Against Crisis INCOME
The 10 theses of Professor. Andrea Fumagalli, now a university professor of Economics at the University of Padua, dated September 1998, which called for a detailed analysis and discussion of the importance of basic income . From these arguments we start to better understand and overcome the contradictions of capitalism, neoliberalism, welfare, and patronage familistic amoral.
Income For the skeptics, who do not know the essence and do not know what you're talking about, we provide a quote:
"Teach, because we need all our intelligence. Shake, because we will need all our enthusiasm. Organize, because we need all our strength. " (Antonio Gramsci)
Proposition 1 The income is a proposal for general and egalitarian economic intervention, or not discriminating against anybody, that goes to, like nationality law, the full economic and social citizenship.
For basic income includes monetary delivery at regular time interval (eg one month), distributed to all who have citizenship and residence for at least a certain period of time (eg one year) able to allow a minimum life of dignity, combined with other income (from employment, business, by revenue), irrespective of the work made, nationality, gender, religious belief or social position, working age, for the period from the end of compulsory age of retirement or death. an intervention basis, the basic income should be distributed by an entity with constitutionally recognized state may be delegated to local authorities for material practices of redistribution. Being an independent income from wages (see Proposition 7), it replaces all forms of compensation arising from the loss of jobs (unemployment compensation, unemployment compensation, retirement, etc..) But not other forms of income already existing (pensions, loans to households, etc.).. The purpose of the income is to provide a monetary liquidity marketable final goods in order to allow the full enjoyment of citizenship rights and social without being embedded in a hierarchical production material and immaterial from this point of sight of the basic income helps to ensure the economic and social citizenship.
Proposition 2 The citizen's income, far from being a utopian proposal, is a measure of economic intervention appropriate to the social reality of flexible accumulation and therefore more realistic today than it was during the Ford .
With the transition from the Fordist model of what we can roughly be defined as "post-Fordist" or, rather, of 'flexible accumulation ", the economic and social environment changes radically. What 20 years ago might have seemed unrealistic, today it no longer is the case of basic income. To explain this statement, it is worth recalling some breaks economic and social (especially three), which marked the recent economic phase in the advanced capitalist countries, with particular reference to Europe:
1. invalid link production - employment, namely the fact that if a decrease in production is still a decrease in employment, is not more true. The information technology capability and flexibility allows you to increase production without increasing employment for high productivity levels that are embedded in new technologies. Information technologies are now dominant consisted almost entirely of process innovations, ie innovations that seek to alter the production cycle, the "how to produce and not the final product. New technologies do not permit the creation of new market opportunities. It should be taken of the fact, rather than trivial, that in the history of capitalism, technological progress has always been "liberated" and then work as a process in itself, has always led to technological unemployment. The ability of the capitalist system to compensate for this unemployment depends on the ability to create new products and, therefore, new markets, new demand and new production. Everything today seems to happen as a result of structural features of today's technological progress, the Constitution, not by the discovery of a new product (eg, fibers and plastics in the '20s and '30s, or a new mechanical process, which engine) but the introduction of something intangible like the computer language that can connect and program the use of two machines. The progress of information technology does not expand production, but the restructuring and modification by a steady increase in flexibility and all ciò non crea occupazione, bensì la distrugge.
La disoccupazione non è più quindi un fenomeno puramente congiunturale, bensì strutturale. E come tale, necessita di interventi strutturali. La riduzione dell'orario di lavoro rientra nel novero dei rimedi strutturali e proprio per questo può essere utile.
2. invalidità del nesso salario - produttività. Il salario del lavoro dipendente è oggi, alle soglie del 2000, sempre più sganciato dalla produttività, per il semplice fatto che la produttività dipende in massima parte non più dall'apporto lavorativo ma dal tipo di macchinario esistente. Se per aumentare la produzione a parità di lavoro e di tempo è sufficiente schiacciare un tasto or send a command via computer, it is evident that both work and his salary are external elements to the mechanism of accumulation. The fact that wages and productivity is the direct result of being released (the other side of the coin) of separation between post-Fordist production growth and employment growth.
3. irrelevance of the structure of domestic consumption (end of the nation state). The fact that wages and productivity are no longer connected to each other implies that the distribution of national income and consequently the domestic demand for consumption is not more important in determining the accumulation process. The first growing internationalization of financial flows (with the total and complete liberalization of capital) and then with the expansion of the process of de-industrialization in Western countries has meant that the economic conditions and economic policies within a single state (unless it is the triad - the U.S., Germany , Japan) today have little influence on mechanisms to consistently accumulating more and more global. From this point of view, in fact, the process of internationalization of the world economy is based on a division of labor that sees Western states to hold ever more concentrated financial and technological power and control of trade and the emerging countries of the third objective world of simple processing of goods. The irrelevance
the structure of income redistribution also implies the loss of the state's role both as economic agents directly involved in the economic system in support of accumulation (Keynesian policy) that as a "super partes" that directs and controls, through tax policy, the same redistribution of income. In a model of flexible accumulation "Welfare State" no longer has any specific function but represents only a rigidity and, as such, must be abolished.
These three aspects are highly correlated with each other and show a unique phenomenon: the separation of income distribution on one side and the other mechanism of accumulation.
At the social level, beyond sola sfera economica, tale separazione implica anche una modificazione del rapporto inclusione/esclusione. In modo alquanto sommario, possiamo dire che nel modello fordista-keynesiano l'esclusione e l'emarginazione sociale dipendevano dal grado di insubordinazione nei confronti delle condizioni e della disciplina del lavoro. In questo ambito, la presenza di una forte etica del lavoro rappresentava la via maestra per l'integrazione e l'inclusione sociale, che consentiva la partecipazione, pur se in posizione subalterna, alla distribuzione della ricchezza, che si contribuiva a produrre. L'obiettivo della piena occupazione aveva quindi una valenza non solo etica ma anche strategica, pur nell'ambito dei vincoli posti dalla necessità di mantenere comunque un certo level of unemployment. (7) Today, in post-Fordist flexible model, exclusion and social exclusion is characterized as an external element of "flexibility and indirect pressure" on the shrinking core of regular workers (see Proposition 6 for further discussion on this topic).
This depends on your salary from the decoupling of pay from the mechanism of accumulation, which is the newest model of post-Fordist flexible accumulation.
then arises a question: if the salary is not adjusted in the production of who or what is regulated?
There are two possible answers: the first photographer that is happening, the second option requires future.
While the salary is not adjusted within the mechanisms of accumulation and production as at the time of the Fordist model, then a possible answer is to postulate a situation pre-Fordist, namely a situation in which the nineteenth century Wage depends on the population, ie the levels of labor supply, the active population and those facing the labor market, although not find jobs. It is neither a provocation, or a paradox, but a painful reality. Today, the salary varies for different levels of unemployment and for this you can talk about salary existence since they are in the presence of structural unemployment. These simple considerations explain the presence of an abnormal situation for the first time in the postwar period: the production grows, increasing productivity, decreasing real wages for the benefit of profit and investment income.
If this is the trend that has been established - and it is a dangerous trend as it is highly regressive and anti-historical - it must be borne in mind that the conditions of accumulation, the flexibility of today's production systems are difficult to modify elements in short and medium term, unless you can not reach a bargaining power that can change structurally these production methods, assumptions, today, not very realistic.
The technological flexibility and wage flexibility as well as today are operated by companies are therefore exogenous factors that may be considered for an alternative economic policy, beyond the control of antagonistic social realities. From this point of view, the space for a reformist policy is totally null (8) , so much so that we see today.
becomes necessary to open a different option alternative, more realistic and practicable. This second option is one that runs the slogan of the citizen's income, the result of a process of redistribution social income. The guarantee of a basic income regardless of the way work is a hypothesis that emerges from the logic of production to work on the wider social level. To avoid the salary is reduced to mere subsistence element and not an instrument of liberation and individual freedom, it is necessary that wage (whether direct or hetero) to become a social issue and that is regulated in terms of social distribution of income . And today more than ever become a realistic option and indispensable
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Always on the utopian character of the citizen's income and the possible negative effects, often stressing the argument that if was actually available income is independent of the need to work, this could trigger a reduction in labor supply, especially for heavier tasks and dequalificanti at the expense of production levels and thus the possibility in the future to enjoy an equal supply of goods and services. (9) In other words, who would do the most menial jobs but just as necessary to maintain the level of welfare that exists today? To this objection, which at first glance appears to lack common sense and often implies a very strong work ethic, can be answered with three kinds of considerations: a.
