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Europe|Guaranteed Income for All? Switzerland's Voters Say No Thanks
| New York Times | - |
A
referendum on a guaranteed income was rejected by 77 percent of Swiss
voters on Sunday. Supporters of the initiative, including Kim-Fabian von
Dall'Armi, gathered in Basel to celebrate the fact that 23 percent
voted yes.
GENEVA — Swiss voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to guarantee an income to Switzerland’s
residents, whether or not they are employed, an idea that has also been
raised in other countries amid an intensifying debate over wealth
disparities and dwindling employment opportunities.
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.
Switzerland
was the first country to vote on such a universal basic income plan,
but other countries and cities either have been considering the idea or
have started trial programs.
Finland
is set to introduce a pilot program for a random sample of about 10,000
adults who will each receive a monthly handout of 550 euros, about
$625. The intent is to turn the two-year trial into a national plan if
it proves successful.
In the Netherlands, Utrecht is leading a group of municipalities that are experimenting with similar pilot projects.
In the United States, the idea of a guaranteed income
has gained some traction in the run-up to the presidential election in
November. It has been promoted by some Democrats who are demanding more
social justice, but it also has some right-wing advocates who see it as a
better alternative to government welfare programs.
In
Switzerland, opponents warned that the proposal would derail an
economic model that, far from showing signs of near-collapse, has
allowed the country to remain among those with the highest living
standards in the world, even with a growing and aging population.
Switzerland has an unemployment rate of around 3.5 percent, less than
half the average in the European Union.
The
backers of the plan did not detail how it would be financed. But the
Swiss government and almost all the main political parties had urged
voters to turn down the guaranteed income plan, warning that it would
require raising an additional 25 billion Swiss francs a year through
deep spending cuts or tax increases.
Some
opponents of a Swiss guaranteed income also attacked it as a return to
Marxist economics, even if the idea has far older roots, dating to the
16th-century writings of Thomas More and the 18th-century works of
Thomas Paine.
After
World War II, the concept of a guaranteed income was promoted as a way
of redistributing income by some free-market economists led by Milton
Friedman, who in part argued that it would be more efficient than the
bureaucracy of running dozens of separate programs to help the poor.
Still,
the current discussion, in Switzerland and elsewhere, has been not only
about wealth redistribution but also about how modern societies can
continue to create jobs while pushing technological advances such as
factory robots and driverless trucks.
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Campaigners
in favor of a guaranteed income used robots as street stunts to warn
what the jobless society of the future would entail. Some people gave
out 10-franc notes at the Zurich’s main train station while supporters
in Geneva set up, on a public esplanade, a giant banner that asked,
“What would you do if your income were taken care of?”
“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.”
But at a Sunday market in Geneva, several people defended the proposal in the context of returning to a more equitable society.
Some
also presented their vote as another challenge to industrialization,
similar to their motivation for buying organic food from the stalls of
local farmers rather than cheaper supermarkets. A third of voters in
Geneva backed the idea of a guaranteed income.
“We’re
losing all our values, creating countries that no longer need workers
but still need consumers, but how can we expect people to buy anything
if they can’t earn a salary tomorrow?” asked Olivier Duchene, a musician
and street entertainer.
Despite the clear defeat, campaigners said the vote was a first step toward a fairer economic model.
“One
out of five people voted for the unconditional basic income, so that is
a success in itself,” Sergio Rossi, an economics professor who backed
the initiative, told STA, the Swiss news agency.
Switzerland’s
model of direct democracy, in which citizens can collect signatures to
force a national referendum on a proposal, has helped turn the country
into a laboratory for pioneering social and economic changes.
In early 2013, the Swiss voted to impose some of the world’s most severe restrictions on executive compensation, following a proposal by a small entrepreneur in defiance of the country’s big business lobby.
Later that year, however, the Swiss rejected another economic proposal, the “1:12” initiative,
which would have limited the salary of top executives to 12 times the
wages of their lowest-paid employees. And in 2014, the Swiss rejected a
proposal to introduce what would have been the world’s highest minimum wage, equivalent to nearly $25 an hour.
Referendums are gaining ground in other European countries that normally rely on a system of parliamentary democracy.
Last year, Greece held a referendum on a bailout plan, and the Netherlands introduced a referendum law under which voters rejected a European Union agreement
with Ukraine in April. Britain is set to vote in a referendum this
month on whether to leave the European Union a year after Scotland voted
to stay in the United Kingdom.
But
in Switzerland, the proliferation of such votes has provoked a debate
over the ease with which complicated or radical issues can be brought to
a referendum. Low voter turnout has also become an issue. About 46
percent of eligible Swiss voters went to the polls on Sunday, when four
other national issues and several regional issues were voted on.
Philippe
Leuba, a regional politician, said on Swiss national radio on Sunday
that it was positive that voters had followed the advice of their
federal government. But he still deplored the fact that the proposal for
guaranteed income had gotten so far, calling it a “hyper-populist and
demagogic” plan to give away money for nothing.
Correction: June 5, 2016
Because of an editing error, an earlier caption that appeared with a photo with this article misstated the subject of the Swiss referendum on Sunday. The vote was on a guaranteed income, not a minimum wage.
Because of an editing error, an earlier caption that appeared with a photo with this article misstated the subject of the Swiss referendum on Sunday. The vote was on a guaranteed income, not a minimum wage.
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