UBI (Universal or Unconditional Basic Income) is a brilliant idea. A majority of people support it. Let’s implement it worldwide. But to pay for it, we first must enact Justice Capitalism, that is, Capitalism that is fair, equal, and balanced for everyone.
But how will UBI be funded? The Tax system is broken and cannot be fixed to pay for UBI. Governments have been trying to fix the tax code forever, but it just gets more complicated with more and more loopholes. Corporations, criminals, corrupt politicians, and the 1%, hide money in Tax Havens or they game the tax rules to pay little or no taxes. Actions such as tax increases and eliminating tax havens will contribute to funding UBI but this will not be enough for the long term. Printing money, as is happening now, is also not a good solution to fund UBI as it just creates inflation which has too many negative consequences.
The best way to fund UBI is by Justice Capitalism.
The money should not come from taxation, but a dividend, financed from the returns on all our human capital; a “public” percentage of companies’ profits. Also, we will eliminate tax havens and the estimated $32 trillion hidden there. We will institute a tax on extreme wealth, a speculation tax (i.e HFT High-Frequency Trading), and a robot tax on firms that eliminate jobs by AI/automation. With this start to funding UBI, we will implement it.
Watch economist and former Greek Finance Minister @yanisvaroufakis explain it in a 4-minute video: #JusticeCapThenUBI
Two great things about Justice Capitalism: there will be fewer billionaires and it will wipe out all tax havens as people and companies won’t be able to hide money. Implementing Justice Capitalism is justified as all firms are built with our social capital. Wealth was always produced collectively and privatized by those with the power to do so.
We will be shareholders with variable ownership (little, eg 5% for small firms and larger, eg 75% for big monopoly firms such as Amazon) of every company. We will have seats on the Board of Directors and ensure that every company will act in a socially good manner, eg Environmental Social Governance to fight the Climate Crisis. This ownership will create annual Dividends that will be distributed equally to the citizens.
For people who can work, they will do so to improve their quality of life. This equal dividend distribution will be equitable and eliminate class warfare. This also will not adversely affect entrepreneurs in starting a business. People will still be able to make more money than they need. They just won’t be able to buy multiple yachts and villas or private planes. Inefficient bureaucratic social welfare departments will no longer be needed, except for the ones that support our most severely disadvantaged citizens.
To prevent politicians from messing these initiatives up, we will institute Public Financing of Elections. To do this, we will copy the gold standard of campaign election financing: Quebec Canada. There will be NO corporate, union, lobbyist, or third party donations allowed. There will be a maximum of a $100 donation per person/year to a candidate or political party. To minimize any ability of corruption, the donations will be funnelled through an independent Director of Elections. In addition to the donations, each candidate will receive a budget in equal part that will be sufficient to run a good campaign – smaller for municipal, larger for federal.
Implementing these initiatives will ensure that our society is fair, equal, and balanced for everyone.
More insight into Justice Capitalism and why it should be used to pay for UBI may be watched in these two 6-minute videos, also by Yanis Varoufakis.
The Rules Of The Game Must Change
* Nick Shcherban lives in Toronto. He is a member of the Liberal Party of Canada, and also a registered supporter of the Liberal Democrats
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Street surgeries tonight #dundeewestend
Throwing in the towel
Eight Liberal Democrat MPs have been barred from Russia
Taking a goat to the library
Michael BG
David Raw
Ruth Clark
Katharine Pindar
44 Comments
I’m happy to hear more about a fair amount of these proposals, and certainly support UBI, but can we not do the whole “this isn’t about taxation” thing and then propose things that very much are about taxation, albeit rather more serious than the existing levels of tax? I think it undermines the UBI side more than it helps.
Why give hard earned taxpayers’ money to the wealthy who have no need for it?
Brenda from Bristol might say ” Your Joking! An article about a UBI. Not another one!”
“UBI (Universal or Unconditional Basic Income) is a brilliant idea. A majority of people support it.”
Just what do they support? Sure a UBI sounds like a nice idea until we get down to the nitty gritty of the numbers. Most of the proposals involve cutting back or removing personal allowances. Do they support that?
“The best way to fund UBI is by Justice Capitalism. The money should not come from taxation, but a dividend, financed from the returns on all our human capital; a “public” percentage of companies’ profits”
This is all very airy-fairy. However you want to spin it it’s still a tax on company profits. The reason the big international companies manage to avoid paying their fair share of tax is to move their profits out of the UK by price transfers and other easy-to-do mechanisms. Their tax returns in the UK show ultra low profits.
So, if they don’t show any profits for tax purposes, why would you expect it to be any different when it comes to paying out your dividend? I suppose you could always try sending in your invoice to their company offices in Luxembourg or the Cayman Islands, or wherever the profits end up.
Good Luck with that!
Nick Shcherban’s contribution is very interesting.
Certainly my opinion is that most people are looking for a new way of having accountability in a democracy. The reality is that our we are using nineteenth century methods in the twenty-first century.
