[Im Cheol-yeong's Cheonggyeongudok] Pandemic Era 'Disaster Relief Fund' as a Legitimate Right, Not Populism

Basic Income Advocate Professor Pan Pareis of University of Louvain: Job Losses Due to AI and Automation Inevitable... Basic Income Is an Essential System
Supported by Elon Musk and Former President Obama
Global Spread of COVID-19 Emerges as a Hot Issue

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] "Basic income, where the state unconditionally provides a fixed amount every month, will serve as a solid support that allows everyone to choose any social activity. Especially, it can be an alternative for the future society where polarization progresses and jobs decrease."

Such a provocative statement was made at a lecture in Korea in 2018. The speaker, Professor Philippe Van Parijs of KU Leuven in Belgium, acknowledges that basic income is a very strong and radical idea. At the same time, he emphasizes that it is a necessary system in the context of a global economic crisis, inequality, unfair distribution, and worsening job losses.

Professor Van Parijs, a leading economic philosopher representing Belgium, is a founding member of the 'Basic Income Earth Network' established in 1986 and a strong advocate of basic income. His declaration is based on the framework of "everyone’s share to everyone, each person’s share to each person."

His book, Real Freedom for All, is considered a textbook on basic income. His philosophical foundation is none other than "real freedom." The problem he raises is that freedom, regarded as an inalienable human right and assumed to be sufficiently enjoyed, is not exercised in reality. Are we living a life determined by inalienable freedom? Can we change or abandon our means of livelihood according to our free will? If there is no alternative, then fundamentally, we do not have freedom regarding our livelihood.

The reason we lack freedom of choice is that we have no power to resist the power of capital. Therefore, to restore real freedom, basic income advocates argue that we must first increase "bargaining power." The current wealth enjoyed by individuals is the result of accumulated social capital plus individual ability. Hence, from the perspective of enhancing bargaining power, basic income proponents argue that we should start by distributing the social capital shared by everyone equally.

They particularly emphasize that basic income is essential in a situation where job losses are inevitable due to rapid changes in the industrial ecosystem such as automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and platform businesses. They point out that public or private jobs created through fiscal input by progressive or conservative governments are neither fundamental solutions nor sustainable.

From the perspective of Korea, where policy ideologies are deeply ingrained, basic income theory might appear as a socialist or even communist idea. The old criticism based on the long-standing equation "distribution = universal welfare = socialism" has existed continuously since the concept of basic income was introduced domestically in 2007.

However, ironically, basic income is supported by famous figures standing at the forefront of market capitalism, such as Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla; Eric Schmidt, former chairman of Google; Klaus Schwab, chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF); Gregory Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard University; and former U.S. President Barack Obama.

Herbert Simon (1916?2001), Nobel laureate in economics in 1978, argued that "90% of the income of the current generation is the result of utilizing knowledge accumulated by previous generations." If it is a share of humanity’s accumulated contributions rather than individual contributions of the current generation, then that share should rightfully be distributed to everyone. Friedrich Hayek (1899?1992), a British economist and political philosopher known as the "father of neoliberalism," was also a supporter of basic income. For liberals who advocate small government, basic income is an idea that can replace welfare administration pursued by big government.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) has threatened the real economy, especially the livelihood economy, and the agenda of basic income, which had once drifted due to disputes between political camps, is reemerging. Consumption has sharply contracted due to the spread of COVID-19. The central and local governments are discussing measures to support by even emptying their coffers to mitigate the shock. These have been conceptualized as disaster basic income or emergency disaster relief funds. The approach has settled on providing "emergency disaster relief funds" through supplementary budgets to avoid unnecessary ideological disputes.

The emergency disaster relief funds may lead to a new phase of basic income debate. For now, it is more likely to flow into disputes between political camps. However, the debate may develop in a deeper direction beyond simple welfare populism conflicts.

On the 6th, a small business owner visited the Woori Bank headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, to receive consultation as the 'Seoul City Livelihood Innovation Finance Dedicated Window' began operations to support small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners affected by the impact of COVID-19. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

Everyone’s Share to Everyone, published by Geum Min, director of the Political Economy Research Institute Alternative, is a comprehensive book on basic income theory. Geum ran for president in 2007 advocating basic income. He finds the reason why basic income is a rightful right for us in philosophy and political economy. He even invokes Thomas Paine (1737?1809), an 18th-century American political philosopher who proposed the theory of dual ownership, to examine the current "digital platform capitalism" and the shared equity and joint ownership models proposed as basic income solutions.

The author further analyzes how basic income differs from basic welfare and the limitations of the Korean government’s direct job creation policies. Moreover, he addresses the possibilities of resolving gender inequality and overcoming ecological crises in chapters such as "How Time Oppresses Women" and "Is Green Basic Income Possible?" The author emphasizes in the book that basic income should be an "unconditional, universal, and individual dividend of accumulated social assets." The book is meaningful in that it inherits Professor Van Parijs’s philosophical foundation and attempts to expand it to the problems of real politics.

On Easter, Pope Francis expressed concern about the post-COVID-19 situation in a letter, emphasizing that since many people live day-to-day without any legal protection, it is time to consider basic income for those who have suffered more from exclusion in globalization. It has been about 13 years since basic income theory was introduced in Korea. Can it become a "sustainable alternative"? The path to realization will be long and arduous.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.