socially significant activities are sidelined when the argument is framed as a simple calculus of choice between work and leisure. It is for this reason that most participants in experimental research value both need and desert, and favour the provision of a guaranteed minimum income but not unconditionally (Brock 2009, ch.3; Frohlich and Oppenheimer 1992; Gough 2000, ch.9). Partly in response to this the economist Tony Atkinson (2015) has suggested a universal participation income.[3] This is much closer in spirit to the concept of active wellbeing argued in this book. On the other hand it resurrects an administrative challenge absent from pure UBI, that of deciding what and how much constitutes participation.

 

Another serious problem within a post-growth scenario is that UBI focuses on money income, whereas we have demonstrated above that collective public provision of several need satisfiers is superior on grounds of efficiency, equity and sustainability.

 

The coupling of UBI with degrowth reveals a dilemma at its heart: an expanded and fiscally more demanding state is superimposed on a shrinking economy. This is of course a general dilemma, facing existing welfare states and publicly guided climate mitigation states. But the pressing need will be for a radical investment strategy: to decarbonise production and consumption, for climate adaptation programmes, for social consumption rather than individualised consumption. If it diverts attention from collective goods, services and investment, a partial UBI could end up recommodifying elements of existing welfare states (which is precisely the aim of its neocon advocates such as Charles Murray (n.d.)). A needs-based approach supports a more mixed package of policies. Policy analysis shows that there is no one-to-one relationship between policy instruments and outcomes, and that one-size-fits-all policies rarely succeed (Gough 2000, ch.9).

 

My conclusion is that UBI cannot provide a realistic transition strategy from the present to a post-growth society. UBI requires a one-off, top-down transformation: the abolition of numerous entitlements, acquired social insurance benefits, and tax reliefs. The idea of a citizen’s income resembles a ‘silver bullet’, a transformative shift that could distract attention from the complex underlying causes of inequalities, ill-health and social conflict, for example.  These require ‘upstream’ systemic changes, rather than a single downstream intervention.

 

---

[1] Most current proposals are not for a full UBI at all, but for variants which undermine its core rationale. These include ‘partial’ BI, payable to certain groups in society, such as children (there is nothing new in this), or ‘supplemental’ UBI that provides a small universal benefit alongside existing social security benefits (Piachaud 2016) cf (Reed and Lansley, 2016).

 

[2] Some economists argue that productivity will continue to fall, for several reasons: the shift to low-productivity services will continue though at a reduced rate and the debt overhang will remain (Gordon 2012; Demailly et al 2013).

[3] Participation can be broadly defined as making a social contribution – for example by full or part time waged employment or self-employment, by education, training or active job search, by home care for children or the elderly or disabled, or by regular voluntary work in a recognised association, or a portfolio of activities equalling around 35 hours per week.

UBS or UBI?

In the light of these and other dilemmas, there is now a growing advocacy for Universal Basic Services (UBS) as opposed to UBI. Initially proposed by the Institute for Global Prosperity in 2017 [i] this proposed a wider range of free public services that enable every citizen to live a larger life by ensuring access to certain levels of security, opportunity and participation. Here, services mean collectively generated activities that serve the public interest, basic means essential and sufficient rather than minimal, enabling people to flourish and participate in society, and universal means that everyone is entitled to services that meet their needs, regardless of ability to pay. The existing National Health Service (NHS) and public education are obvious examples. The original proposal for UBS advocated an extension of this model of provision to – at least - Shelter, Nutrition, Transport and Information.

In a forthcoming article in Political Quarterly (Universal Basic Services: A theoretical and moral framework) I argue the sustainability case for UBS as follows:

Public services have a greater potential to pursue sustainability goals than programmes to disburse funds for consumer expenditure. In particular they could play a greater role in prevention: ‘action to reduce the probability of a risk occurring’. The case for preventive public policy is essentially twofold: it is better for human wellbeing to prevent harm than to deal with its consequences and it promises financial savings to expensive and hard-pressed welfare states.