The world has changed in that over the last few centuries, and we are starting to understand the real outcomes of exponential change. The amount of pollution in our oceans, rivers, land and air is increasing and we are nearing a time when the results will be ever more catastrophic from our point view as humans.
So we get back to our failure, as humans, to design systems which enable people to join together to manage our planet.
It will be impossible until we are willing to put effort into this.
I know nothing about the Liberal Party of Canada, apart from reading the election results when there is a general election, but to me this should be the first priority of liberals, and anyone else who wants to improve the Earth rather than make in uninhabitable.
That’s all we need – a Varifakis groupie. All I’ve ever seen of him is a silver-tongued fantasist with a glib line in special pleading; the only problem is, his arguments are not remotely plausible. I stopped reading ‘And the Weak Suffer…’ at the point where he suggests that if the European banks were foolish enough to think the Greeks would pay them back, then they deserved what they got.
‘Justice Capitalism’? Sounds more like ‘Fantasy Marxism’ to me, and we’ve had enough of that from the Labour party in recent years. Please tell me this will not find its way onto the next Conference agenda….
Dear Peter Martin
“Your Joking! An article about a UBI. Not another one!”
* This article is not about the benefits of UBI. Thousands of people have already discussed it. I am discussing how to pay for it.
“UBI sounds like a nice idea until we get down to the nitty gritty of the numbers.”
The numbers are what I am talking about. It can be done with this proposal.
“Most of the proposals involve cutting back or removing personal allowances.”
The Inefficient bureaucratic social welfare departments will be eliminated The departments that support the most severely disadvantaged citizens will be kept.
“This is all very airy-fairy” This would not be a tax – it would be a dividend that we will receive as shareholders with variable ownership of all companies.
This is the only way to get access to the money being hidden in tax havens. Every company created or registered in the country would be subject to 5% “public” ownership. From there, their books would be visible. This would be a case of following the money to finding the companies in the tax havens. The pressure would continue on tax haven countries to divulge the firms they have been hiding.
Surprisingly, the Conservatives – who are in power for the next four plus years – aren’t in favour of UBI, would have thought it would have been a marvelous way for them to get rid of the welfare system and have a very simple tax system, The govn has dug quite a hole for themselves at the moment, people persuaded that the govn can do a lot more for them than previously and quite how they extract themselves will be interesting…
But I do think the Liberals should look at the other end of the equation as well – how to remove the remarkably high fixed costs of living in the UK plus how to get rents down to a fraction of their current level.
On UBI, it will probably need much higher income tax/NI levels in the 40-60 percent range to fund it, balanced so that those earning up to 20k will be better off.
Dear Tom Harney
This proposal will be a big step towards #ESG Environmental Social Governance to fight the #ClimateCrisis. Having seats on the Board of Directors will give us a voice in how companies act. We will vote No to hurting the environment.
Dear Brian Edmonds
I am not “a Varifakis groupie” as I have not followed any of his discussions regarding Greece or the EU. His discussion of public ownership of all companies would be the major contributor to funding UBI. Implementing other taxes: Extreme Wealth, HFT, Robot tax as well as increased tax rates on corporations and high earning individuals would be enough to fund UBI
The major point of this proposal that no one has commented on is #PFofE Public Financing of Elections. Until it is implemented, none of the initiatives I discuss can be done. Our number one priority should be to get big money out of politics. The plutocracy has us all divided on a hundred issues. We argue with each other on what should be society’s priority eg climate crisis, funding health care, and post-secondary education, minimum wage, homelessness, pay-day loaners, bank fees, UBI. tax havens, monopolies in telecommunications, shale gas fracking, public transit, early childhood education, concentration in media outlets, and the bias of mainstream media, gun sense laws, estate taxes, “high fixed costs of living in the UK plus how to get rents down to a fraction of their current level”, food banks. Etc. etc. Let’s focus on #PFofE and we will elect people that represent us, not the monied individuals or corporations. This new breed of politicians will work towards a society that is fair, equal, and balanced for everyone. Another way of describing this goal is in the Liberal Democrat Constitution “The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.”
@ Nick Shcherban,
” This would not be a tax – it would be a dividend that we will receive as shareholders with variable ownership of all companies.”
The more-than-slight problem is “we” aren’t shareholders. The way to change that is to nationalise, or partly nationalise, “all companies.” The Labour way involves compensating the shareholders for the loss of their dividends by issuing them with Govt stock that pays out a similar return. This gives the Govt control over the industry but it doesn’t actually raise the spending money you might have in mind.
Parties further to the left would argue for nationalisation without compensation which would do the trick but it doesn’t sound very Lib Demmish. Is this your plan too?
There are so many layers of wishful thinking in this article it really is difficult to know where to start. Suffice to say I do feel here at LDV we’re being bludgeoned to death by UBI articles, the problems of which have been discussed ad nauseam. This is yet another of those “here’s the magic money tree that’s going to pay for it” articles. I think you lost me at Yanis Varoufakis, the man who broke Greece and tried to break the EU to pay for it.
