Guy Standing > Quotes

“education sold as an investment good that has no economic return for most buyers is, quite simply, a fraud.”
― Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

“Why should people with particular skills – always accepting they are skills – live a vastly better economic life than others who have different skills?”
― Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

“Without the freedom to make ‘mistakes’, people cannot learn to take control of their lives successfully.”
― Guy Standing, A Pelican Introduction: Basic Income

“Naomi Klein among others has called the globalisation era ‘crony capitalism’, revealing itself not as a huge ‘free market’ but as a system in which politicians hand over public wealth to private players in exchange for political support.”
― Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

“Selective paternalism, for those on low incomes or for other groups needing state assistance, is perhaps even worse than general paternalism, since the minority are denied the opportunity to overturn the rule democratically. The”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“Too often, observers and commentators presume the poor are ‘stupid’, irrational or incapable of making rational decisions. Some enlightened experiments have shown that they just have fewer resources. No doubt, trust will sometimes disappoint. But it is a good principle to guide social policy. Moreover, we all need the freedom to make some poor decisions (though preferably not calamitous ones) in order to learn from them and experiment. Without the freedom to make ‘mistakes’, people cannot learn to take control of their lives successfully.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“What is the ethical or philosophical justification for a basic income? A fundamental claim is that it is an instrument of social justice that reflects the intrinsically social or collective character of society’s wealth. In the writer’s view, social justice is the most important rationale for moving towards basic income as an economic right, although it is complementary to the other two major rationales, namely freedom and economic security.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“Security is a precious asset. It should be a goal of everyone who genuinely wants to build a good society rather than one that facilitates the aggrandizement of a privileged elite who knowingly gain from the insecurities of others. Wanting others to have what you want takes courage. That is what basic income is about.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“It started as a youth movement, with educated disgruntled Europeans alienated by the competitive market (or neo-liberal) approach of the European Union project that was urging them on to a life of jobs, flexibility and faster economic growth. But their Eurocentric origins soon gave way to internationalism, as they saw their predicament of multiple insecurities linked to what was happening to others all over the world. Migrants became a substantial part of the precariat demonstrations.”
― Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

“In Lebanon, home to well over a million Syrian refugees, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) decided to use its limited ‘winterization’ funds to pay cash transfers to vulnerable families living above 500 metres altitude. These were unconditional, although recipients were told they were intended for buying heating supplies. Recipient families were then compared with a control group living just below 500 metres. The researchers found that cash assistance did lead to increased spending on fuel supplies, but it also boosted school enrolment, reduced child labour and increased food security.55 One notable finding was that the basic income tended to increase mutual support between beneficiaries and others in the community, reduced tension within recipient families, and improved relationships with the host community. There were significant multiplier effects, with each dollar of cash assistance generating more than $2 for the Lebanese economy, most of which was spent locally.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“It was Ephialtes, in fact, who initiated democratic reforms that involved paying citizens for jury service. Shortly afterwards, he was assassinated (allegedly by his political opponents), and Pericles, his second-in-command, then took over. So, although it was hardly the ideal omen, we could say that Ephialtes was the true originator of the basic income, or at least the ‘citizen’s income’ variant. The essence of ancient Greek democracy was that the citizens were expected to participate in the polis, the political life of the city. Pericles instituted a sort of basic income grant that rewarded them for their time and was intended to enable the plebs – the contemporary equivalent of the precariat – to take part. The payment was not conditional on actual participation, which was nevertheless seen as a moral duty. Sadly, this enlightened system of deliberative democracy, facilitated by the basic income, was overthrown by an oligarchic coup in 411 BC. The road was blocked for a very long time.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“While there are reasons to be sceptical about the predicted technological dystopia that has prompted many high-tech plutocrats to come out in support of basic income, this may nevertheless be a strong factor in mobilizing public pressure and political action. Whether jobs are going to dry up or not, the march of the robots is undoubtedly accentuating insecurity and inequality. A basic income or social dividend system would provide at least a partial antidote to that, as more commentators now recognize.6 For example, Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum and author of The Fourth Industrial Revolution, has described basic income as a ‘plausible’ response to labour market disruption.7”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“Managements can now view computer screens, capture computer keystrokes, identify websites frequented and track workers’ whereabouts through GPS-enabled mobile phones, webcams and minuscule video cameras.”
― Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