a major stimulus to economic dynamics and technology comes from constantly putting obstacles and constraints to the accumulation process in progress. Whenever you develop a conflict between different social and especially between capital and labor (but to a lesser extent, also between different forms of capital), the resolution of this conflict through a wave of innovations and technological progress social. So it was for the introduction in the early centuries of the 8 hour day, six days a week. If we reread the documents of the time, you can find arguments very similar to that today, almost a century later, are invoked as regards the reduction in hours or the income of citizens about the risk of paralysis of produttiva. Troppo spesso, però, ci si dimentica che le conquiste sociali sono state il miglior antidoto alle crisi economiche, costringendo gli imprenditori a fuoriuscire da comportamenti routinari e a introdurre innovazioni tecnologiche in grado di contrastare e superare l'eventuale compressione dei profitti o il rischio di fallimento economico (si potrebbe, a tal fine, studiare il nesso tra la richiesta di normazione oraria del lavoro dei primi anni del secolo con lo sviluppo delle nuove tecnologie fordiste, così come negli anni '70 é possibile ravvedere un rapporto tra lo sviluppo dell'informatica e la precedente fase conflittuale dei tardi anni '60) . Al riguardo, potrebbe essere interessante ricordare che la competitività internazionale dell'industria italiana alla fine del decennio degli anni '70, "obbrobriosamente conflittuale" per molti, era maggiore, in termini reali, di quella esistente alla fine degli anni '80, decennio osannato come esempio di pace e repressione sociale. In altre parole, qualunque misura atta a migliorare la distribuzione del reddito in modo non compatibile con le esigenze di profittabilità delle imprese, impone allo stesso sistema produttivo la necessità di incentivare la produttività e accelerare il progresso tecnologico al fine di risolvere ed eliminare i vincoli all'accumulazione di volta in volta sorti. Da questo punto di vista, ben venga una misura come il reddito di cittadinanza, affinché costringa il sistema produttivo (imprese, banche, ecc.) a porre rimedi agli ostacoli che tale misura inevitabilmente é portata a introdurre. Altro che paralisi produttiva!
b. In secondo luogo, é necessario ricordare che la storia del progresso tecnologico mostra una tendenza secolare alla riduzione della fatica fisica e alla diminuzione dei cd. "lavori pesanti" (ovviamente facciamo riferimento alle aree dove il progresso tecnologico é maggiormente diffuso). Lo sviluppo tecnologico nel campo della meccanizzazione - come é noto - ha fatto passi da gigante. Una maggior difficoltà nel reperire forza-lavoro per lavori disagiati e pesanti, favorita dal disporre comunque un reddito base - lungi dal bloccare la produzione - indurrebbe uno stimolo innovativo per meccanizzare e robotizzare queste stesse mansioni heavy, favoring in this way an increase in productivity. In addition, not a secondary aspect, that here we simply mention, this could promote a dynamic technology that suits the actual needs of human liberation, something that is not always inherent with the development of scientific and technological progress (think for example development of the arms).
c. Finally, we must remember that man's nature is directed more to the activity that the "laziness", "vice" that has taken the headlines in connection with the development of the Protestant ethic of work. If man is "liberated" from the hard work and alienating, This does not mean you will pay only the "dolce far niente." The meaning of work - as it is usually accepted in the Western world - is often synonymous with trouble. Not to dwell too much on these issues (10) , in almost all Western languages \u200b\u200bthe word "work" is semantically synonymous with "pain" or "fatigue" (in Romance languages, derives from the noun "labor", which indicates or the pain of childbirth or an instrument of torture) and the work may also be indicated by a second word, "work" or "implementation", which defines the performance carried freely by the human mind (man or woman ) using the talent and the will: that phrase today in everyday language, is used to indicate the artistic activity (not randomly disconnected from the need to produce an exchange value and thus not immediately productive in the capitalist sense of the word) . What the citizen's income can support the reduction of the concept is working as hard, not in general earning capacity of "lender of work," the man, thereby increasing the degree of autonomy and freedom of choice of individuals. Indeed, with the decrease of hard work and alienated, the man would have more resources and more time to devote to the construction of "works" and perhaps to organize more liberating the production of what is useful. The "right otium" (11) does not mean no activity, but rather the disappearance of forced labor and sweat for the benefit of the liberation of the mind and human creativity. From this point of view, the watchword of the income represents a sort of counter to the discipline of work and social hierarchy that is generated and this is considered very dangerous. In fact, if one moves along a process of liberation from work but not work (in the capitalist sense of the term) is not a disciplinary tool of social control in the hands of the current structure of power.
Proposition 3 The income is a measure of economic policy reform, radical and non-structural modification of the capitalist organization, speaking on the distribution and not on the side of the capital-labor conflict.