Dear Peter Martin
That is another way of describing it “problem is “we” aren’t shareholders. The way to change that is to nationalise, or partly nationalise, “all companies.” We should not 100% nationalise companies as we still need competent management running all firms and not bureaucrats. “Partly nationalise all companies is the way to go. A good initial first step would be to take small ownership of newly registered firms. The beneficial ownership would be visible to the public. No more owners hiding behind numbered companies.
Regarding “The Labour way involves compensating the shareholders for the loss of their dividends by issuing them with Govt stock that pays out a similar return” is not something I have heard about but as you say, it would be net neutral to raising money for UBI. Thus I don’t see issuing government stock as a good solution.
“nationalisation without compensation” is justified as all firms are built with our social capital. Sure, some of the 1% will lose some money but they will still be able to live lavishly enough.
Dear Julian Tisi
The article stays away from discussing UBI other than saying that when people understand it, the majority support it.
The comment “This is yet another of those “here’s the magic money tree that’s going to pay for it” articles” is why I wrote this piece. I have been searching for an article or study for the last couple of months on how to fund UBI, but have not found even a one. Please point me to them.
Regarding “ Yanis Varoufakis, the man who broke Greece and tried to break the EU to pay for it” is not something I have researched. Whether he did or did not, should not discount his excellent opinion on how to fix capitalism by implementing my description of Justice Capitalism.
I am really excited by this :
“a robot tax on firms that eliminate jobs by AI/automation”
But can we have a bit of clarification. Will it be backwards looking ? will we be taxing bank cash machines for replacing cashiers. And new things like the AI on Netflix which suggests what I might want to watch next – will that be taxed because it replaces a human being who would otherwise be doing it ?
This article proposes massive and high risk upheaval that nobody wants to pay for UBI that nobody wants.
“ ‘nationalisation without compensation’ is justified as all firms are built with our social capital.”
Yes OK. That’s what the SWP think too. Good luck with getting that through into Lib Dem policy.
“Sure, some of the 1% will lose some money…….”
They all will lose a lot. Even more if you include the holding companies that manage their ownership of land.
They aren’t going to like you any more than they like the SWP. They will come after you if they feel threatened.
A lot of interesting ideas, “think tank” stuff and there is nothing wrong with a bit of thinking aloud. However, like others I have my reservations.
The public funding of elections is an idea that i am instinctively drawn to, but I am not convinced it will create a new class politicians, more democratic and more connected to their voters. Will the public fund election broadcasts ? How do we encourage political parties to put forward more candidates from non elite back grounds ? Or do you see parties being less important and a new wave of independent “citizen” politicians ? How does it remove the public’s apparent desire for celebrity politicians, and I include in that political dynasties in apparently liberal countries like Canada ?
Regarding the 5% stake in companies, do you mean ALL companies ? Even the local plumber or poodle parlour ? If you were to say all companies with a turnover of more than £100m, then at least it might be doable.
But lets be honest here. You talk of state ownership of up to 75% on large companies. In fact you talk of Amazon as “monopolistic”. Jeff Bezoz doesn’t think so, he’s selling stock because he knows that some day some someone is going to come along and do to Amazon what Amazon did to the other companies. It’s called capitalism.
You don’t like guys who own yachts. You basically want the state running the economy. This is socialism, not liberalism. Count ,me out.
My objective in writing this article was to get the discussion going on how to pay for UBI and I am thankful for the comments. I don’t have all the answers so please forward your ideas.
Like any idea/advertisement or sale, it has to travel through what is called the advertising or sales cycle:
Awareness, Knowledge, Likeing, Preference, Commitment then By In / Sale.
A robot tax is still at the Awareness stage.
UBI has now reached the Commitment stage with Spain becoming the first country in Europe to implement such measures on a permanent basis
Dear Simon McGrath,
it would be too difficult to look backward at things like the banks replacing tellers with ATMs. Best to look forward, although the banks were unscathed in their elimination of bricks and mortar and tellers. Here in Canada, we have 6 banks that are protected from new competition by our Bank Act. Years ago it was rare that any of them would have annual profits of $1 billion per year. Now they all show multiple billions of profits per “Quarter” from nickel and dime fees they charge us. They all make so much money that after paying out high dividends to shareholders, they still have piles of cash which they use to expand beyond our borders. One bank, TD Toronto Dominion has been using its exorbitant profits to buy banks/insurance and investment firms in the United States. They are now more profitable and have more branches there than they have in Canada.
As to a tax on Netflix for their movie/TV suggestions, I don’t think it has replaced any jobs. There are still journalists/IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes that do are good at doing that.
I believe to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs. Today, all those eggs are owned by the 1%
The time is now for radical ideas as I have bundled in the article. I did not even add other initiatives worthy of discussion eg Revised Progressive individual and corporate Income Tax brackets and higher Estate and Capital Gains taxes.
One tax that has almost zero awareness is the Tobin tax – a tax on spot currency conversions that was originally proposed with the intention of penalizing short-term currency speculation. … It is more formally known today as a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT), or less formally a Robin Hood tax. FTT is to varying degrees implemented in the UK, Italy Finland, Belgium, Ireland, France, Switzerland, and Poland.
