Le Salaire à Vie: The Socialist Alternative to Universal Basic Income
We are in a stage in our societal and economic development when we are beginning to see major problems on the horizon. One of these being the problem of automation. The overwhelming majority of us depend on work to survive. With rapid developments in automation there are some questions being raised about the future of labor and what happens as automation subsumes more and more labor.
Many will write this off as being a sort of Neo-Luddite reaction. I, and most experts argue, this wave of automation is happening many times quicker and on a much wider scale than ever before. Never have jobs that used to require interpersonal communication been at risk. Never before have industries like agriculture and shipping been subject to almost complete automation; some figures say as much as 50% of work has the potential to be automated in the next few decades. With this looming many are looking to the future and asking how we handle this issue; one of the most common answers is that of a basic income.
When talking about basic income the most common system you hear about, by far, is Universal Basic Income (UBI). UBI is a system where once you reach a certain age you begin to receive a base salary, funded by taxation, from the government in addition to what you would receive from your employer. This basic income is meant to stave off some of the more severe threats of being low-income and provides income for basic survival; food, housing, and basic healthcare costs (though it will probably be combined with a universal healthcare system). This has the potential to alleviate some of the worst aspects of capitalism, namely the working class struggle for basic living standards which would be compounded by the effects of automation.
UBI has the potential to alleviate some of the natural anxieties we experience in this system. How much better would our lives be if we knew that if we lost our jobs, needed to find new work, move to a new location and so on, that we at least didn’t have to worry about feeding ourselves and our families? In addition to this, people would potentially have more free time to pursue meaningful activities that they may not otherwise be able to pursue; arts, education, childcare and so on.
These are the possible positive effects but, there are major concerns and threats to the people that would supposedly benefit most from UBI.
At first sight, UBI sounds great and would be a major upgrade to the capitalist order but influential libertarians and economic conservatives advocated for a UBI decades ago. Neoliberal architects like, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, supported UBI for a much different reason; it would allow employers to pay lower wages. The logic here is, in theory, UBI would allow companies to cut labor costs, the most expensive cost of almost any industry, allowing firms to expand thus growing the economy. For anyone who looks at what happens when firms increase profits it is clear they tend to become concentrated and very rarely do the working classes see any real benefit from this.
Many conservatives will argue that UBI is socialist and will surely create an incentive for people to not work. What motivation can anyone have if they don’t feel a constant anxiety about feeding and housing their family?
I argue UBI is not socialist per se, but a necessary invention of capital. As capital becomes increasingly concentrated and the divide between rich and poor becomes more extreme capitalism, needs a way to keep the masses of workers it depends on content. It is intended to prolong capital’s hegemony while keeping workers obedient and dependent on employers and the ruling class. The real problem of UBI is it operates within a capitalist framework. It is a reform to try to address some contradictions in capitalism and make it a little “nicer”. UBI is part of a long line of token capitulations to keep workers from overthrowing the system. It does not advance us down a fair or equitable path but keeps us locked in this hellish system we currently inhabit. There is good news though, we do have an alternative.
That alternative is Le Salaire à Vie or Salary for Life. Le Salaire à Vie was imagined by the French sociologist, Bernard Friot. Friot has attempted to develop an alternative to UBI which has enormous potential to relieve us from some of the worst contradictions of capitalism and keep us out of the traps of UBI.
Friot, as a Marxist, has recognized these issues with UBI and has devised a solution, or at least a stepping stone, to a greater vision. A vision that doesn’t lock us into this system further but creates a way out by putting into practice socialist goals like worker autonomy and creating democratic workplaces, as well as recognizing the value created by domestic labor and other social contributions.
With Le Salaire à Vie, salary would be untied from employment, instead, linked to the individual and determined by a scale that an individual would climb based on factors that made their labor more valuable. In Friot’s examples, at 18 you would start receiving your salary, irrevocable, of 1500 euro (approx. $1700). Things like furthering your education or the amount of experience you have working would move you up the scale. Incentives could also be applied to specific industries or jobs where there is a shortage of labor to encourage people to work in those fields or industries. You would also be required to work in order to move up the scale, the more effort you put in the faster your salary increases, which would cap at 6000 euro (approx. $7000). In this way, Le Salaire à Vie recognizes all labor as socially valuable and necessary while still recognizing skill, effort, and the time one puts in to gain certain skills and abilities.
To understand Le Salaire à Vie properly we need to understand the two forms of property conceptualized by Friot: Lucrative Property and Property of Use.
Lucrative Property is property that is not personally consumed by the owner but from which forms of income are derived. This could be a house that the owner charges rent on or profits from a company or an investment portfolio. This is commonly referred to as private property.
