NABIG 2018 Brian Milani GreenEconomics.net Basic Income in the New Security: Regenerative Development and the Economics of Abundance NABIG 2018 Brian Milani GreenEconomics.net

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000

The Green Economy A Historical Transition: …from Quantity to Quality A Question of Potentials …not simply limits Key to Sustainability: Redefining Wealth

Basic Income as (part of) Structural Reform Seeing Basic Income as simply a poverty reduction measure effectively blocks its contribution to both eliminating poverty altogether and unleashing regenerative development

A New Security Basic Income (in its most appropriate form) must be considered just one part of a new level of guaranteed economic security.

Guaranteed Economic Security (GES) is not the end in itself, but a means or platform for a redeployment of human energy toward social and ecological regeneration

Guaranteed Economic Security: An Essential Step in Human Development We now live in the richest human society ever known—able to support every human being to a level of healthy subsistence. Some (most?) of the worst social & environmental destruction depends on unnecessary insecurity. The Right to Live is a top moral imperative of our time. N.B.: This is NOT simply a moral or poverty reduction measure, but an essential prerequisite or platform for creating positive regenerative activity throughout the economy.

Free Money Basic Income is one element of free money in regenerative economies that seek to also provide more free food, shelter, healthcare, education, etc. Part of design to make money simply a means of regenerative exchange & development --money as information Optimizes personal choice & freedom. Role of community & digital currencies, etc.

People-Production The new platform is made necessary by the rise of culture-based production that puts all-round human development at the core of economic development. Issues of Human Nature become central elements of political-economic design. Identity: key dimension of postindustrial development at every level

Seizing the “Means of Production” in the era of People-Production: Who/What do we want to Become?

A New Stage & Paradigm of Economic Development New Productive Forces = Abundance = Culture-based economy = People-Production = Qualitative Development = Postindustrial = Green economy

Abundance = Sufficiency Economic Floor: Healthy Subsistence

Why call the New Productive Forces “Abundance”? To highlight the role of scarcity in perpetuating capitalism & ecocide To emphasize the paradigm shift required for qualitative development To call attention to the new role of the human being in economic development. To highlight the reactionary character of austerity as an economic strategy.

What are the NPFs? The centrality of culture-based production / a “knowledge-based” economy Powers resulting from the movement of industrialization into the realm of culture. A new phase of humanity’s technological extension: from “muscles to mind” An unleashing of human caring and sharing capacities long-suppressed by civilization, and now enriched with new scientific, technological and social powers of human development. Tools for reintegrating with Nature. New capacities of knowledge and design can (1) create economies that work with (rather than against) nature, and (2) free up vast resources from production to ‘dematerialize’ the economy. Post-material productive powers that make possible—and necessary—a fundamental economic shift to Qualitative Development, requiring a comprehensive redefinition of wealth.

Redefining Wealth: the starting point of real change Quantitative: Money & Material Accumulation Qualitative: Well-being Regeneration Indicators

Essential Premises Regenerative alternatives must emerge organically from the interstices of the existing system, but… This new platform is different from capitalism in form (decentralized but integrated), content (people & ecosystems, not things) & driving forces (social & environmental values, not money). Our main spiritual, social, economic, political & environmental problems are the result of the wholesale suppression of these growing potentials by late capitalism. .

Capitalism & Scarcity Capitalism: …is intrinsically a form of quantitative development & competitive individualism—both of which are (today) uneconomic and toxic to postindustrial development. …is a class society based in scarcity, and since the Great Depression it has survived primarily through the artificial creation of scarcity through waste. The main driver of “economic growth” in North America over the last 70 years has been waste

Watershed of Industrialism: The Great Depression Structural “Overproduction”: productivity outruns worker capacity to buy. Beginnings of long-term crisis of “effective demand” Waste: main development strategy to create demand without redistributing wealth.

The Post WW II Waste Economy Permanent War Economy The Suburb Economy: Oil / Autos / Subdivisions

“The greatest misallocation of resources in human history “The greatest misallocation of resources in human history.” …James Howard Kunstler

Fordism & the Reinforcement of Industrial Wealth Matter Waste Fordism Suburbanization/ Consumer Economy War Industry Money Debt Keynesianism Paper Economy Planned Inflation New forms of credit-money

Post-1980 Casino Capitalism: Hijacking the Information Revolution Main strategy for reproducing scarcity shifts from material waste to debt New info technologies supply new ways of creating money: Fantasy Finance Decline in real wages; increasing polarization of the rich and the rest. Benefits of productivity gains monopolized by the 1%. Great Risk Shift from organizations to individuals. Rise of McJobs, outsourcing. Shift in power from manufacturing to financial capital

