China and Universal Basic Income: Two topics hated by the same people
China and Universal Basic Income: Two topics hated by the same people
The idea of China’s poverty alleviation scheme is not new, the country has been aiming to deliver the rural population from poverty for over a generation. Now that it’s been done, the work doesn’t stop there, there is much more to do to increase the prosperity of those left in what are obviously still poor conditions.
There is not a single town, village or community left in China that doesn’t have a sealed road into it, nor is there a place where at least 4G and WiFi is unavailable and modern forms of transportation run in and out of the communities but China admits, there’s a lot more work ahead. The next scheme is called Rural Revitalisation and is aimed at encouraging people back into rural communities because there will be well paid work for them and infrastructure such as schools for their children and hospitals for the sick.
It was with great interest that a Canadian friend alerted me to Canada’s Manitoba, where a small town by the name of Dauphin was used as an experiment in Universal Basic Income (UBI). What happened was: for a period of four years the residents of this small town were guaranteed a minimum of 16,000 Canadian dollars a year. The results were impressive. The rate of hospitalisations fell, improvements were seen in mental health as well as physical health, the number of people who finished high school increased and alcohol fuelled incidents decreased.
Unfortunately, the end of the 70s came along and politics got in the way. The scheme was deemed too expensive to continue and was scrapped. The benefits were logged, filed, stored and then forgotten.
Another such experiment took place in California, in a city called Stockton 150 miles East of San Francisco. In this case, 125 low-income residents of the city received $500 a month and were able to spend it any way they wished. Once again, the results were positive. The same reduction in hospitalisations, improvements in mental health, more people were able to find jobs and crime reduced considerably. Survey results found that alcohol and tobacco, the very things the detractors suggest would be purchased with this “free money” accounted for less than 1% of the money spent. More people spent money on training and self-improvement and most of the money was used to buy items in supermarkets or to pay for utilities.
Despite the obvious successes of trials, wherever they have occurred, not everyone is as enthused by this kind of experiment. Milton Ezrati, a wealthy Wall Street economist who hates the idea that “Communist China will be running everything” described the trials as “Wrongheaded”, Iain Duncan Smith, a UK member of Parliament, and another ardent hater of China, who lives a luxury lifestyle, rent free in a mansion belonging to his father in law, a Baron, and who hates China with such a passion that he formed IPAC, the “Inter Parliamentary Alliance on China”, agrees so wholeheartedly with the wealthy elites that he has set up a think tank to write papers on the topic. He decries UBI as a “false hope” which is unaffordable, doesn’t meet the needs of low-income families, provides a disincentive to work and is no more beneficial than the current system of Social Credits for people who are unemployed or impoverished.
Australia has many calls for UBI and the majority of people in the country support it but not Eric Abetz, the same man who asked ethnically Chinese Australians to denounce the CPC but only asks Chinese people this question, despite the fact that many of them have been in Australia generations longer than his own German born family.
Fortunately, the Welsh Assembly, democratically elected to represent the people of Wales in the United Kingdom, doesn’t agree. They have introduced a UBI trial for all young children who are leaving home, or leaving the care of their caregivers.
In the UK, the welfare system was introduce over a century ago, it’s aim was to eliminate poverty by 1948, this target obviously wasn’t met, the first 40 years were mired with two world wars but they finished over 70 years ago, it’s quite apparent that welfare systems aren’t workable as poverty rates increase to more than 22% in the UK and, after 5 years of decline increased again to 11.6% in the USA, these strategies clearly need readdressing.
As poor people in both the UK and the USA see their income levels falling, while richer people see theirs increasing and, when trials and research seem to indicate incredible benefits of Universal Basic Income, it’s hardly a surprise that those privileged people who would like to see UBI fail are very much the same people who would like to see China fail too.
People who genuinely want to see poverty eradicated, view China with hope, those who look for alternative methods for the same goals will look to Wales with a great deal of optimism.
Unfortunately, there will always be people who have both economic and political power as well as goals and incentives to prevent worthwhile and obviously beneficial programs from going ahead.
