So, as you guys know, I've been identifying as an "indepentarian" lately. This is an ideology based on the idea that most mainstream political theories tend to ignore how much implicit coercion exists within them, and the author of it, Karl Widerquist, tends to resolve this by creating his own theory. He has a book, which I recently reread, called "Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No." It's an excellent book. I remember the author posted links to it on reddit before, and I found it to be one of the most brilliant piece of political theory I had ever read. Essentially, he finds fault in most right libertarian and left egalitarian political theories (which are represented by right libertarian and mainstream liberals in politics), and pushed for a form of left libertarianism that argues that in order to be free, people need enough resources in order to survive without coercion, and the best way to provide them is a basic income. This really does form the foundation of my philosophy too, especially as I struggle to really find myself post 2020, and the book does an amazing job why. The first time I read it, I had a bone to pick with extreme libertarians with their whole "taxation is theft" and extreme definitions of negative freedom that ignored how coercive capitalism really is. This second time around, I focused more on how mainstream liberals and social democrats also impose coercion on people in their theories of justice, which ultimately is causing a rift between myself and their flawed, dated ideologies.
I would say I actually agreed with 98% of the book, until the last substantive chapter about "duties." After that, I would say I agree with it more like 90% of the time, but that's still pretty good. And that's what I'm here to talk about today. I have two objections to Widerquist's theory as a whole. One is a minor nitpick that might not be a substantive difference at all, and the other is something that is very substantive in my opinion.
First, the minor nitpick. Widerquist's theory, rereading it in 2021, kind of seems like a light form of anarchism in a sense. It seems related to anarchistic theory, in which in the state of nature people are free, but then society comes around and imposes its social project on people by hoarding all available property, and that to compensate people for this, they need a UBI. I mean, I largely agree with this, but he does seem to think there's nothing inherently wrong with a state of anarchy in which people work for themselves, implying that in such a state UBI would not be needed as they can just move elsewhere and do their own thing. It's possible I'm misinterpreting this idea, or reading too much into it, but I do feel like I have a different perspective.
Here's the thing. I would describe myself as a believer in society. Society helps us achieve the bottom two rungs of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and it comes down to the basic premise in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes": "Apes, together, strong." We are primates, much like apes, and we are social animals. Cooperation is going to be inevitable, because it's part of our survival strategy. And due to how life in a state of nature is, as Hobbes would put it, "nasty, brutish, and short", I think that some level of society is inevitable. And before people start advocating for anarchism primativism or something, yeah no, that's not going to work. What happened when the native American tribes, or really, any tribe around the world, came into contact with the west as we know it? Well, they basically got enslaved and genocided. The fact is, we need the modern nationstate system. It provides a common defense against potential enemies looking to off us and take out land, and also, the economic systems that come along with it tend to produce progress not available in other systems. Even though I rant about how crappy capitalism is all of the time, I actually do believe that it's a viable system from a functionalist, wealth creation perspective, and it has made society better in a lot of ways, technologically. People live longer, they have more stuff, it does have upsides.
That said, I believe that a modern society is inevitable, and that it is, ultimately a good thing. HOWEVER, I do also agree with Widerquist's main premise that in taking over all property, it does make people propertyless and as such, forces them to work for a system that inherently does not benefit them. While capitalism has some upsides, it also has a metric crapton of downsides, and I believe that in order to reach the next stage of human societal evolution, we need to rectify these problems. I am NOT an anarchist, I might lean left libertarian and see a lot of the same problems with capitalism that anarchists do, but I do not desire the abolition of the state. Neither does Widerquist, it seems, but I did feel like I need to point out a potential difference in our two outlooks.
He argues something along the lines of:
1) People live in a state of nature
2) A state or social project comes along and takes control of all the land
3) People are forced to work for those who have property to survive
4) People need a basic income in order to acquire independence from forced servitude.