“My contention is that a basic income would increase both the amount and the productivity of ‘work’, and could also increase the quality of ‘leisure’, in the ancient Greek sense of schole. This term, from which the English word ‘school’ is derived, meant being free from the necessity to labour, which Aristotle argued was a necessary condition for full participation in cultural and political life. That aside, would it be so bad – socially, economically and ecologically – if some people took advantage of a basic income to reduce the amount of labour and/or work?”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“Contrary to the preaching of dour labourists, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a bit of laziness. Great philosophers through the ages have argued in its favour. Aristotle explicitly recognized the necessity of aergia, laziness, for contemplative thought. Bertrand Russell wrote a celebrated essay, In Praise of Idleness. Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx’s son-in-law, authored a subversive book entitled The Right to be Lazy that communists detested because it made the case against forcing everybody to labour more intensively. Today, however, the words ‘idleness’ and ‘lazy’ are used pejoratively to convey indolence, time wasting and drift. What is wrong with idleness? In modern society, more than ever, we need to slow down and recall the wisdom of Cato when he said, ‘Never is a man more active than when he does nothing.’ We are in danger of losing the capacity to reflect, to deliberate, to ponder, even to communicate and to learn in the true sense of that term.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“There is an oft-told story of a delegation going to the White House to present President Franklin D. Roosevelt with a policy proposal. After he had listened to them, he said, ‘Okay, you have convinced me. Now go out and bring pressure on me to do it.’ Fundamental social change rarely comes without sustained political pressure. And politicians are rarely intellectual or policy leaders, even though they will try to take the credit for something once it is up and running. Just occasionally, one emerges with the courage to lead. Pressure matters. One”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“Environmental pollution is a regressive phenomenon, since the rich can find ways of insulating themselves from bad air, dirty water, loss of green spaces and so on. Moreover, much pollution results from production and activities that benefit the more affluent – air transport, car ownership, air conditioning, consumer goods of all kinds, to take some obvious examples. A basic income could be construed, in part, as partial compensation for pollution costs imposed on us, as a matter of social justice. Conversely, a basic income could be seen as compensation for those adversely affected by environmental protection measures. A basic income would make it easier for governments to impose taxes on polluting activities that might affect livelihoods or have a regressive impact by raising prices for goods bought by low-income households. For instance, hefty carbon taxes would deter fossil fuel use and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change as well as reduce air pollution. Introducing a carbon tax would surely be easier politically if the tax take went towards providing a basic income that would compensate those on low incomes, miners and others who would lose income-earning opportunities. The basic income case is especially strong in relation to the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. Across the world, in rich countries and in poor, governments have long used subsidies as a way of reducing poverty, by keeping down the price of fuel. This has encouraged more consumption, and more wasteful use, of fossil fuels. Moreover, fuel subsidies are regressive, since the rich consume more and thus gain more from the subsidies. But governments have been reluctant to reduce or eliminate the subsidies for fear of alienating voters. Indeed, a number of countries that have tried to reduce fuel subsidies have backed down in the face of angry popular demonstrations.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“Thatcher began the privatization of the most precious part of Britain’s social commons, the National Health Service, through what her economic advisers called the ‘micro-politics of privatization’. The idea was that the government should gradually cut resources for a popular service so as to undermine faith in its capacity to deliver, leading to acceptance of”
― Guy Standing, Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth

“The importance of ethical governance, exemplified by the Norwegian Pension Fund, is highlighted by a deplorable UK government proposal in 2016 to set up a Shale Wealth Fund.38 The fund would receive up to 10 per cent of the revenue generated by fracking (hydraulic fracturing) for shale gas, which could amount to as much as £1 billion over twenty-five years. This would be paid out to communities hosting fracking sites, which could decide to use the money for local projects or distribute it to households in cash. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is a bribe to secure local approval of environmentally threatening fracking operations, to which there has been considerable public opposition. Beyond that, there are many equity questions. Why should only people who happen to live in areas with shale gas be beneficiaries? How would the recipient community be defined? Would the payments go only to those living in the designated community at the time the fracking started? Would they be paid as lump sums or on a regular basis, and how long would they last? What about future generations? Can cash payments compensate for the risk of harm to the air, water, landscape and livelihoods? All these questions cast doubt on the equity and ethics of any selective scheme. They underline the need for the principles of wealth funds and dividends from them to be established before they are implemented, and for a governance structure that is independent from government and business. But”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“a basic income is arguably more justified by the need for economic security than by a desire to eradicate poverty. Martin Luther King captured several aspects of this rather well in his 1967 book, Where Do We Go from Here? [A] host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows that he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated.15 Twentieth-century welfare states tried to reduce certain risks of insecurity with contributory insurance schemes. In an industrial economy, the probability of so-called ‘contingency risks’, such as illness, workplace accidents, unemployment and disability, could be estimated actuarially. A system of social insurance could be constructed that worked reasonably well for the majority. In a predominantly ‘tertiary’ economy, in which more people are in and out of temporary, part-time and casual jobs and are doing a lot of unpaid job-related work outside fixed hours and workplaces, this route to providing basic security has broken down. The”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“PROFESSOR’S TEASER Here is an interesting teaser from Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw, in a blog post entitled ‘A quick note on a universal basic income’.25 Consider an economy in which average income is $50,000 but with much income inequality. To provide a social safety net, two possible policies are proposed. Which would you prefer? — A universal transfer of $10,000 to every person, financed by a 20-percent flat tax on income. — A means-tested transfer of $10,000. The full amount goes to someone without any income. The transfer is then phased out: You lose 20 cents of it for every dollar of income you earn. These transfers are financed by a tax of 20 percent on income above $50,000. I have seen smart people argue as follows: Policy A is crazy. Why should Bill Gates get a government transfer? He doesn’t need it, and we would need to raise more taxes to pay for it. Policy B is more progressive. It targets the transfer to those who really need it, and the transfer is financed by a smaller tax increase levied only on those with above-average incomes. But here is the rub. The two policies are equivalent. If you look at the net payment (taxes less transfers), everyone is exactly the same under the two plans. The difference is only a matter of framing. The professor’s argument is logically sound, although in practice the two policies are not equivalent. Means testing necessarily involves administrative costs for the state, and personal costs for the claimants, that reduce the value of any payment below its nominal value. Means-tested benefits are also uncertain and unstable, because the earned income on which they are based is uncertain and unstable. So, while the exchequer cost of the two policies may be equivalent, the value to recipients is not. All the more reason to go for the non-means-tested universal payment and claw it back from higher earners through the tax system.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“The ‘republican’ variant is that freedom must mean non-domination. Stemming from Aristotle, republican freedom requires freedom from potential domination as well as from actual domination by figures, institutions or processes of unaccountable domination.12 In other words, to the extent that authority figures or institutions could, if they wished, ‘arbitrarily interfere’ with a person’s ability to act or think (or develop), republican freedom is compromised.13 This view is linked to the argument, derived in part from the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that the very existence of property can destroy or compromise such freedom. After all, if a few families own all the land, to talk of everyone having freedom would be absurd. Robust republican freedom could be said to exist if everyone in society could avoid or escape from unwanted interference, and also from the rational fear of it. To be free, a person must be free of the will of others. If I fear rationally and reasonably that, were I to offend someone, my freedom would be lost, I am not free. By contrast with libertarianism, which sees all government as compromising freedom, republican freedom requires and depends on government. But it must be government that is democratically accountable and geared to the promotion of full freedom, defined primarily as the ability of the most vulnerable in society to avoid domination. Republican freedom also requires government to ensure that the choices of the powerful cannot block others from making choices themselves. If”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“To be free in the republican sense, people must have adequate resources enabling them to make reasonable choices, whatever the preferences and opinions of others. And full freedom requires that others are aware of this freedom and thus cannot look down on someone in pity or contempt. Freedom must mean neutrality towards individual decision making, not a carefully constructed, devious, non-transparent edifice of devices to induce norm-driven behaviour, however benevolent the intention. This clearly justifies a basic income, and combats the pernicious notion of the beggar, a ‘stigmatized petitioner’. Part of the republican tradition, associated with Hannah Arendt as well as Aristotle, also embraces the idea of ‘associational freedom’ – the ability and opportunity to act in concert as a group. Associational freedom has been under relentless attack by the neo-liberal state, for the simple reason that ‘associations’ can be portrayed as opposed to market forces and as distorting them. A republic is conceivable only if everybody is in the company of equally self-confident people free of existential fear. This”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“The ethical and philosophical justifications for basic income – social justice, freedom and economic security – have been well established. They are embedded in the Enlightenment values of all civilized societies and are clearly interrelated, ultimately resting on the sentiment of empathy. This is the emotion that separates the progressive mind from the reactionary one. Empathy derives from a strong faith in the human condition. It is the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes and to accept that people have the right to live as they wish, as long as they do no intentional or careless harm to others. Defending”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“Cash transfer schemes that at present are overwhelmingly targeted at ‘the poor’ have the potential to prepare the way for basic income.2 But four factors have so far impeded the transition – a belief in ‘targeting’ (only the poor should receive the cash), ‘selectivity’ (some groups should have priority), ‘conditionality’ (recipients should be required to undertake certain actions or behave in certain ways), and ‘randomization’ (policy should only be introduced when it has been tested, or evaluated, by randomized control trials, and thus be ‘evidence-based’).”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“Leaving aside instrumental reasons for supporting a basic income, the thrill lies in the potential to advance full freedom and social justice, and the values of work and leisure over the dictates of labour and consumption. The times they are a-changin’, sang Bob Dylan. And times do change the chances of success. As Thomas Paine so memorably put it in the introduction to his epochal Common Sense of 1776, ‘Time makes more Converts than Reason.’ For basic income or social dividends, the time is now.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“In Brazil, from 2008–14, a local NGO, ReCivitas Institute, gave a monthly basic income of about US$9 to 100 residents of Quatinga Velho, a small poor village in São Paulo state, funded by private donors. In January 2016, it launched Basic Income Startup, another donor-funded project, which will give individuals a ‘lifetime’ basic income, adding another individual for each $1,000 donated. ReCivitas hopes this idea will be replicated elsewhere in Brazil and internationally.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“number of US firms weed out job applicants with bad credit records, believing they would make risky employees. So past behaviour outside your work is used against you. Companies are doing this systematically, also drawing on social networking sites to assess character traits as well as past misdemeanours, relationships and so on. But this is unfair discrimination. There are many reasons for a spell of ‘bad credit’, including illness or a family tragedy. Secret screening by crude proxies for possible behaviour is unfair.”
― Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