Dear Peter, I’m sorry but I disagree with your comment “This article proposes massive and high-risk upheaval that nobody wants to pay for:
As I said previously, it is the 1% who have all the eggs and don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes. Well, we have to break a few eggs to make a just society omelette.
More and more 1%ers are lining up to support these initiatives:
Bill Gates, the second richest person in the world, supports a Robot Tax
Billionaire entrepreneur Nick Hanauer of Pitchfork Economics fame supports higher taxes on the super-rich.
Warren Buffett, the fourth richest person in the world, states that it is ridiculous his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does.
@PatrioticMills – Wealthy Americans leading the charge to raise taxes on the rich and combat political & income inequality.
Here in Canada, we have the Resource Movement – a support group where rich millennials encourage each other to give away portions of their inherited wealth.
“UBI that nobody wants”
71% of Europeans support UBI –
https://basicincometoday.com/71-percent-of-europeans-now-believe-the-state-should-provide-ubi/
Elon Musk, twenty fourth richest person in the world, supports UBI,
Nancy Pelosi – Democratic House Leader who has taken more money from special interest groups, is open to discussing UBI.
Dear Peter Martin,
“Good luck with getting that through into Lib Dem policy”.
Well, it should be discussed if we want to “build and safeguard a fair, free and open society”.
Every industrialized country is socialist: think roads, bridges, police, military, fire department, emergency medical ambulance responders, schools up to high school (some countries offer free post-secondary education). The plutocracy has done an excellent job for the last 70 years at stagnating the progress of society. The only way to make any of these initiatives become reality is #PFofE Public Financing of Elections. Without it, we will continue to bicker amongst ourselves on what should be a priority.
Sure the 1% will lose a lot of their net worth, including their holding companies, but they still will have more than they need for multiple lifetimes.
As to people not liking me, I learned early in life that what someone thinks of me is none of my business. This makes focusing on the important things in life easier.
_______
Dear Chris Cory,
Getting big money out of politics is the only way society can make any progress for us 99%ers. The way to do this is #PFofE. If a candidate wants to blow their whole budget which is equal to all the other candidates, let them. It won’t get them far as most people today do not get their information from TV.
As to a new class of politicians, I believe the cream will rise to the top – those who campaign to do the most for a just society. I do see parties being less important. Instead of a few parties limiting the number of candidates in a riding, the gates will open to many more eg instead of 5 candidates in a riding, with an equal campaign budget, we should have 25 or more. Sure there will be more for the electorate to hear but it will be considerably less than what Americans hear with the ridiculous amount of money spent on presidential campaigns – all the negative advertisements drive everyone crazy. If there are elite and celebrity candidates, great – let them compare their platforms to the others. Maybe they will have the best one. To help elect this new breed of independent “citizen” politicians, best to implement ranked balloting and get away from first past the post. Ranked balloting is how most political parties choose their leader so if it is good enough for them, let the voters have it.
The local plumber or poodle parlour would not have to give up equity as they are sole proprietorships and they pay their fair taxes once per year. It is once someone sets up a corporation, that is when the shenanigans begin for some firms hiding money. The minimum 5% has to kick in for all corporations as the owners are anonymous – the beneficial ownership is not public. I have thought about a cutoff like minimum sales or number of employees but I realized that many corporations are created by corrupt lawyers to help their clients hide money in tax havens. These types of corporations have zero employees.
To run with your thought of a higher cutoff, I found that 13.2 million out of 17.2 million firms in the US have sales under $500,000 i.e 77%. Specific to your example, the firms with more than 100 million pounds in sales, it is only 28% – leaves not enough companies to participate in Justice Capitalism. I also thought about a number of employees higher cutoff but it would have excluded WhatsApp that was purchased by Facebook in 2014. WhatsApp had 15 employees.
Dear Chris Cory,
Now we do not have free enterprise capitalism. There are more monopolies and oligopolies than ever – this has only happened because the 1% use their lobbyists or bought politicians, to shape government laws. They also use advertising to promote that Universal Health Care is bad for people. Thankfully most industrialized countries have a good medicare program – unfortunately, the US does not.
People are waking up to understand that this COVID-19 crisis will be devastating for the 99%. The Atlanta branch of the US Federal Reserve (Central Bank) predicts that the GDP will shrink by 51.2% in the second quarter. 50% of business owners will shut down forever. 41% of these are starting to look for a job. We are witnessing a time that will be much worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s.
You have picked Amazon as a good example of capitalism but many people agree that they are an evil corporate citizen:
* pay no corporate taxes
* exploit their workers and fight unions
* fight tax laws that would support local communities
* Stifle the voices of authors and harm the flow of information to the public.
* Rake in billions in taxpayer subsidies for its new headquarter buildings in Virginia, despite being worth over $1 trillion.
Here is a fun fact for you about Jeff Bezos and his 147.2 billion USD net worth. If you made $180,000 per day, every day of the year and for the last 2020 years, you still would have less money than Jeff Bezos.