Now, I agree with this. However, my difference is that he seems more morally ambiguous on whether the social project existing is a good thing. I am in favor of it, but I see the property rights system established as socially unjust and dysfunctional. I ultimately agree with his conclusions, but I will tend to view the formation of the social project, the state, and capitalism, as good things, and that UBI is intended to work out some inherent kinks with the property system. The property system is, in some form, a positive way, but it has downsides. Not everyone can acquire property and some will be forced into dependence on others. It's a necessary evil. So this is something that should be fixed, and UBI is a way to fix it, without upending the entire social order, because unlike the far left, I don't necessarily see that social order as inherently evil on all levels.
The second objection I have with Widerquist is far more substantive, and it is something he wrote more about at length, and that is the concept of "duty." While Widerquist does not wish to impose duties on people, he does recognize in certain emergency situations such duties might be necessary. I'm with him so far, to an extent. I mean, both of us have to approach the situation of, for example, what if basic income fails to achieve true freedom? What if it isn't sustainable and a level of UBI that provides people financial independence can't actually work, because then too few people would work? I think anyone in the business of advocating for UBI has to have an answer to this question. If voluntaryism does not work, insofar as work goes, what then? Well in this case, Widerquist believes in a duty to work. He believes everyone should be forced to accept this duty equally, and society would attempt to rectify the conditions that created it as fast as possible so people can be free. He imposes the duty equal on everyone in order to make it fair to people, so some people aren't forced to borne certain costs, but others aren't. And he hopes to guarantee peoples' freedom in terms of a maximum number of years.
Here's the problem with this. In my opinion, this, potentially, has the ability to undermine his entire theory. It reintroduces the concept of a duty to work, making it indistinguishable from a system in which there is forced participation. In making the duty to work spread among the entire population, and making it count in numbers of years, it sounds to me that if some work needs to be done, the answer would revert back to basic social democracy, just with a lower retirement age. Say we have a society of 100 people and we need 40 to work. I base this on the idea that our current society has roughly a 60% labor participation rate, but that COVID demonstrated roughly 1/3 of this is nonessential work. So we need 40 people working at all times in this society. Well, if only 30 would willingly work, society starts to suffer. So he would basically require everyone to work in a rotating fashion where everyone works so many years, but is able to retire early, or perhaps works less than they current do. Maybe Widerquist would reduce the work week to 25 hours, maybe he would instead reduce the retirement age to 50 from 65ish. These are both valid approaches in line with his purported theory of justice. But...here's the thing. That just...reintroduces the problem we see in liberal egalitarian societies. They force you to work so many years then give you a nice retirement at the end of it all. They might give you some paid leave every year, or eventually reduce your working hours from 40 hours to 30-35 hours. These are all common things that happen in western European social democracies, which...isn't terrible. I mean it's probably the best system we've tried, but it ultimately does not give people true independence.
I mean, looking at it another way, it's like saying the solution to not enough military recruits is the draft. And I've seen some liberal egalitarians advocating for bringing the draft back before because "well it's unfair that the underprivileged are forced to join the military by market forces, everyone should have skin in the game." As someone who became an adult when Iraq was going on, I was SCARED TO DEATH of the idea of the military bringing the draft back in order to fill Bush's "troop surges". But, that would be the solution according to this theory of freedom. Not enough military recruits? Well, everyone has to provide 1-2 years of military service. We actually had a draft, and it was so unpopular, we got rid of it. Because people didn't want to be forced to fight in wars they didn't believe in. The draft was a horrific solution, so we instead made an "all volunteer" military and then resorted to economic coercion...ironically the same economic coercion that Widerquist points out in his book as objectionable.
And I agree that it's objectionable. That's why I like his book and agree with the other 90% of it. But...I believe the all volunteer military is more just, despite its injustices, than mandatory military service would be. Just like, I believe that wage slavery is a step up from literal chattel slavery. As horrible as capitalism's coercion is, it's still better than dragging people over here from Africa, putting them in chains, and whipping them until they work. I do admit, that the shift toward wage labor didn't fix the problem entirely, it just made the relationship less explicitly coercive, but I do believe that implicit coercion is preferable to explicit coercion.