Property of Use or “The Property of Jouissance” is property limited to the usufruct of a good and of which no profit can be drawn. We can think of this as personal or public property. The Property of Use can’t be sold; rental would be allowed as long as it is tied to the value the owner adds to the property such as services or renovations and maintenance. You could own your own house or car but you couldn’t sell or rent these items, again, unless the income derived is tied to the value you create.
Forms of value, like social contribution and domestic labor, that are currently invisibilized in capitalism will again be recognized by society for their necessity to the reproduction of the society. Since the workers value is determined by their qualifications and social contribution instead of labor time or social factors like socio-economic status, race, age or gender. Mothers and the elderly receive salary, this is not merely an act of solidarity or to be seen as alms, but rather, as a social co-responsibility. These types of labor that are ignored in capitalism are seen to produce real value that would be figured into the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or the total economic output of the nation. The gender pay gap would disappear and domestic labor, performed mostly by women, would have economic value. A mother raising a child would no longer have to choose between a workplace and being a mother. The elderly or infirm would cease to depend on welfare programs like social security that allows them to barely scrape by.
As a way to escape capitalism, Le Salaire à Vie seeks to suppress and ultimately delete profit altogether, transforming the incentive that drives the society. To escape capital we must suppress profit, not tax it. The taxation of profit legitimizes it and makes us dependent on these profits and thus the capitalist system. Social programs that millions depend on currently rely on this; creating yet another contradiction in capital. Instead, Le Salaire à Vie would eliminate most social programs, they would be made redundant by automatic living wages along with socially provided services like healthcare, education, public transport, and basic necessities such as electricity, heat and water. Although, some social programs would remain for the disabled and others not capable of performing labor that otherwise would not be to increase their income. This would also free up the money we currently invest in social programs to be used elsewhere, possibly to more adequately fund healthcare, transport and education systems.
So where does this money come from and how exactly would we be able to expand the economy with a salary cap? I mean we can’t possibly create new business, expand production, hire more people and so on without capital accumulation, right?
Rather than being directly paid by your employer, every employer would instead put the money that would normally go to workers to a salary contribution fund that would be determined by the nations Gross Domestic Product. To answer the latter, it’s obvious we would still need money to invest in new business. This would operate in a similar way to salary, via the creation of investment funds. This as well would be determined by GDP and this fund would be used for reasons such as the expansion of industries, investment in research and development, and upgrading the means of production.
Friot’s conception of how the GDP would be divided is as follows; keep in mind this would likely be fluid and dependent on certain economic conditions and may vary based on the specific nation and a manifold of other situations and conditions:
60% of the GDP would go to the salary contribution fund,
- 30% of GDP would go to the economic contribution fund dedicated to investment ,
- 15% for the self-financing of companies ,
- 15% for the financing of new projects,
- 10% of GDP would go to the free contribution fund, for the financing of current expenditure of public services (beyond salaries and investment).
The most essential part of Le Salaire à Vie, and what really sets it apart and makes it superior to UBI is the democratization of the system; the employer, bosses and the CEO are gone. Workplaces would be worker controlled and horizontally organized. Currently, the manager chooses the workers but in this system, the opposite would take place, the workers would elect their own managers. After a year managers would be evaluated, if they are deemed to be competent and perform well in their duties they will remain, if not, a new manager will be elected.
The salary contribution and investment funds would be managed and controlled by worker assemblies comprised of workers, specialists and elected citizens that would democratically control the salary and investment funds. Decisions like which industries need incentives or where investments should be allocated would be decided here. Profit would no longer drive these choices; massive amounts of environmental damage would no longer happen just because it’s profitable. Workers would own there labor and all the value they create and have decision making power in their workplace, sapping the power that big business and corporations have over and within the state and all of us. Money would automatically be removed from politics giving people real decisions instead of having to pick from a few bought and paid for candidates that seek to uphold the status quo. People would finally have freedom and power in the place they will most of their adult life.
It is unclear to me whether this system could be a permanent solution, the likely answer is no. This system would likely lead to it’s own contradictions and problems. This is why our praxis must remain fluid. We must develop open systems that are always subject to change and revision that are dependent on historical eras and geographical areas. What I am sure of is Le Salaire à Vie is superior to UBI, by far. It advances us down, and even realizes a socialist vision that is democratic and more just, A vision where sixty elites no longer hold more wealth than the poorest 3.7 billion. Where we all have access to food, medical care, housing, education and clean running water. It creates a way out of capitalism instead of locking us further in. With a basic income all but imminent we should reject UBI and push for a system that benefits the masses; the workers of the world.