Evolution capitalist economic organization is based on the continuous metamorphosis of the relationship between capital and labor exploitation. The conflicting nature of this relationship continually draws towards its modification. At the dawn of capitalist development, before and then at the same time the industrial revolution at the end of 700, creating a workforce underground detached from existing agricultural livelihoods in the countryside, is a prerequisite for the formation of a proletarian class, which is necessary for the development of a proto-capitalist accumulation process. The adjustment of the capital-labor ratio, then under development, also was based on forms of income distribution as a pure subsidy against hunger and poverty (12) . In the next century, the full unfolding of the capitalist accumulation process led to the abolition of any benefit against poverty and the prevalence of wage regulation based solely on the ruthless law of market hierarchies. The salary was consolidated as the dependent variable, with no lower limit other than to ensure the simple reproduction of labor power. The levels of unemployment, demographic trends and the need for collection of companies determine the value of the living wage. The savings was an exclusively "bourgeois" and its financing activities was through the re-accumulation of profits accrued (precisely, the savings) (13) . With the explosion of Taylorist and Fordist organization of the twentieth century, it becomes neessario for the development of capitalist forces that increase the levels of consumption and aggregate demand. The wages can not be considered at the macro level national but a simple variable cost becomes a major components of demand and therefore the monetary realization of surplus product in ever higher, the wage is so dependent on the same mode of operation of the accumulation process (14) . Today, the overcoming of spatial constraints that limit the development of the accumulation process within national borders or in areas even closer with the introduction of information technology and innovations in the field of transport leads to propose a regulation of wages increasingly individualistic (as effect of fragmentation of the labor market) and increasingly dependent on conditions not of collection (as in the Fordist phase) ma piuttosto dello stesso mercato del lavoro (con analogie preoccupanti con la fase prefordista). Nel corso del capitalismo, quindi la relazione salariale ha dipeso sempre dalle condizioni di produzione, cioè dal momento in cui il conflitto capitale-lavoro si manifesta, ma nel corso del tempo ha influenzato in maniera crescente la fase della realizzazione monetaria dei profitti e quindi il livello della domanda aggregata. Il reddito di cittadinanza si inserisce in questa tendenza: in quanto reddito (e non salario) diventa strumento di ricomposizione della domanda, modificandone la distribuzione tra i soggetti economici che vi partecipano. E' quindi strumento salvifico per la dinamica del processo di accumulazione capitalistico. E non potrebbe essere altrimenti, se we believe that all corrective actions in the economic process of capitalism, also born of violent conflicts are then detected bring new impetus to the development of capitalism itself. For these reasons, the income is a measure of reform and revolutionary (in the sense that not going to change the very structure on which the capitalist organization).
Proposition 4 The income is a proposal for a partial economic policy, not exhaustive and does not conflict with other proposals for radical reform (such as reduced working hours, development of social self, the activation of concrete work, etc.). .
Because of its nature di misura di politica economica di sostegno sul lato della distribuzione del reddito, il reddito di cittadinanza é strumento di intervento parziale. Esso tuttavia non può essere in contraddizione con altre misure alternative che riguardano o l'organizzazione del lavoro in un sistema di accumulazione flessibile (riduzione d'orario) o lo sviluppo di forme produttive alternative, non basate sulla maturazione di un profitto (terzo settore e autogestione/organizzazione (15) , lavori concreti (16) ). Anzi, esiste un rapporto di stretta complementarietà tra le diverse misure alternative, che dovrebbe essere valorizzato piuttosto che eluso o mistificato per pure ragioni di strumentalizzazione. For example, let's try to analyze the relationship that could profitably exist between the two proposals that were too often seen as conflicting: short-time working and basic income. Both proposals refer to the two sides of the same coin: the breaking of the link output and employment on the one hand, and between productivity and real wages on the other (see Proposition 2 for details).
On this aspect, I think it requires a little reflection. Because the reduction of working hours has a positive effect on employment, it is necessary, in my opinion, that they are checked at least three conditions: 1
. The reduction of working time must be sudden and drastic already 35 hours a day is enough demand, because productivity growth of around 4% (in engineering, also by 5-6%), within two years, reducing to 35 hours does not produce new jobs. E 'need to get off at least 30-32 hours a week, then a goal very different from that implied in a contract or contract of solidarity Volkswagen in Germany, dealing with time reductions and reorganization shifts exclusively aimed at maintaining current employment , not to its increase: a logic of intervention is very different.
2. If the reduction must be drastic and sudden, it follows that has a cost. These costs can not be sopportati dal lavoratori (nel senso, minor orario, minor salario), altrimenti invece di aumentare l'occupazione si tende ad un aumento della precarizzazione del lavoro esistente a vantaggio dei profitti e della flessibilità produttiva. In secondo luogo, un'eccessiva perdita del potere d'acquisto del monte salari potrebbe ritorcersi contro lo stesso meccanismo di accumulazione. Perché se è vero che la struttura dei consumi interni non è più così vincolante come nell'epoca fordista, tuttavia è possibile ipotizzare un vincolo minimo sotto il quale la domanda interna è preferibile non cada per non compromettere i meccanismi di sviluppo dell'economia. Il potere d'acquisto dei lavoratori non può quindi diminuire infinitamente.
3. E 'equally clear, for reasons of political realism and economic, that all costs associated with a drastic reduction in working hours can not be charged initially to the business system, initially, for only gradually, the gains in productivity and increases resulting from a more rational organization of work shifts that necessarily involves the reduction in working hours can reasonably cover the initial cost of short-time working.