A Dashboard for the Cockpit The ‘Family’ of indicators: Urban Metabolism or regional mass balance Green GDP (e.g. Genuine Progress Indicator—GPI ) Ecological Footprint Carbon accounting / carbon footprint Gross National Happiness index Life-cycle Assessment (products, processes, landscapes) Industry-based accounts: food, building, forestry, etc. Local Development Standards 5 ‘capitals’: personal, professional, spiritual, environmental and financial Firm sustainability accounting / Corporate governance standards (B Corp, etc.) Sustainable Community Indicators

...released this week

[Mark Anielski] Table of Contents Introduction: A New Economic Paradigm Based on Well-Being Reclaiming Economics for Happiness A Roadmap to Well-Being Bhutan, Edmonton and Alberta: Models of Well-Being Economics The Well-Being Community Well-Being for First Nations The Well-Being Workplace Accounting for Enterprise Well-Being Well-Being Impact Investing The Community Asset Well-Being Fund Banking on Well-Being Personal Well-Being

The Human in Industrial Capitalism I in Production, a Cog in the Machine & a Commodity on the Market

The Human in Industrial Capitalism II in Consumption: A Passive Consumer of Stuff

The Human Being in Culture-based Development Production: Key Factors: Human creativity & sharing Consumption: Key Factor: End-use or Human need “Hot Showers & Cold Beer” Key means: Sharing Rising portion of “public goods” …& growing importance of the Commons

Hot Showers & Cold Beer: End-Use & Service the primacy of end-use & human need a reversal of capitalism’s means/ends relationship Backcasting the starting point for ecological design: e.g. product-service systems & EPR requires integrating the formal & informal economies. subordinate manufacturing to mission

The Green Economy: Human & Eco Dimensions “The Service Economy” End-use: “Hot Showers and Cold Beer” Nutrition, Illumination, Entertainment, Access, Shelter, Community, etc. The Economy in Loops — The “Lake Economy” Flowing with nature, Every output an input, Closed-loop organization, Let nature do the work

Supporting Eco-Prosumption Advanced eco-production harnesses, nurtures, unleashes or complements the eco-capacities of every micro-climate, rooftop, back alley. Schor: growing role of “self-provision” & the informal economy in postindustrial economy. The centrality of Commons-based production: no combination of markets & government can come close to providing this vital prosumption.

Wikinomics: Supporting the Information Commons Demarketization accelerates as mass collaboration outperforms both the market & bureaucracy The labour market is particularly unsuited to remunerating work in the wiki-sphere. Not everyone today has equal opportunity & material support to participate in network society. Guaranteeing healthy subsistence is an essential prerequisite for optimal & fair mass collaboration. Guaranteed material security goes hand-in-hand with the decommodification of knowledge to create generate an explosion of regenerative creativity.

Mass Collaboration beats competition every time wikinomics: based in abundance not scarcity undermines industrial markets

Abundance-oriented Strategy: Essential Components of a Green Economy in the Anthropocene a Circular Economy Free Culture: Overhaul of Intellectual / cultural Property: “Information wants to be free” and shared! Access more important than Ownership Ownership not a right in itself, but employed as one form of stewardship or participation. Today’s property & ownership: too often a form of enclosure and an artificial generator of scarcity. Guaranteed economic security: Free food, housing, education, healthcare, & money (Basic Income, community currencies, etc.)

Basic Income Strategy (1) Think about how it can be used in combination with other forms of “free money” like communities currencies, and infrastructures of ‘free’ food, housing, goods, education, etc. to meet people’s basic needs.

Strategy (2) Dovetail its design with use of, and support for, community development plans and regenerative alternatives activities in every sector.

Strategy (3) Dovetail its design with use of, and support for, indicator systems, both social and environmental.

Strategy (4) Cultivate the engagement of activists & innovators in all areas—sustainable food systems, green energy, music and art, holistic healthcare, conscious social media, citizen science, etc.—to find out how Basic Income can support their work.

Strategy (5) Respond to the cost issue by supporting full cost/real cost research into all options and policies. Support the incorporation of full costs into market prices via green taxes, etc.

Also… Combine advocacy for BI and GES with education about economic alternatives. Show people regenerative ways to use newly freed-up time. Support commons-based activity not currently remunerated, or not fairly remunerated. Support market-based enterprises and networks that build social & environmental values into their primary driving forces. (Korten’s “mindful markets”) Use Basic Income to build support for (paid) worker unionization & collective bargaining strength, and end precarious labour.

Excellent New Book A Guaranteed Living Income for Everyone: Delusion or Necessity? by Robyn Peterson

Extra slides

Scarcity & Class Class: arose from societies with a permanent economic surplus. Based in control of scarce resources (the surplus) monopoly of ‘high’ culture Undermined by material abundance (sufficiency) Widespread cultural production

Work & Postindustrialism There is No shortage of work: there is lots to do There is a shortage of jobs paid via the market No crisis of work, but of remuneration Irrationality of labour market as we know it. Fact: the existing labour market—almost by definition—cannot possibly provide this work. An increasing role of public goods & commons-based production Abundance-based/ non-rival character of info production: “Information wants to be free” : Efficiency requires sharing.