Justice Capitalism does not propose the state running the economy.
What we should all want is the elimination of Socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor.
Agree on ubi, and much else but not some.
There is no justice in having both ubi and a tax on ai, automated workplaces. Fewer tedious jobs is the goal of ubi, we ought want to encourage self service machines , if wanted, and that is good for a world of work that requires social distancing too.
There is no justice in the state taking over companies, higher tax, great, semi ownership is not Liberalism or social democratic, unless as a deal, or voluntary, nationalisation is honest and agreed , taking by force seventy five per cent, is communism for the modernists!
We need FDR< JFK, Mill, and Grimond, co- ops, fine, not Mao and Castro , statism, rampant.
We need a green approach, and to tax harm.
We should support those in the gig economy, give them security and work place rights, not destroy the companies by thinking the state should replace the unions or shareholders.
We can have co- ownership, radical left of centre ideas, agreed between all, sides of industry, but let us not become Corbyn, as he leaves the stage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“We need FDR< JFK, Mill, and Grimond, co- ops, fine, not….. Castro…."
I tend to agree. Socialist as I am, I wouldn’t be happy without the internet in Castro’s Cuba.
However, Castro can have some lessons for us. The Cuban exiles have long complained that their wealth was confiscated and that their businesses were nationalised without proper compensation. This isn’t totally correct. The businesses were valued according to their declared profitability which wasn’t very much as the business owners naturally sought to fudge the figures to minimise their taxes.
For years, politicians have been wringing their hands, and little else, over the problem of tax avoidance by the big multinationals. Nick Shcherban seems to favour the Trotskyist solution of Nationalisation without compensation. Maybe we shouldn’t actually do that. But we could threaten that the compensation they would actually receive would be based on a valuation of the business using their own declared figures if they didn’t cough up their fair share of taxes. That might give them food for thought!
NIck: “There will be NO corporate, union, lobbyist, or third party donations allowed. There will be a maximum of a $100 donation per person/year to a candidate or political party. To minimize any ability of corruption, the donations will be funnelled through an independent Director of Elections.It’s hard to know where to start, but fortunately others have already covered a great deal of the territory.”
Well, yes, it is hard to know where to start.
I expect we’re all deeply concerned about the degree to which politicians can be bought, and elections can be swayed by massive injections of campaign funds from questionable sources, but this is a classic case of an ill-considered solution being worse than the problem.
$100 limit on personal donations? Basically, that would make it almost impossible for any independent candidate to build their campaign from scratch, unless they’re extremely media-savvy or have a lot of generous friends and supporters – even for a local election, let alone a parliamentary one. It would be a huge barrier to entry, so you’d be protecting the incumbents from competition.
That’s attacking democracy, not defending it.
Meanwhile, of course, big media groups will be able to pour resources into supporting their preferred candidates – unless, of course, the plan is for us to kill off freedom of the press as well. I guess that’s an option.
And requiring that all political donations are channelled through a state institution? Forcing all candidates to channel all their funds through a state entity sounds spectacularly dangerous and prone to abuse by state actors. We see, even in democracies such as the USA and some European states, how state institutions can be used as partisan instruments of the governing party. So candidates that oppose the government must rely on the government’s agencies to pass funds straight on to them speedily, efficiently and fully, in the middle of an election campaign when a single day’s delay could make all the difference to their ability to get the message out?
And of course we can say goodbye to collecting buckets at fundraising events.
Again, by giving the state effective administrative control of election campaigning, you’re attacking democracy rather than defending it.
I suppose there is a place for unconstrained, even wild, thinking but some of the claims here are too exotic too ignore. Apparently Buffet, Gates and Musk have endorsed this. That just leaves 69,999,997 of the world’s 1% who have yet to agree. I know at least one of that number and they will not pay up.
Answer = “But we will make them pay up!”
No you can’t. The one I know has four houses over three continents and is as impervious to your schemes as are the three musketeers you name (who can well afford to say anything they like for a bit of popularity). The jury should note that they show no sign of the sort of philanthropy that would actually make a painful dent in their billions.
These proposals are yet more of fantasy “Co-operative Marxism” – a dream reliant upon the energetic, imaginative, enterprising, risk taking, far sighted, knowledgeable and industrious individuals suddenly choosing to come up with their market changing products and ideas, not for their own reward any more, but to fund all these Santa Claus plans.
No chance. I have shared the truth before but to no avail, but here it is. The talented and successful people and corporations, don’t, may I repeat, don’t, have to pay swingeing taxes. There are scores and scores of administrations, across the world, who are now and always will be out of your control, who would offer the warmest welcome to them if you choose to drive them out of Canada (or the UK).
The state, left to itself, comes up with the Red October Plastic Sandal Factory and a ten year waiting list for a Trabant motor car. The reddest of Socialist states eventually has to eat humble pie and persuade the capitalists “who know how to do stuff” to come and do it in their country.
Dear Toby Keynes
First of all, thanks for discussing #PFofE. This should be everyone’s number one priority.