 

This is most apparent in facing the most profound, indeed existential, threat to contemporary public policy - climate collapse and extreme environmental stress. The urgent necessity to move away from unsustainable economic, social and environmental practices provides a novel justification for extending universal public services, in three directions. First, public provision of services strengthens the capacity of communities to adapt to or cope with severe climatic and environmental stress. The impact of Hurricane Katrina on the poor and black populations of New Orleans (in contrast to the population of Cuba, affected by the same hurricane) demonstrated the importance of collective services. Second, public services can play a vital role in decarbonising the economy in a just way. For example, Green New Deal programmes to retrofit the vast bulk of the housing stock will require public planning, finance and management. They will be needed to ensure a ‘just transition’ to lower carbon living, not simply a green capitalist transition that will load costs onto the poorest people and communities.

 

Third, UBS can play a vital role in switching the entire economy from an obsession with growth to a concern for human wellbeing within planetary limits. Public provisioning systems for healthcare and education are better able than market systems to promote sustainable consumption, to implement national strategies for reducing GHG emissions and to coordinate sustainable practices such as active travel and local food procurement. For example, the mainly privately-funded US healthcare system directly accounts for 8 per cent of emissions in the US, compared with 3 per cent of UK emissions directly stemming from the NHS. This is due both to the greater macro-efficiency and lower expenditure shares of health in the UK, and to lower emissions per pound or dollar spent, presumably as a result of better allocation of resources and procurement practices. There is some cross-national evidence that more extensive and generous welfare states are better suited to adopting and implementing pro-environmental policies, especially where they embody ideas about shared needs and collective responsibilities.....

 

Of course this leaves open the question, why not advocate both UBI and UBS? There is not the space here to confront that question properly but it embraces consequential and ethical arguments. A universal unconditional living income would require punitive levels of taxation. By focusing wholly on individual income, UBI would threaten public provision of collective consumption, which of course is why many on the libertarian right support it. UBS is fiscally more modest and discriminatory. Common human needs recognise the social foundations of life and the role of contribution to a collective cause: ‘from each according to their ability’ as a well as ‘to each according to their needs’. In this and other ways UBS embodies quite distinct, and I would argue ethically superior, ideas of economy, society, sustainability and social solidarity.

---

 

---

[i] IGP (Institute for Global Prosperity) 2017. Social prosperity for the future: A proposal for Universal Basic Services.

A couple of further references on UBI:

Zamora, D. (2017). “The Case Against a Basic Income”. Jacobin Magazine.

 

Martinelli, L. (2017). “The Fiscal and Distributional Implications for different Universal Basic Income Schemes in the UK”. Bath: Institute for Policy Research.

And forthcoming on UBS:

A.Coote, P. Kasliwal and A. Percy (2019), UBS Theory and Practice: A Literature Review.
Institute for Global Prosperity.

A.Coote and A.Percy (forthcoming 2020), The Case for Universal Basic Services. Polity Press.

---

From: sco...@googlegroups.com <sco...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gough,I <I.G...@lse.ac.uk>
Sent: 16 June 2019 12:47
To: jo...@comcast.net; tab...@gmail.com; Robert Rattle

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/AM6P191MB043865DE3139DF0BD47F0998A9E80%40AM6P191MB0438.EURP191.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

[Murphy, Jason]

You are using the gross costs of a BI when you say that it would take up a "tremendous share" of national resources and then portray it squeezing out important projects. The net costs are more salient. Many people will break even. This means that a basic income takes up no national resources. Those who pay into the program lower the net costs. 

This is a very common mistake, one even made by many supporters of BI. The net costs are much less of a burden, from 3% to 5%. We can afford to abolish poverty and mobilize the rest of the economy towards ecological and ethical ends. (I am more optimistic about BI promoting as less resource intense economy.) 

The proposed "Robin Hood Tax" would almost guarantee no one falls below the poverty line. 

This is a nice short article on net costs that includes a link to an economics article. 

https://qz.com/1355729/universal-basic-income-ubi-costs-far-less-than-you-think/  

Also, critics of basic income need to be clear whether or not they support a smaller sized grant. Why should there be zero income independent of a diagnosis of need or employment? A small amount would not hurt anyone, except those who pay into the program. 

