>I'm with you on this, but this is a hard one to get working class support
>for. There's a lot of working class hostility to welfare recipients in the
>U.S. Part of this is the result of propaganda, for sure, but it's also a
>result of real living conditions - "if I have to work why should they get a
>check for doing nothing?"
Sam's point about a redistribution of proportions is an important one, as is making explicit the ways in which those who are rich are actually handed money (real money - bags of disposable income and not just an income which would allow them to live) for nothing, and not much to add there. I will add though that the UBI is not the dole (i.e., payment to the unemployed) but a universal income which is taxable as part of an income above the taxable threshold. a) I think it addresses the increase in casualised and temporary work, including the situation of those who work but are impoverished, in the 'poverty trap' as it's called here; b) it tries to re-assemble the working class around an income, and hence struggles around the levels of that income, much like it was in the 1940s/50s here, but importantly without the distinctions between those in full-time employment and those doing unpaid work.
the Aust left, and indeed I think sections of the Euro left, have been concerned to recreate the conditions of working class combination and combativity that obtained in the so-called era of full employment, and chaz's suggestions are along these lines as well. I think this path is dead: the period of full employment relied on a highly gendered, and racialised, distinction between paid and unpaid work (it was only the full employment of white men); and, whilst the strategy to decompose this combativity consisted of casualisation, 'part-timisation', unemployment and the growing gradation of income levels, amongst other things, there is no good reason to resort once again to the distinction between paid and unpaid work on which a prior composition was founded, not least of which because technology and changes to the labour process have decreased significantly that portion of the social product which is required for the reproduction of the working class, so any additions to work tend to be merely additions to that portion going as surplus.
so, I would say this is actually closer to the real conditions of existence of the working class (in its expansive sense) than is evident in the complaint about 'getting something for nothing': people complain about bludgers because they themselves are compelled to work so much, and increasingly to work for more and more time for the creation of a surplus.
which raises the other issue regarding the complaint about 'something for nothing': the Aust govt is notorious for claiming it wants to help women who choose to stay at home and raise children, a kick in the teeth posing as respect. my response to this would be the need for a UBI, since here is an instance where it is recognised (however much in a conservative and sexist way) that not all work is employment. sections of the Euro left have debated the idea of wages for housework for some time, but I think this would entrench the connection between women and childrearing, housework, etc rather than address it. I think the UBI is a far better option, and this illustrates the possibility of alliances in favour of a UBI which would extend beyond the unemployed.
>And I think the idea of an income without work
>would strike lots of people as dreamily impractical. It's a lot easier to
>find support for jobs programs and a higher minimum wage then it is to find
>support for something-for-nothing.
perhaps I'm thinking more of an Aust or Euro context, but it does strike me that the UBI raises a whole host of issues that are crucial. whilst I think raising minimum wages is always important, I would veer away from jobs programmes. more importantly, I think the UBI captures the social character of the working class as it exists, and not as it existed.
Angela --- rcollins at netlink.com.au