The Problem of Costs Obvious need for transitional action & organization that can be successful But markets today, & monetary valuation generally, do not reflect real costs. What’s profitable is often destructive What’s regenerative is often completely invisible. Movement for BI: mainly based on the intuition that we can’t afford NOT to implement BI. Research that works to build full costs and benefits into everyday economics Essential to build Big Picture potentials into our transitional strategies. Make more of the Invisible visible. It’s crucial to support growing sectors of the Commons. Simply building costs into market prices isn’t enough.

Purpose in Postindustrialism The crisis of income is at roots a crisis of the purpose of work Our problems of inequality, alienation, powerlessness and environmental destruction are essentially problems with what we are collectively producing…with illth

Industrialism: The Divided Economy Invisible Visible Use-value Exchange-value “Consumption” “Production” People Things Unpaid Paid Women Men Informal Formal Private Public

From Thing-production to People-Production Increasing non-material composition of inputs and outputs. Growing portion of work involved with production of meaning and value. Intelligent design: decisive element of material production. Cultivation of human creativity & sharing: keys to postindustrial efficiency Primacy of End-use (human need) Happens everywhere, all the time Holistic human individuality: both a means and goal of postindustrial economy

The 3 D’s of Knowledge-based Development Dematerialization: substituting information for resources Detoxification: (and decarbonisation): great potential to tune in to natural processes & substances. Decentralization: intrinsic to both the network- and ecosystem-based economy

Structural Changes of Postindustrialism End of linear take/make/waste economy: --Lake/Circular economy --Inversion of labour-resource relationship End of the Divided Economy: Prosumption Abolishing Invisibility: Human creativity and ecological productivity are cultivated everywhere Info economy = Network Economy Localization of resource use / global sharing of information (Daly: “Trade recipes not cookies”)

Labour & Resource Relationship Industrial economy: resource-intensive. labour productivity: Substitutes resources for labour. Green Economy: people-intensive / resource-saving. Substitutes human creativity for resources

Invisible Economy (1) Total Productive System of an Industrial Society (layer cake with icing) 2 GNP-Monetized ½ of Cake Top two layers Non-Monetized Productive ½ of Cake Lower two layers GNP “Private” Sector Rests on GNP “Public” Sector Social Cooperative Love Economy Nature’s Layer “Private” Sector “Public”Sector “underground economy “Love Economy” Mother Nature All rights reserved. Copyright© 1982 Hazel Henderson

the appropriate goal: Gift Circulation Money as information & energy Brand: “Information wants to be free.” Requires social / eco value to be embedded in everyday life : indicators Question: transitional mechanisms

Common Sense Economics Increase restrictions on the flow of material goods and physical capital (to minimize transport costs, etc.) Lessen restrictions on the flow of information and culture. note: Globalization does exactly the opposite: via free trade and intellectual property law. Herman Daly “Trade Recipes, not Cookies.”

The Economy in Loops

Summary 1 BI is one part of a New Security essential to postindustrial development. The NS is a platform for a new stage of economic development: qualitative development. Implementing qualitative development requires a value revolution and a redefinition of wealth, as well as in-depth implementation of its indicators. Qualitative development is made possible & necessary by the rise of new productive forces based in human creativity and sharing. Capitalism is threatened by these emerging human powers. They undermine a system based in cog-labour & passive consumption. Capitalism can meet needs only as a spin-off, trickle-down or by-product of the accumulation of money & material. Qualitative development must focus directly on human need, with money & matter simply means-to-an-end. Capitalism is also, like all class societies, based in scarcity, and since the Great Depression the system has had to artificially reproduce scarcity to maintain itself.

Summary 2 Waste production has been the basis of capitalist development since WWII, especially in North America. Designed Scarcity—material, monetary & cultural—is the biggest factor in driving social & environmental destruction today. Real Abundance is qualitative not quantitative, but has an important material dimension: a floor of healthy subsistence. Qualitative development is all about purpose, end-use, and meeting deep need. Because GES is a platform for qualitative development, campaigns for BI can be more powerful if integrated with campaigns for regenerative alternatives in every sector. BI can contribute to this era’s value revolution by learning from and supporting emerging systems of social & ecological indicators.

Summary 3 3 key elements of postindustrial strategy: Circular economy, Guaranteed Economic Security, and “free culture”. The Problem with “Jobs” Reinforcing the faltering labour market can be a mistake. Developing new forms of remuneration & wealth-sharing may be more appropriate to unleash the productive powers of the Commons. Supporting work in the labour market without supporting vital work outside the market reinforces repressive industrial structures. Both ecological and informational development involve much greater levels of “public goods”, “non-rival” goods, sharing, consciousness & participation. Most existing markets suppress or ignore all these things.