--jbm 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/AM6P191MB04380E2B5F1CF9652E998274A9EB0%40AM6P191MB0438.EURP191.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

--

Jason Burke Murphy, Associate Professor, Philosophy, Elms College 

Elms is a liberal arts college founded by the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Chicopee, Massachusetts. www.elms.edu 

[Tom Abeles]

UBS, in the US is what is being proposed by those proposing a move to "Democratic Socialism", a system which is core in the Nordic countries and what is being provided, as best possible, in many developing countries. UBI has much of the same flavor. The question at hand is not the consumption of basic needs but what individuals want to augment their material life-style as clearly seen in the push by Wall Street to go into debt to acquire and which is aided and abetted by the consumer society as a means to mimic the material measures of the upper income brackets. A simple example is the idea of a well manicured front lawn of grass (interesting history). 

Unfortunately, the majority of US citizens' retirement programs, of various forms are tied to increasing fiscal returns of their investments and so are government retirement programs. To paraphrase from Bruce Sterling's Green Days in Brunei, they were owned by the ones and zeros in the bankers' microchips.

This is not an argument for or against either a UBS or UBI, but rather to point out that humans have material needs and wants that address many needs within societies from their beginning as studies of archeological artifacts as well as studies of contemporary societies will point out. Unfortunately, today, it's aided, abetted, and amplified by the financial industry. If one understands the banking arena, there is a need for debt/credit for a functioning economy but the drive to increase the returns coupled with human proclivities has consumption in over drive. Neither UBS nor UBI addresses this inherent problem. It is not clear from any postings here that their implementation in current embodiments will, whether in the developed or developing countries. That does not detract from the ideas behind the UBS or UBI, both of which I support.

[Robert Rattle]

Thanks for the additional information. I agree with John that UBI and re-wilding are practical examples, and believe Tom has a valid point too...for the average reader, connecting the dots might not be as intuitive as academics and pracademics might observe. Of course there are counter arguments that require more discussion. Some of these might be captured in the Basic Income Canada Network framework for the BI that we want.

It's important to note that primarily a BI intends to provide a guaranteed floor to meet essential income needs below which no one can fall.  It is not a silver bullet. In addition, a BI seeks to remove some of the paternalistic barriers to programs (that seek to accomplish this) that already exist in many states, more equitably redistribute social wealth, and expand social opportunitities.  Beyond that, the more theortical aspects of severing labour from income, contributing to degrowth, etc. depend on many details of any such BI and other state programs, values and mandates, and their role in transforming prevailing societal systems of provisioning (assuming that is even identified as a goal).

Given we already subsidize many market activities - for example the fossil fuel industry - in most countries to the tune of billions of dollars annually ($3.3 B in Canada annually for the fossil fuel industry alone, excluding the 2018 TMX $4.5 B buyout for which a decision yesterday to proceed was gushing with the political rhetoric of a declared climate emergency), and the evident health and social costs of current systems, a BI is within grasp with no additional taxation. In Canada for instance, poverty costs an estimated $8 B in health care costs, employment insurance another $20 B, paternalistic social transfer programs costing another $12 B.  Add to these all the additional market incentives and environmental costs that expand inequities, its more than evident in Canada at least in theory, a fully costed BI pegged at $76 B is easliy within grasp.  Overall, the cost of poverty alone in Canada is between $72 B and $ 85 B - about that of a fully implemented federal BI program.  That's not taking into account the additional tax revenues that go to creating market distortions (eg. FF industry), industry 'job creating' supports, environmental remediation and more.  All we need (!) is a redistribution that centers on a shift in values from those that support capital expansion and wealth inequities (often justified on the basis that 'they will create jobs' as some surrogate for well-being) to those that support people and community. In effect, a BI is essentially and fundamentally a redistribution of wealth for social and environmental benefit, and from that perspective *could* help sever labour and income. I often am surprised that BI has such widespread support given that it could challenge the very nature of materialistic growth economies. There is considerable slack in most if not all state fiscal realities to readily support a full and healthy BI.  The only outstanding question is do we support 'creating' work and jobs for what is now predominantly uneconomic growth even if it means destroying biological diversity and messing with our climate regimes, or look for solutions?

