This post is available in:
Dansk 
English
Version 1.00, September the 3rd, 2013
I’ve given the ideas basic income (or citizen’s wage) and solidarity division of labour some thoughts. I will try expressing it succinctly, in the belief that the reader can see the potential and imagine all the details, otherwise questions are of course welcome.
The reason I work with these issues right now is that until January the 14th 2014 there is a petition throughout the EU on the subject of basic income, in accordance with the relatively new section of the EU Treaty, which says that if at least one million EU citizens sign the petition, the European Commission is obliged to examine the feasibility of introducing basic income and send the initiative to a hearing in the European Parliament. See also: www.basicincome.org and basicincome2013.eu. I call on you to sign here: Signup-page
Unconditional Basic Income is not just something visionary dreamers talk about. Some university professors perceive it as a necessity for continued peace and justice globally, for example Professor Guy Standing, SOAS, University of London. See also his inaugural lecture here: Precariat And Peasant: Reframing Social Protection For The 21st Century
The overall goal of unconditional basic income is to reduce the imbalance, inequality, lack of freedom, insecurity, stress and other inexpediencies that are the results of the gap between having a job and not having a job.
Another way of expressing this imbalance in our current society is, that work basically is a duty without, at the same time, being a right. This is not coherence, neither logically nor morally. That should be changed.
The first objection people come up with when you say that everyone should be entitled to a monthly unconditional basic income from the state without having to meet any certain requirements or conditions, is that there will not be sufficient enough people who will bother to go to work and produce all the things the rest of us can then buy in the stores for our basic income. But this problem is not necessarily real (for several reasons).
First, strictly speaking, it is just a matter of how big this basic income is! It must, in other words, be adjusted so that there is a balance between how much work there is and how many people want to work.
Thus, if it turns out that the basic income can not be very high, then it will be necessary to complement it with 2 principles or systems. Firstly, people who, for health reasons, are unable to work and in the current system for instance receive early retirement shall have an additional social benefit so that they have approximately the same standard of living as they have now. Secondly, the introduction of a solidarity division of labor, which ensures that all those who need to supplement their basic income with an employment income can get the amount of work they need.
This second system – joint division of employment – can, in principle, be introduced without introducing the basic income (citizen’s wage). In that way you can remove some of the imbalances, inequality, lack of freedom, lack of flexibility, etc., created by the existing gap between having a job and not having one. But the most logical thing is to introduce it while introducing unconditional basic income.
As an example of how the solidarity division of labor will work in practice, I will mention a small construction firm, which in the current system could have 5 employees who each work 40 hours per week. In the new system, with basic income and solidarity of labor, there will instead be perhaps 7 or 8 employees, who work 5×40 hours per week in total. In return, unemployment does not exist anymore!
This allows unemployment benefits, social security, etc. to be abolished, along with activation of the unemployed and a lot of bureaucracy and waste of time for all parties.
As I said before: This is the short version of the vision, where I am far from having mentioned and explained all the many positive aspects and implications of the principles.
You can post comments below in the Facebook Comments Box. And I call on you, once again, to sign here:Signup-page
Love
Henrik Rosenø