So, what would my solution be, if a universal basic income of above the poverty line, had such high work disincentive that it threatened the viability of society? Well, my solution is more in line with Phillipe Van Parijs' perspective, which was referenced in Widerquist's book. I would make the basic income as high as it is sustainable, and settle for a partial implementation with a long term goal of achieving that full ideal. There is likely an economic curve for work willingness based on UBI amounts and marginal tax rates, and it's ultimately up to us to find out what that is and see what works best, balancing the needs and freedoms of individuals with the most basic needs of society as a whole.
Imagine it like this. We have a society of 100 people. We need a minimum of 40 to work. With no UBI, 60 work. Why not 100 you ask? Well, many of those 40 are children, or the elderly, or the sick and disabled, or other dependents on those who work, just like today. So, with no UBI, 60 work. Say, with a full UBI at $1100 a month, or $13,200 a year, only 30 would work. Half the work force would find work so objectionable they would quit. I think that this would be an absurdly high amount, and most data I've seen suggests work reductions would be less than 15% at such amounts, potentially even being negligible, but let's go with it for the sake of discussion. We do with less work. COVID has shown us, we dont need sit down restaurants, we don't need movie theaters, we don't need amusement parks. They're nice to haves but not necessary for society to function. So, say we introduce a UBI at $1,200 a year or $100 a month. No one quits their job, because no one can live on that. So 60 people still work. Say we bump it up to $3,600 a year, or $300 a month. Well, at that point, some really marginally attached people who just want some spending money, like, say, teenagers, might cut back their hours and quit. Say we're left with 57 people working, implying a 5% work effort reduction. That's acceptable. After all, as long as more than 40 work, we're fine. Say, we bump it up to $6,000 a year, or $500 a month. Well, at this point those teenagers might quit, but you also might have some secondary earners in families quit too. Keep in mind that's $6k per adult, if you got 2 adults working in a household, that's $12,000. Someone might quit their second job or one partner might stay home with that money. So say we see a reduction to, say, 50 people working. This is still acceptable for society functioning, so we can go higher.Say we up the UBI to $800 a month or $9,600 a year. More people quit. People start deciding some essential minimum wage crap jobs aren't worth doing, and pressure is put on employers to raise prices, automate, or go out of businesses. Some jobs are automated, some businesses fold, and some businesses pay higher wages at higher prices. But we still see 42 people work. That's about as much as we can handle.
At that point, we cap UBI at around $10,000 a year, and we basically just let things go as they are. People who want jobs for more money can get them, but people who don't can quit. Society is better off, and people are freer than they were before UBI, but ultimately, some financial coercion proved necessary to keep enough people in the market.
In this situation, we can just accept a partial UBI. Perhaps in the future, we can raise it higher. Maybe we will be able to automate those essential jobs. Maybe productivity gains would happen in other ways. It's possible we could, in a few years or decades, post introduction of UBI, to then change the conditions and culture surrounding work, where we could then support a much higher UBI. Perhaps, if a UBI of $13,200 is sufficient, we could boost UBI to $15,000 or even $20,000. Or maybe we could shift it upward to $25,000-30,000 if our economy becomes much more heavily automated, these are all solutions. We don't have to do it any one way, ultimately the balance between productivity and UBI is something that is going to be subjective and up to what we are willing to accept, but this is actually much more in line with Phillipe Van Parijs' "real freedom" according to Widerquist's book. Van Parijs pushed for a UBI at the highest sustainable amount, to maximize peoples' freedom. I actually find that to be a more acceptable theory than Widerquist's on this front. However, both theories are so close to my ideology this is more a debate over minor sub issues than anything else.
I just really wanted to point out the difference between my own ideology and Widerquist's, when I call myself an indepentarian. Perhaps I should call myself a "real libertarian" after Van Parij's theory, but sadly, I don't have access to his book as unlike Widerquist he does not make it free to read online, and given my attempts to call myself a left libertarian with no one knowing what that means, calling myself a "real libertarian" would likely cause major misunderstandings and at worst could make me sound pretentious and condescending, because it makes me sound like only I am a "true" libertarian. That said I'll stick to left libertarian or indepentarian as my label, despite these differences from Widerquist's indepentarianism.
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