The $100 limit on personal donations is one of two funding methods how candidates will receive money. Sure it won’t be a lot at the municipal level but it increases as you move up to the provincial and federal levels. It is more to keep the voters engaged. The donations will be public and people will be able to see totals by donor and candidate. Unfortunately, there are voters who don’t want to spend time looking at platforms and vote based on who is the frontrunner – eg who has the most lawn signs.
The majority of campaign financing will come from us, the government. The way I see it, we already pay for a politician’s salary, expenses & support staff – we just have to get to the next level by funding the campaign. Each candidate would receive an equal amount of money. To minimize the number of yahoos that run, we could set a minimum number of endorsement signatures they need to enter the race. Not too high as we don’t want to overly discourage a potential candidate.
I don’t know what the budgets should be, but it could be along these lines: A municipal candidate $100,000 ( they do have to hire some staff), Provincial candidate $200,000, Federal $300,000. Here in Toronto, the ridings are duplicate sizes for all three levels i.e. My Ward 19 = Toronto Danforth at both the Provincial and Federal levels. Now for the Mayor, Provincial, and Federal leaders, we have to bump up the figures, say 10 times as they need to travel more, and reach more people with their message. Our campaigns run about 4 to 6 weeks. And again, each candidate will receive the same budget. In addition, the actual election will be Ranked Choice Voting – this makes all the candidates stay positive and not go negative on their competition – they will probably need their competitor’s supporters to get over the 50% mark. First Past the Post is gone. This setup does not give the incumbents any advantage – exactly opposite as they start with the same amount of money and RCV keeps them on their toes.
Hellow again Toby Keynes
“ big media groups will be able to pour resources into supporting their preferred candidates” Yes this would be a bit of a problem but there ways to control it. Organizations track the amount of exposure candidate receives over the air so there should be a mechanism to make it more equitable. This was a big problem during the US Republican Presidential campaign – Trump sucked up like 80% of the coverage. Fortunately, fewer and fewer people get their information from TV. This problem only exists for the media coverage, NOT the TV ads – a candidate can pay for their own ads, but third party contributions to pay for ads would be banned.
“And requiring that all political donations are channelled through a state institution?” “you’re attacking democracy rather than defending it”
I don’t see this as a problem.
Every candidate will start with a budget they can draw on at any time.
Everything will be transparent. Every person they hire and for what salary, every pizza they buy, what they spend on computers, what they spend on the various social media sites. Our governing body is Elections Canada and they are independent and do a pretty good job running elections. It would not be hard for them to take on these added responsibilities. I see this as promoting democracy not attacking it.
A real fun discussion would be about how to fix the American election system with things like gerrymandering and obscene amounts of money spent.
Nick,
I think you are a little too pessimistic about tax reform. This crisis may well provide the impetus for the kind of international cooperation required to implement a unitary system of taxation for multi-nationals.
For readers of that ever-popular magazine AB Accounting and Business there is a feature this week on tax reform. Geoege Bull, a tax partner at the accountancy firm RSM lists six broad outcomes that the office for Tax simplification could usefully focus its attention on:
– Reduce inequality and end child poverty.
– Reassess the tax base: who should pay how much tax and on what.
– Reform national insurance contributions and the taxation of workplace income.
– Look at taxation of wealth and capital, including inheritance and council tax.
– Assess what ‘social goods’ should be encouraged through tax reliefs, and how effectiveness should be measured.
– Create a roadmap to bring certainty during a transition towards more carbon-based taxes.
In the same magazine there is an interview with Sarah Olney, Libem MP for Richmond Park https://www.accaglobal.com/uk/en/member/member/accounting-business/2020/06/interviews/sarah-olney.html speaking about tax reform she says “Another area that needs clarification, she says, is tax – especially the amount of tax owed to individual governments by the tech giants. ‘There needs to a global joined-up effort in order for people and organizations around the world to work out what tax is owed where.’ This is unitary taxation.
Dear Chris Cory,
I replaced amazon with google / facebook
Both do little other than profit off our social capital
They write code for a website, then act as a scalper like ticketmaster – weasel their way between the content creator and end-user.
Once the code is written they need a sales force that sells the demographic data to companies that want to sell us goods and services. Google makes most of its money from selling “keywords” that people would use in their search.
Similarly, google makes money (shares very little) off content creators on youtube. They are a scalper again.
One that bothers me a lot is google news. They ripoff journalistic sites for articles they post. They provide zero $ to the writers / publications but make 100% of the ad revenue. This service costs them nothing to as it was written by one person – now it runs on autopilot.
After the sales reps, they only need accountants to count the money and crooked tax lawyers to move the money to tax havens so they don’t have to pay tax – capitalism at it’s core.