It follows that if the reduction of hours must be immediate, drastic and sudden, there needs to its initial cost. This cost should be shoulder it from the tax office, that is, in terms of social relations and the social distribution of income. In this regard, it becomes imperative to start a process of tax reform, which, on the assumption of equal treatment of income on assets (whether for work, business or financial capital), allowing each individual to have a social benefit of citizenship, adding to that received in the mechanism of production, allows him to enjoy a decent income and decent (see Proposition 9 for details). Accordingly, the income is the obvious complement needed to make feasible the reduction of working time.
The necessity of introducing a basic income is not limited to the question the reduction of working hours, but it goes beyond this issue. Although the reduction in working hours is a matter within the entire category of employment, basic income plays a social role, broader, referring to the entire population.
From this point of view, the perspective of citizen's income is surely best placed to deal with structural changes of capital accumulation.
Also in relation to the issue of short-time working, too often we forget that for the past ten years is well inside the labor market post-Fordist stretch to the working day, not only within segment of the employed (following the extensive use of overtime), but especially within the new category of workers or self-directed, daughter of changes in the labor market in recent years. These workers, being within the complex subcontracting relationships of existing production cycles, are also subject to forms of hierarchy and subordination of varying intensity depending on the degree of freedom that his professional activities and / or the degree of specialization allows . However, by definition, as independent contractors and of itself shall not be subject to an adjustment of working times. Accordingly. only the reduction of working hours is likely to become an element di dualismo tra lavoratori formalmente con diverso statuto giuridico, ma sostanzialmente all'interno del medesimo modello di produzione. La flessibilizzazione e la precarizzazione del lavoro passa proprio tramite la segmentazione e la scomposizione del mercato del lavoro.
Da questo punto di vista, la tematica del reddito di cittadinanza svolge un importante funzione strategica di elemento unificatore e di fattore di ricomposizione delle diverse forme di erogazione di lavoro, proprio perché tematica non interna alla logica dell'accumulazione (vedi Tesi n. 10). Più in particolare, il reddito di cittadinanza può diventare l'obiettivo politico ed economico che non solo consente la riduzione dell'orario di lavoro ma diventa strumento di omogeneizzazione the following three categories of work: the category of the unemployed, because the basic income, as well as guaranteeing their immediate purchasing power without necessarily resorting to illegal profit, they know they can be a viable short-time work that offers them a future career, the category of self-employed and casual workers, in part driven by the Fordist production processes, through which a citizen's wage, may implement a reduction of their work without this necessarily implies a drop in income, as well as offering them a greater capacity to contract is not subject to the blackmail of the need to work, and those of employed workers, thanks income of citizenship may obtain a reduction of working hours resulting in improved quality of life.
Considerations similar to those carried out with regard to the reduction of working hours may also be undertaken regarding the activation of concrete work or the development of practices of self-organization or third sector. In this case, the greater individual freedom resulting from the availability of income would allow more people to engage in activities not strictly commercial, without being subject to selective constraint imposed by the market hierarchies.
As you can see, the issue of income represents a significant pick to shake some common places, also within the left, which led and still lead to a supine acceptance of the single thought dominant today. Not cheap.
Proposition 5 The income is a measure of countervailing power to the power of money to discriminate between ownership of the means of production and distribution of simple labor.
The transformation of the goods or manufacturing production as a unique moment of the origin of the surplus (unlike the feudal society - based on expropriation setting - and marketable - based on the hierarchy of trade), requires the separation of capital (means of production) and labor (delivery work) and then by its very nature implies a rebalancing of monetary exchange between the two parties, defined differently (and even on different floors), in other words, capitalist production is production of money by means of commodities (DM-D ') and therefore requires an advance money to start the task of transformation of the goods (DM) that can subsequently put into circulation and production, to turn a profit in money (M-D '). The functions of units of account, exchange and measure of wealth (general equivalent), the currency becomes, for the first time in human history, the function of credit-money. The availability of credit-money, that is means of financing the initial condition is not preparatory to produce based on a routine behavior, but to broaden and deepen the level of production and generation of surplus. In other words, newly created money entering the process and proceeding to its economic dynamism, transformation continues (along with technological progress: from this point of view, the "money" and the "machines" are the engine of capitalist development and the continuing redefinition of the hierarchy capital - labor). The availability of credit-money is thus reserved for those who, by holding private means of production, can independently and unilaterally (in their price, quantity and techniques) organizzare la produzione. La possibilità di disporre di moneta-credito segna, così, il discrimine economico (ma con tutte le implicazioni sociali che ne derivano) tra chi detiene i mezzi di produzione (gli imprenditori) e chi solo la propria forza-lavoro (i salariati).
Da un altro punto di vista - complementare - si potrebbe osservare che la moneta-credito é moneta-segno e virtuale perché il rapporto di debito e credito che comanda é scambio non solvibile (immateriale), non mediato da una merce e quindi non assimilabile allo scambio mercantile (da qui l'equivoco e la mistificazione dell'economia politica neoclassica); il rapporto di debito-credito ha come oggetto il tempo (il ponte tra presente e futuro, nelle parole Keynes) and a promise to repay (the source of the interest rate, which, in fact, varies according to the risk and duration of the loan). Hence the discriminant role of credit-money, access to which is selected on the basis, determined by capital, the economic function performed, reducible, directly or indirectly, to the fact if you have ownership of the means of production (guarantee) or not.
It follows that the substance of capitalist power of money lies in its being a source of distinction between capital and labor, and in its function of social class division. This function reaches its apogee in the Fordist compromise: the availability of credit-money newly created define the ownership of the means of production, availability for work, citizenship and guarantees the enjoyment of civil rights workers. For employees (employees) and service providers working (independent), the money supply is still residual outcome of the work process, and income (the last link in the transformation of money). In light of these considerations, it becomes necessary to loosen the money supply, ie, income, availability of labor. Separate means earned income from this point of view, defusing one of the main elements of the power of money: a priori be available only to those who hold the ownership of assets productions, that is for entrepreneurs. This obviously does not change the mode of capital-labor ratio, is not affected because the power of the entrepreneur to manage unilateral productive activity and technology, but encourages the process of liberation of individuals from the bondage of work and the temptation to need.
The income is therefore an instrument of countervailing monetary policy.
Proposition 6: The income is a measure of countervailing power to the modern forms of social exclusion, which seeks autonomy based on subjective freedom from coercion to job insecurity, forced and predetermined. In
50s and 60s, the main work was the passport to be recognized in every respect and worthy citizens to enjoy civil rights, that was the ultimate form of social inclusion. The social status of Fordism was mediated by the type of work and tasks assigned. If you accept the rules of disciplinary power in the economic, social and political, then it was guaranteed participation in the economic well-being, under which it conferred the placement office. Only those who are not subject to provisions governing the family, schools, barracks and the factory, risked social exclusion. The Fordist compromise between capital and labor, through the role and development of the "welfare state", garantiva così il soddisfacimento dei bisogni materiali primari in modo collettivo. Se l'inclusione sociale era un fenomeno collettivo, l'esclusione era invece una scelta individuale. La crisi dell'organizzazione fordista ed il venire meno del compromesso sociale che ne era sotteso porta allo svuotamento del "welfare state", al suo ridimensionamento e alla scomparsa dei meccanismi sociali (quindi collettivi e generali) di ammortizzamento delle disparità economiche. Il sopravvento dell'ideologia liberista implica la sovranità dell'individuo come unico agente in grado di provvedere alla propria inclusione e riconoscimento sociale, indipendentemente dalle condizioni date e di partenza. Se nel fordismo l'inclusione sociale era l'esito compromissorio a kind of collective conflict economic redistribution, the era of accumulation flexible it is the result of a ruthless individual competition. The main difference is that today even those who long for social inclusion, while preparing to withstand any level of hierarchical subordination, is not always able to achieve this goal. The same willingness to work no longer guarantees social inclusion: the phenomenon of "working poor", or those who while working, remain below the poverty line, is a phenomenon of our days that would have been inconceivable and incompatible with the forms of social regulation of the times of Fordism . In this context, income Citizenship represents a decisive reversal of the trends now prevailing. We will discuss further the degree of complementarity and / or substitutes for social services of the "welfare state" (see claim 8). Here we wish to point out that the income is an instrument of social inclusion (and civil progress) for two main reasons: on the one hand guarantees the immediate material resources to allow for a dignified life to all, and then resolve, although limited, the primary aspect of survival - is no longer subject to outside intervention - on the other hand, solving, at least in part, the material aspect of survival (not dependence cultural, economic, religiosa, ecc.), aumenta i gradi di autonomia dal ricatto del bisogno e quindi dalla necessità di sottostare a condizioni lavorative e/o di procacciamento di reddito al limite della schiavitù o illegali. Da questo punto di vista, il reddito di cittadinanza rappresenta un'arma potenziale (non effettiva) per lo sviluppo di conflittualità sociale e rivendicazioni economiche (vedi Tesi n. 10).
Tesi n. 7 Il reddito di cittadinanza non ha nulla a che vedere con il salario e con le caratteristiche del processo di accumulazione (da cui il salario dipende).