In terms of "participation in productive and reproductive activities, as well as contributing to collective welfare, is a crucial component of self-respect, contributes to cognitive development and provides a site for purposeful socialisation.", this is exactly what a BI intends to do. By removing the stress of and need for many mcjobs, coercive market-based programs and paternalistic social programs, people are returned the opportunity to follow their passions, interests, and values preciesly to participate "in productive and reproductive activities, as well as contributing to collective welfare." The current system (weakly argued on meritocracy and competition) utterly fails to permit this wasted opportunity. The freedom to have all of ones needs and the time to secure additional wants and engage in productive social outputs suggests a modest BI could help emancipate billions of people with little to no material impact on the planet.

But BI is not a silver bullet.  Indeed, a key factor is that a BI MUST not be considered a silver bullet: in most countries, educational, social, health and other programs serve an essential purpose. It is telling that some on the right of the political spectrum consider a BI as an alternative/silver bullet to 'maintaining the existing systems of provisioning.' This of course would be as disastrous as what currently exists.

A BI is only part of a solution that could sever income from labour; but the devil will always be in the details.  In the same way climate change cannot be solved by carbon taxation alone, larger systemic transfromations will not emerge without multiple policy tools.  Shaping a BI to sever income from labour (not an easy task in itself even if that were intended) is only part of the solution.

---

From: "Gough,I" <I.G...@lse.ac.uk>
To: "jo...@comcast.net" <jo...@comcast.net>; "tab...@gmail.com" <tab...@gmail.com>; Robert Rattle <robert1...@yahoo.ca>; "Gough,I" <I.G...@lse.ac.uk>
Cc: SCORAI Group <sco...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2019 1:13 PM

[Jorge Pinto]

Hi all,

This is indeed an interesting discussion and, rest assured, one which UBI researchers have been looking into for a while. I take the opportunity to inform you that later this year a new handbook on UBI will be published, including a chapter on UBI and ecology, which I've co-authored. In the text, we have as well a comment/critique on Ian Gough's book. I'm happy to send it to you, once it is published.

Here the link to the book: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030236137#aboutBook

Regards,

Jorge

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[Nils Larsson]

Hello all

I am not an economist, but I do recall reading a fascinating collection of essays called Communitas in the mid-60s. It was written by Paul and Percival Goodman (I believe that one was an economist and the other a sociologist) and dealt with what they felt were logical scenarios for American life in the future.  One was a scenario for a more rational way of fully implementing a consumer culture, which consisted of an annual festival at which citizen-consumers would bring last year’s consumer goods and throw them on a bonfire, after which factories would start humming again. This was a stimulating idea, even if rather painful to read now.

More pertinent to your UBI discussion was their proposal to require 6 years of civilian or military service of young people, after which they would receive a basic annual income for life. One interesting issue they raised, which I have not seen in your discussions, was that success of the scheme would require the recipients to feel that they had earned the UBI, hence the trade-off between short-term service and long-term income.

Any comments from the learned discussants?

Nils Larsson, FRAIC

Executive Director, iiSBE

and

Representative of the SBE series co-owners

CIB, iiSBE, UN Environment and FIDIC

Summer address

Amiel, Penne du Tarn

81140 France

Tel:  +33 (0)5 6356 3770

Email:  lar...@iisbe.org larsso...@gmail.com

 

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[Jean Boucher]

Yes, thanks for this conversation, its all important to throw into the soup.

I am fascinated by the cultural angle and how Robert has worded it, "shaping a BI to sever income from labour" - or somehow toning down what "work" means and what "earning" means and "productivity" too. Can we remove the status competitions from different lines of work and earning, is it ok to spend and earn more as an artist or home gardener and reward such lives to low environmental impact. I am reading a nice indigenous book now called "Who's Land is it Anyway."  There's a great line that says, "Take only what you need and remember to give back."  Which brings in discussions of sufficiency. And there are people like social workers and teachers who are great at giving back and due to low incomes are force to live low impact lives. Lots of work to transform what capitalist culture has done to the global consciousness.

Jean

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If there is no struggle, there is no progress. -- Frederick Douglass