That is why we need JUSTICE CAPITALISM
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V7SeQtNuF7mFhVElZGmwUuHsl8NEjbmz1KQf9rvpJ8o/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs
Dear Peter Martin
re; “Nick Shcherban seems to favour the Trotskyist solution of Nationalisation without compensation.” I am not saying 100% nationalization, more along the lines of 75%. Who would share any tears for firms like google and facebook that built their wealth with our social capital? Why should we compensate them for something they took from us? Google and Facebook did not work the soil with their own hands – they only wrote some software programs that facilitated the privatizing of our social capital.
Regarding Cuba, Castro disliked the Mob running casinos and all the negative things that came with them. The Mob did nothing for Cuba, they just took the cash profits back to Miami.
As to valuation, I follow your thoughts of them minimising sales and profits because of cooking their books. With google and facebook, it is different. They are very profitable. That is why they have market caps of $1 Trillion and $600 Billion. Problem is they book the profits in low tax jurisdictions. Whith Justice Capitalism, citizen Board of Director members would vote to stop this tax avoidance so they pay their fair – aka Unitary Tax.
Dear Innocent Bystander
Why such defeatism that nothing can be done and never will?
If you don’t think the 1% and all the companies they own should pay their fair share of taxes, then how do we pay for a just society? I would like to hear your funding plans.
Do you support the biggest problem: big money in politics. Are you in favor of poverty, homelessness, no medicare or pharmacare for all, no free education, no police, military, fire departments, public roads etc.
Is there not even one initiative in my Justice Capitalism plan that you would agree with?
Sure the 1% won’t agree with Justice Capitalism. Over half of them did ZERO to attain the wealth they have – it was given to them. Warren Buffet is donating all this wealth except giving his kids just enough money to buy a co-op in NYC – nothing more.
“The jury should note that they show no sign of the sort of philanthropy that would actually make a painful dent in their billions.”
Not true – look up “The Giving Pledge”
The statement that if one tax haven is eliminated, others will take their place. Obama enacted Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and it has made a big dent in tax evasion around the world. The $32 Trillion hidden in tax havens is not growing like it used to. Countries are starting to play ball eg Switzerland and Panama. Banks are now cooperating also. The last frontier is the individuals using corrupt lawyers to hide money. These people should be charged, prosecuted, and jailed. My Justice Capitalism plan would speed up the elimination of tax havens.
As to your friend – do they really need 4 houses which they can’t travel to or use due to COVID19? Was their money given to them or did they make their money using our social capital?
If this is all Santa Claus plans, how would you pay for UBI? Are you for the status quo?
Dear Joe Bouke
I agree with you
“This crisis may well provide the impetus for the kind of international cooperation required to implement a unitary system of taxation for multi-nationals.” All countries are printing so much money and racking up huge deficits, they will have to work on initiatives like a unitary tax.
Unfortunately, a unitary tax that Sarah Olney and the initiatives Geoege Bull proposes will not be enough to fund UBI in the UK. I estimate that giving adults over 18yo that would quality for UBI, $2,000usd per month would cost the UK $943 Billion USD /year.
These tech giants spend a lot of money on lobbyists that prevent a unitary tax on them.
I’ll give you a related simple example here in Canada. Our current and previous government, are too scared to even have netflix participate in our VAT equivalent called HST. All Canadian firms participate and do their fair share. Somehow netflix lobbied and framed this as a “netflix tax” and convinced Canadians it is evil.
Dear Peter Martin
re; “Nick Shcherban seems to favour the Trotskyist solution of Nationalisation without compensation.” I am not saying 100% nationalization, more along the lines of 75%. Who would shed any tears for firms like google and facebook that built their wealth with our social capital? Why should we compensate them for something they took from us? Google and Facebook did not work the soil with their own hands – they only wrote some software programs that facilitated the privatizing of our social capital.
Regarding Cuba, Castro disliked the Mob running casinos and all the negative things that came with them. The Mob did nothing for Cuba, they just took the cash profits back to Miami.
As to valuation, I follow your thoughts of them minimizing sales and profits by cooking their books. With google and facebook, it is different. They are very profitable. That is why they have market caps of $1 Trillion and $600 Billion. The problem is they book the profits in low tax jurisdictions. With Justice Capitalism, citizen Board of Directors members would vote to stop this tax avoidance so they pay their fair – aka Unitary Tax.
@ Nick Shcherban
“I estimate that giving adults over 18yo that would quality for UBI, $2,000usd per month would cost the UK $943 Billion USD /year”
It all sounds very nice and Lib Demmish. But, why would we all want to work in the legitimate economy, doing anything at all, if we received approx £20k per year tax free? If we had the prospect of earning high a salary in a high powered job then, of course, we might. But what about the millions of people doing everyday jobs? We need someone to do these jobs. We can’t afford, even if we did somehow magic up the 943 billion or whatever the figure might be, to have them sitting at home doing nothing apart from a bit of bit of cash-in-hand work on the side.
This doesn’t mean that we should pay people poorly for doing essential work, and yes we should make sure everyone has the opportunity to earn enough to keep themselves out of poverty by earning a living wage. But we have to recognise that money is only worth anything because it will buy the goods and services which have been created by the labour power of others. That labour power doesn’t just matter a little, it’s really what the economy and economics is all about.