“The experience of cash transfer programmes and basic income pilots is that, for the most part, the money is spent on ‘private goods’, such as food for children, healthcare and schooling. What is more, studies have shown that, contrary to popular prejudice, receipt of a basic income or cash transfer leads to reduced spending on drugs, alcohol and tobacco, which can be seen as ‘therapy bads’ (or ‘compensatory bads’) for alleviating a difficult and hopeless situation. Four examples are worth reflection. In Liberia, a group of alcoholics, addicts and petty criminals were recruited from the slums, and each given the equivalent of US$200, with no conditions attached. Three years later, they were interviewed to find out what they had used the money for. The answer was mainly for food, clothing and medicine. As one of the researchers wondered, if such people did not squander a basic income grant, who would?8 Another study, reported by The Economist, took place in the City of London, known as the Square Mile, where a ‘hidden legion of homeless people’ emerges in the evening.9 Broadway, a charity, identified 338 of them, most of whom had spent over a year living on the streets. It singled out the longest-term rough sleepers, those who had been on the streets for over four years, asked what they needed to change their lives and gave it to them. The average outlay was £794. Of the thirteen who engaged, eleven had moved off the streets within a year. None said they wanted the money for drink, drugs or gambling. Several told researchers that they cooperated because they were offered control over their lives, rather than, in their eyes, being bullied into hostels. And the cost was a fraction of the £26,000 estimated to be spent annually on each homeless person, in health, police and prison bills.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

“The financing option favoured by this writer would be to fund a basic income from the construction of sovereign wealth funds, along the lines of the Alaska Permanent Fund or the Norwegian Pension Fund. This option, which draws on the work of Nobel Prize winner James Meade in his book Agathatopia, would allow a country to build up the fund over the years and raise the amount paid out as basic income, or social dividend, as the fund developed.32 Viewed as a rightful share of income flowing from our collective wealth, the social dividend approach is politically attractive since it would not require either dismantling existing welfare systems or raising taxes on earned income.”
― Guy Standing, Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen