BOOK REVIEW/Heather Seggel

Give People Money

In the 1980s, comic Bobcat Goldthwait had a bit in his act about losing his job. “I mean, I didn’t actually lose my job, I know where it is,” he observed, “It’s just that when I go there, now there’s this new guy doing it.” It got a good laugh, and later in the set he would call back to it with a line about losing his girlfriend (I’ll leave it to you to connect those dots).

This gag came to mind while reading Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World (Crown New York). Cab driver suicides are on the rise, in part because these new guys — Uber and Lyft drivers — are doing it, for longer hours and less pay. Automation means the new guy might be a machine, or some form of AI, or even a driverless car; you’ve been warned, Uber guy. Author and Atlantic contributing editor Annie Lowrey explores how a Universal Basic Income (UBI) may offer a way forward that doesn’t just offset the worst effects of capitalism, but allows us to be our best as a society.

The fact that UBI is income and not material “aid” (think government cheese in the US or Toms shoes in African countries) is significant. Lowrey describes the M-Pesa program, a mobile phone-based money transfer service that was tested in Kenya; citizens were given a cheap cell phone and their money was distributed as “minutes.” When people were lifted out of poverty, their creativity came to the fore. Men invested in small businesses (one saved three months’ worth of payments to buy the cord for fishing nets, another bought a motorcycle to use as a taxi). Women could buy better food for their families, and thus had more time to spend caring for them. Children were healthier and more likely to excel. Anyone trying to argue that “handouts” lead to laziness would be astonished at the life force unleashed by a modest influx of cash to the very poor. Rather than reinforcing indolence or entitlement, it frees people to think clearly and embrace entrepreneurship.

Not only is material aid often poorly targeted (Lowrey saw pairs of Toms shoes shoved into building rafters while traveling in Africa, and stories of food being skimmed from aid packages are common), it presumes to know what’s best for people who can decide as much for themselves. That paternalistic approach to assistance relies on power dynamics that make it harder for people to get free of aid programs and reassert their independence. A UBI is neutral in that regard, with everyone getting the same opportunity. Lowrey describes it as, “(N)ot so much about welfare as inclusion.”

Still, another advantage comes when we look at how wealth is distributed geographically in the US. The concentration on either coast has led to an astronomical cost of living; a UBI could help people there make ends meet and maintain a foothold in the tech world, for example. But the impact for people living in economically deprived areas would be substantially greater: The same amount of money would go much farther, driving economic growth and lifting vast numbers of people out of poverty.

There are plenty of arguments that this idea can never work, and Lowrey gives them all their due, but just for this moment let’s play: Imagine that each month you receive a check for $1,000. If you receive government assistance it will be discontinued, but this money is yours to do with as you like. What would you do? If you’re very poor this may involve some number-crunching on a napkin (that’s what I did), but someone with a low but stable income may be able to return to school, fund a passion project or start-up business, or even — wonder of wonders — choose to simply work less. More time for family, or art, or (your dream here)? These all point toward a happier, healthier, more productive society.

There is so much more to this book than space allows for: The devaluing and ignoring of work done by women and people of color, our cultural resistance to “universal” anything because it includes people we see as “other,” and the very real ways we could fund a program this ambitious if we simply had the will to make it so. Give People Money is a thought experiment of sorts, but it’s an experiment we need to be running, urgently, because the world it anticipates is in many ways already here.

Heather Seggel is a writer based in Northern California. Email heatherlseggel@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2018

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