Max Tallberg & Petri Lahtinen
The political and societal progress can be examined by looking at equality, justice, freedom and forms of government. From the perspective of common humanity, it can be argued that on a global level politics should strive for a situation where all these four factors provide the best possible bases for everyone to prosper and to live a good and dignified life. The first goal of this development should be the satisfaction of everyone’s basic needs without which an individual cannot live a dignified life. Traditionally, these needs are outlined by motivational theories of which Maslow’s hierarchy of needs proposed by American psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943 is the most well-known. Based on humanist psychology, Maslow took the physiological needs i.e. physical prerequisites for survival such as food, water and breathable air as the basis of his theory and worked his way up to such categories of needs as “safety”, “belonging and love”, “social needs” or “esteem”, “self-actualization” and “transcendence”. Other well-known motivational theories include Alderfer’s ERG theory, Herzberg’s two-factor theory and McClelland’s three needs theory. Yet, it is important to note that the motivational theories have significant shortcomings: first, they usually do not explain how new needs are being generated and standardized. Second, motivational theories have the tendency to pass over the historical variability of humans and human societies and to bring everything back to assumed biological base level.
In the sphere of politics, the satisfaction of basic needs was brought up already in the article 25 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was accepted by the General Assembly in 1948. The article goes as follows: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control”. These factors are inseparable from a dignified human life. In the Western discourse the basic needs have been clarified and elaborated even further after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. American philosopher John Rawls proposed that alongside the basic needs the individual is entitled to equal basic liberties and equality of opportunity. Rawls also stressed the so-called primary goods that include individual liberties, rights, opportunities, income and wealth as well as the social foundation enabling self-esteem.
Philosophers Amartya Sen and Martha Nussabaum, on the other hand, have introduced the concept of capabilities that should be realized and fulfilled as a part of the project of pursuing a dignified life for everyone. Nussbaum lists the capabilities as possibilities of living a life of normal length, bodily health, bodily integrity, being able to use the senses, to imagine, think, and reason, emotions and practical reason i.e. being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s life. Furthermore, Nussabum highlights affiliation (being able to live with and towards other as well as having the social bases of self-respect), being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature, being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities, and having control over one’ environment.
The fulfilment of basic needs is yet to be materialized sufficiently on a global level in the present-day world. Rather than taking care of the fundamental needs of everybody in the world, only a privileged fraction of the population benefits from the enormous efforts put into technology and economy and their development. Let us take space tourism as an example: the concept is a true possibility in the near future but only for the wealthiest individuals. Advances in technology coupled with trade, the investments on productivity and the accumulation of capita have also led to an unforeseen economic growth in Asia and the Pacific. This, however, has not been the case in all the developing countries let alone in least developed countries. Approximately 750 million people i.e. 10 percent of the total World population are still living in extreme poverty as the poverty line is defined as having $1,90 daily income. In the year 2022 the richest percent owned 38 percent of all the wealth in the world whereas the poorest half of the global population owns just 2 percent of the global total. Furthermore, 52 percent of the world’s income were directed to the richest tenth while the poorest half received only 8.5 percent.
It is evident that the conditions of the poorest half in the world would substantially improve in a relatively short time if even a fraction of the temporal, material and economic resources that are now used in the development of entertainment technology and the improvement of the status of the population living in developed countries would be directed towards improving the conditions of the less favoured people. This should be a central goal in global politics.
Nowadays many of the unprivileged are dependent on outside humanitarian aid. As many international charitable organizations are aiming at improving the conditions of large groups and communities, the same kind of aid belongs to everybody – not only those who are in the range of the current aid. Donations made by the citizens of developed countries and aid provided by charitable organizations are crucial and admirable, but these are issues and matters that should be solved by changing global structures and politics. In today’s extremely globalized world there are many networks of complex systems that create and maintain discriminating and unequal structures.
Global basic income (GBI) would be one means to improve the lives of everyone. Primarily, it should satisfy the most fundamental needs but at the same time it would enable greater personal freedom as the basic security provided by GBI would improve the freedom of the individual. This freedom would likely lead also to many socially beneficial innovations. From the perspective of this very freedom GBI can be argued to be an efficient means to strive for the fulfilment of higher needs in hierarchies of needs as well as capabilities proposed by Sen and Nussbaum. Furthermore, the amount of GBI should be high enough that the individual could genuinely improve one’s life in the long run.
The opponents of basic income often cite the argument that basic income makes people lazy and passive. However, numerous basic income pilots have all indicated that the economic activity rises among the receivers of a social allowance of this kind. When implemented right, basic income can be imagined supporting positive development from an economic perspective as well: basic income would have the potential of narrowing economic inequality that otherwise will grow even wider in the current global exploitative and consumption capitalism. Additionally, in the development of basic income it should be taken into account how basic income could advance more sustainable economics. In a finite world, the bare redistribution of capita and resources is not a sufficient prerequisite for long-term justice and equality: the development of GBI should be designed as part of a postgrowth project that respects infinite resources and is critical towards the individualistic consumer culture. Above all, basic income should secure the conditions for dignified life – not to provide an unsustainable luxury lifestyle for everyone.
Even though GBI should secure the prerequisites for a dignified life, it should also encourage working. It should be noted, however, that at the same time basic income can act as a useful tool of thinking that expands the current narrow views about work solely as wage labour. Along with basic income the aforementioned innovations and different forms of voluntary work for example would gain more space and respect. Global basic income would change the world towards a more just and equal direction; especially when people in the least developed countries would acquire a genuine opportunity to widely pursue a better life via different work opportunities and other forms of meaningful social activities. If GBI would be implemented in such manner that it would alongside with the basic security of individuals also improve communality and communal activity, the developing countries would acquire a significant means to further their societal development. Re-thinking of the redistribution of wealth and resources required by the GBI would additionally transform the current relationships of power to a more equal direction. Thus, accomplishing the goals mentioned at the beginning of this text – equality, justice, freedom and better forms of government – would be a genuine possibility on a global scale.
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