I support UBI but it cannot realistically provide £20k p.a across the board.
A lot of the jobs are going to go anyway and people will have to be able to live and pay the bills for themselves while keeping the whole economic show going, because Californian Tech companies are not going to give two hoots as to the social aspects of jobs vanishing, private bankruptcies, homelessness, economic downturn or extreme poverty.
I am informed that Unemployment now is a deliberately annoying system, a merry-go-round of forced, often pointless job applications going into hundreds, low grade training and meetings in Job Centres. It is an often pointless and soul destroying process that must cost the State a lot of money and prevent people from doing something more useful and profitable, perhaps on a lower level, speculatively or for good works
If People’s basic bills were covered they could risk starting small businesses, do cash in hand work, charity work for expenses, part time PAYE or formal education and training. It is not a perfect system, but you cannot massively expand the State job centre system and harass half the nation to chase full time jobs that will no longer be there, even if people don’t believe it until it happens. See below:
Some examples:
Warehouses – Thomann in Germany supplies over 50% of the UK and Pan European Music Gear market in 1-2 day free deliveries ( a better, cheaper semi privatised postal system run by DHL) from one automated warehouse in Southern Germany. Music Gear shops in the UK are closing all over the place, including those open since the 60’s.
Driving & Deliveries – Self driving vehicle technology is well underway, supported by Government legislation and will get to the point that it has a lower risk than from Human drivers, as well as lower costs and millions of jobs will go rapidly
Retail – automated check outs in shops, new security systems and a big jump in online purchasing will shed millions of jobs & largely empty the High Street from traditional shops
Call centres – increasingly automated
Banking – retail and commercial loans – increasingly automated
Services – Restaurants in Japan already have robots serving tables
There are automatic lawnmowers and hoovers already available
What is to stop automated hair cuts, tattoos & massages?
Professions – it is already accepted that advanced computer programmes can do a better job at detecting cancers correctly and in offering law advice
The next 5-10 years will see a big shift and the virus has already more than doubled some online sales and closed many shops, accelerating the process
The future foretold in the 70’s by Alvin Toffler in “The Third Wave” is arriving now, but Tory attitudes of bashing people while they are down won’t cajole them into finding jobs no longer available
Dear Peter Martin
My article was not about the pros and cons of UBI. It was about how to fund UBI.
1,000s of people have already debated UBI and the consensus is that it is needed now and more so in the future when AI takes more of our tax-paying jobs (robots do not pay taxes).
To discuss UBI, visit Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/
“have them sitting at home doing nothing “ is the number one argument against UBI. What is not often discussed is the people who could really use it: mentally or physically ill, unemployed, an elderly spouse taking care of their sick partner, a grown adult full time taking care of their sick elderly parents, the homeless, the young racially profiled, volunteers etc etc . They all should be taken care of in a just society.
Dear John Littler
“I support UBI but it cannot realistically provide £20k p.a across the board.” I believe with my Justice Capitalism proposal it can be funded – not in the first year but as it rolls out.
For the UK the cost would be:
52,403,344 adults over 18 * 0.75 who would qualify for UBI
39,302,508 adults Times $24,000usd (i.e. 19,000 pounds / year i.e 1,600 pounds / month = ~ 365 pounds/week)14,088
= 943 Billion usd /year ( 746 Billion pounds)( compared to UK GDP 2,855 Trillion usd = 33%)
“Californian Tech companies are not going to give two hoots as to the social aspects of jobs vanishing” this is why I propose Justice Capitalism: We will be #Shareholders with variable ownership (little, eg 5% for small corporations and larger, eg 75% for big monopoly firms such as Google and Facebook) of every company. We will have seats on the Board of Directors and ensure that every company will act in a socially good manner, eg #ESG Environmental Social Governance to fight the #ClimateCrisis.
Your good points about Thomann in Germany are the same for Amazon. They have put the majority of small retailers out of business and the ones remaining only act as showrooms for them. People will go into a small retailer to look at a product, scan the UPC, and see a lower price on Amazon. They will order it from Amazon before they have even left the store.
John, I agree with all you about Unemployment Insurance (it is the same here in Canada).
I also agree with all the good points you have identified as the negative consequences of AI. That is why we should have a #Robot tax.
Dear Innocent Bystander
I found an organization your friend with 4 houses over three continents can join.
It’s called patrioticmillionaires.org/
You only need $1 million in annual income or a net worth of $5 million to join
Nick, I have no doubt that if Government finances were restructured, £20k p.a UBI could be found, but it would probably mean the politicians not having to try to play on the World Stage & renew Trident for instance. It would also have to replace a lot of means testing, which would leave some worse off, but there’s a case for it.
I just don’t think a UK government would agree such a high figure so widely. Also, if 25% were left out, which makes sense; there would be a big pressure from the wealthy well connected to abolish it, continually. There is a danger that having such a benefit for a long enough period, such as 10 years, then withdrawing it for whatever reason, might be worse than never having offered it, as people will have re-organised their lives around it.
All to be considered, but read “The Third Wave”