Questa tesi ripropone in parte alcune considerazioni già svolte nella presentazione della tesi n. 3. Tali osservazioni si basano sulle modalità in which case the distribution of income in a capitalist economy. A brief introduction is necessary in this regard. We have already had occasion to recall that the capitalist economic process can be effectively described by a sequence of steps that define the economic production of a monetary economy: segregation in the labor market of capital, or means of production and work force, or and work, requires a preliminary exchange
business-banking system that anticipates the monetary liquidity necessary to buy labor-power and start the production activities in accordance with the investment strategies adopted unilaterally by employers. The price of labor power, ie wages, is thus determined in nominal terms even before the production activity is carried out and before the production itself is valued at the final stage of movement and realization of surplus. The monetary profit is the outcome (residual) value of the production process, which is subtracted a share, for the payment of interest accrued to the credit system on expectations that monetary policy has initiated the process. It follows that the nominal wage is fixed in the opening phase of the economic and profit and income are determined in the closing phase. The sequential logic, which is intrinsically dynamic of capitalist production is therefore not a remuneration simultaneous inputs (as neo-liberal theories postulate). Secondly, consider that this structure generates sequential hierarchies and asymmetries between the same inputs. Who decides the mode of production (what, how, and the price at which to produce), or employers, also determines the real value of the distribution: in other words, the purchasing power of the actual inputs involved in production. This outcome is the result of conflicting reports that are generated in the credit market and labor, when determining the price of credit-money (financial interest) and the price of labor power (money wage), adding that entrepreneurs, deciding production techniques, determine the levels of productivity and value of production. The final price of goods, in fact, is nothing but a composite result of the level of exchange in the labor market and the currency and the existing level of productivity, based on the degree of competition in the industry in which it operates. The Fordist compromise between industrial capital and labor was mainly based on the one hand the determination of a money wage which takes into account productivity gains in exchange for that labor discipline that allowed for the fact to the productivity to grow wise constant or increasing and the other by a guarantee of a level of aggregate demand, through support the public sector, such as to ensure an even distribution of the surplus money between profits and interest to satisfy both employers bankers . With the crisis of Fordism, this compromise is not, not only because it is not the role of the welfare state (which Ford was the guarantor of the pact, softening any "friction") but mainly because productivity gains are no longer divided between the factors of production. This is due in large part by technological change (made necessary to restore profitability of the production system and service industry in the late 70's) and the growing weight of the cd. immaterial production: with the implementation of the 'intelligentsia mass "and the spread of technologies that redefine the relationships between language design, execution and marketing of production (we could say between manual and intellectual work), labor productivity, detached from the materiality of production, it becomes increasingly difficult to measure , ie becomes "social productivity" . In this context, the separation between wages and productivity is a fact. If it is not possible to determine the salary on the basis of growth of productivity measured in individual terms, is becoming more pressing the 'need for the social distribution of gains in productivity occurs precisely at the social level. Talking about the social distribution of income, then, means to redistribute the social product simultaneously across the inputs, the logical step of closing the economic process, whatever the level of money wage. Social income distribution, income or citizenship, and therefore logically inconsistent with the notion of wages.
Just on the basis of the correction or less than this difference, on the table today are three ideas of the social distribution of income.
First, consider the ideas of basic income that you have the flexibility of the neo-functional model of accumulation. They are born from the need to provide some kind of compensation - limited and temporary - because the economic structure does not guarantee a job for everyone. That requirement - from the '50s - he found two modes of explanation of very different even in uniform understand the needs of accumulation depending on the stage of economic interest: Fordist or post-Fordist.
The first refers to the introduction of a minimum wage guaranteed by the proposal of a 'negative income tax "it is appropriate to the containment of the development of the welfare state but at the same time provides for the pursuit of mass consumption compatible with mass production in the Fordist model of accumulation. The minimum wage (which we treat as a kind of unemployment benefits), being In this case, additional work-and consumption can not be universal or unlimited in time, but only for those who do not have a minimum income from work or the unemployed. E 'on the discrepancy on this point that the neo-Keynesian version of basic income of the nineties is different from the historical record (see the Onofri Commission proposal on the reform of the welfare state and, in part taken up by the Prodi government) . Based on the recognition of the end of the Fordist model and the fact that the flexibility and precariousness of work do not always allow a stable and continuous for all, it is proposed monetary support, regardless the current employment status, as a palliative to the structural weaknesses of the new model of flexible accumulation. In this case it is more appropriate to speak of guaranteed income rather than minimum wage, because new and future market conditions of the workers laid greater the difference between income on one side and the other work. The minimum income would be, not surprisingly, devolved only to those of working age and with an amount that varies according to age itself, with the proviso that you have the income to be below a certain threshold of poverty considered. In this case, the job situation (especially if you are unemployed or not) is irrelevant.
With the concept of citizen's income, however, means a universal intervention and unlimited in time. It is therefore a broader concept that affected society as a whole and not just those who are in an unfavorable economic situation (see Proposition 1). In this respect, one can speak of "social dividend", meaning that it is the result of social production, that at the macro level, does not require different treatment.
