Two authors want to bring order to the debate about basic income.
(Photo: Imago)
As long as debates are conducted as a cut-throat competition between fundamental ideological concepts, even the best reasons have little chance of arriving in reality. On the subject of basic income, two authors are now forming an alliance for a book that is intended to bring order to the debate in which things are going haywire.
Rolf G. Heinze is a senior professor and previously held the chair for general sociology, work and economics at the Ruhr University in Bochum. Jürgen Schupp teaches sociology at the Freie Universität Berlin.
The authors do not fall into the trap of an argumentative monoculture. Many streams must unite to reform a creaky system. But they flow, even against the continued existence of powerful groups and the longing for perseverance of normal consumers.
What about the idea and reality of an unconditional basic income (BGE) in the welfare state of the Federal Republic?
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First of all: This book is not easy to drink, but nutritious. It does not collect the dogmas of the doubters or missionaries. It shows “quite simply” how much UBI has long been part of everyday socio-political life. So the book comes at the right time.
Open societies discuss their controversies with relatively flat levels of excitement. Their “revolutions” do not require a “storming of the Bastille.” They infiltrate. Small transplants are created that gradually grow together and thus heal the social burns of society.
Rolf G. Heinze, Jürgen Schupp: Basic Income.
Springer VS
Wiesbaden 2022
324 pages
34.99 euros
“The historical location shows this ‘silent’ change to a social investment welfare state that has been going on for a long time and refers to current alliances for the expansion of universal basic security.” This is then not the brute result, not the reluctantly donated alms for humble recipients, but “negative taxation “ as an investment in idle skills, strength, creative capital. An idea for more efficiency in the use of funds, fairness, less bureaucracy and acceptance. Quasi transfer payments, the rules of which fit “on a beer mat”.
Example: basic child security. To this end, 22 organizations have recently joined forces. Children are living beings to whom Article 1 of the Basic Law applies, without first having to earn this dignity through paid work. Basic security not as a repair for the parents’ failed careers, but as an investment in society’s most important potential: the future.
Or: The upcoming upheavals (climate change, decarbonization, digitization, state of exhaustion due to the pandemic). Here, too, the UBI can alleviate “energy-sapping existential fears” and reduce creative wasteland. People accept the necessary transformations more easily if they do not come at the cost of foregoing security.
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One does not like to risk a step on shaky ground, let alone a leap into the unknown. Those who no longer have to live from hand to mouth will find ways to shape things instead of reasons to complain.
Social policy as a special case-oriented, minimally invasive intervention is no longer sufficient. She reacts to the unequal in an undifferentiated manner. It costs bureaucratic effort for the needs assessment and handles with thumbscrews. Too often they are misplaced.
Many, out of shame, refuse to accept the “support” due to them. Experience has shown that it is not the bold and dust-off who are frightened by bureaucrats and bureaucracy. This leads to “hidden poverty” among those who should and must be supported. Perceived inconsistencies and injustices shatter the legitimacy of the state.
The digital revolution will bring new jobs, but even if they replace the lost ones, the dividend tends to go into the pockets of a small stratum. The growth into a global corporation no longer automatically means an increase in the workforce. With the right algorithm, a handful of inventors can generate more revenue than thousands of employees used to.
Heinze, who repeatedly takes on the topic, and Schupp help us to overcome bipolar front positions in thinking. We should no longer discard possible development paths without checking them.
Comforting: visions eventually mutate into transformation. No generation has the right to consume the future of the following. The epoch-making idea of the Federal Constitutional Court on climate change naturally also applies to other areas.
More: Time of Great Inflation: A Tale of the Time When Germany Was Really Broke