UBI Vote in Switzerland
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Universal Basic Income had it’s first electoral test earlier this week, when Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected the idea. Now, I don’t want to read too much into this, for several reasons. First, Switzerland is not the world and its politics don’t necessarily reflect the rest of the world, or Europe for that matter since it is traditionally a conservative nation. Second, most ideas don’t win acceptance immediately. Third, in a different context UBI might do quite well in Switzerland. However, it was a pretty big loss:
About 77 percent of voters rejected a plan to give a basic monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs, or about $2,560, to each adult, and 625 francs for each child under 18, regardless of employment status, to fight poverty and social inequality and guarantee a “dignified” life to everyone.
Finland is starting a UBI pilot program, so building some solid evidence may improve this in the future.
What I actually think is significant is that the fundamental arguments against UBI in Switzerland will be repeated in the United States with a lot more force behind them because of the foundational myths of the American nation around self-reliance and rising and falling according to one’s work ethic.
“I understand that a new generation is worried about how and where young people will next find work, but this proposal was pure nonsense,” said Curdin Pirovino, a Swiss industrial designer. “You cannot give a society the idea that money is available for doing nothing.”
This is just one random person of course. But this sentiment is at the center of the American welfare state. Even Social Security is seen as a payoff for a lifetime of work. I do not see Americans embracing a model where everyone gets something for free. The U.S. can’t even provide the basic European social welfare of the present, not to mention go past it to something even more universal.
To me, UBI remains primarily a vision in the minds of technocrats of both the left and right, quite often people really not interested in engaging in the messiness of worker power that is at the center of a successful democracy. I don’t mean this as pejorative, just an observation. I’m certainly for the idea in principle, but I think my ideas around global labor standards are a lot more realistic and grounded in sensible policy solutions than UBI.