Proposition 8 The basic income replacement is not the welfare state, but is complementary.
very common objection to the citizen's income (including within the forces of the radical left) is the belief that there is perfect substitutability between or near the same basic income and provision of social services, thus promoting an individualistic approach to the detriment of instances of collective solidarity and, implicitly, a dismantling of the welfare state through monetization of basic social services.
The answer may be on two levels: theory and practice.
Theoretically, it is necessary to observe that in the Fordist paradigm, social services were and are granted on the basis of contributions corresponding to work performance throughout their working lives. Social services are therefore a component of the wages of workers, and deferred income or life, to be exchanged between business and social organization (state). In other words, social services are not income, that is the real purchasing power of goods and / or potential savings, but an integral part of remuneration for work. In contrast, when it comes to basic income is meant to refer to the purchasing power and demand for goods and services associated with it solvent. As has already been widely noted (see Proposition 3 and Proposition 7), there is a difference "stellar" between basic income and wages of citizenship in its various forms (minimum, guaranteed, temporary, etc.).. The first is independent of any work performed and on social contributions and / or tax and is not comparable to the concept of "work" the second, however, depends in some way conditional on the existence of a work performance during the total duration of the arc of life.
Based on these observations, the provision of social services and the citizen's income can not be substitutes for each other, but complementary. The first has to do with the remuneration for work, the second with the purchasing power of goods and services viable (that is commercialized, with a price and contracts based on private property).
However, it should certainly be realistic and remember that at the same time proposed for income di cittadinanza si chiederà come contropartita la monetizzazione dei servizi sociali e quindi la loro solvibilità all'interno del mercato privato. Tuttavia, il processo di privatizzazione dei servizi sociali si sta realizzando indipendentemente da qualsiasi richiesta di reddito di cittadinanza. La possibilità di opporsi a tale dinamica dipende dal potenziale di resistenza e di conflittualità che le forze antagoniste sono in grado di mettere in campo e non dalla messa sul tappeto della problematica di una redistribuzione sociale del reddito (intendendo con ciò il reddito di cittadinanza). Le politiche sociali della commissione Onofri vanno proprio in questa direzione: privatizzazione dei servizi sociali e, come contropartita, introduzione di una sorta minimum wage to climb over time, limited by age and only for those who do not come to have a certain level of income while being an integral part of the labor force (a kind of unemployment benefit rather than a minimum wage). If there is a capacity for resistance against the reform proposal of the Committee Onofri, then there will also prevent the proposal of basic income replacement and the provision of basic social services (education, health, housing, justice, etc...) Unfortunately, the problem is much more ahead of the citizen's income.
In fact, the ability to organize capacity conflictual encounters the trend today in place of the predominance of bargaining Individual collective bargaining. It is a process of individualization of the social and economic relationships (Americanization of society) which may be due to: *
flexibility of production relations;
* decomposition and fragmentation of the working world and the types of work, loss of
* importance of wage labor and, equally, the intensification of the subordination of labor to capital, even in intellectual tasks more properly defined in Fordism (Taylorization of "general intellect").
may develop at different times of conflict, but none of them is able to jam the mechanism of accumulation. E 'must a process of recomposition of the different subjectivity of the work, now broken and fragmented, and too often at war with each other. Such reconstruction can not be based only on individual working conditions, because they are too different and not connected to a model of productive organization with a single figure (subjectivity) working dominant. Second, the blackmail of the need and the direct subordination of the work that is not mediated by intermediate forms of representation (the crisis of the union) especially in a context of individual bargaining, does not allow generic and demagogic appeals to the solidarity of class (which class or rather which segment of class?) can be heard. A process of consolidation Social magma at this stage so it can happen along the way external coordinates of the production process but that surround it and are the result: the income and time. Allow greater availability of income in an area of \u200b\u200bindividual bargaining leads to greater bargaining power because they are less dependent on the blackmail of need and therefore more likely to cut at least in part on their working conditions (in the first place, the working time).
The issue is therefore reversed. It is not the citizen's income to support the process of "individualization" of social relations and production, but rather the opposite. The possibility of having an income accruing outside of labor relations, and then removed from the "blackmail of need" could, at least from a theoretical point of view, encourage the development of resistance of conflict antagonist as a possible element of social recomposition of the different subjectivity now scattered and unable struggling to translate their frustrations and social conflict and work alienation (see Proposition 10 for further details).
Finally it should be noted that the citizen's income can take many forms. In fact, it can be provided in a way only money, if that does not mean the elimination of basic social services (housing, health, education, transport, energy, etc..) Or, in part, in the form of actual additional services (not including primary), which allow to obtain without charge the same basic services. In this regard, it would be desirable choice in order to make the citizen's income to better match individual needs with each other.
On a practical level, the fundamental objection concerns the funding of a process of social redistribution of income that is complementary and parallel to maintain the principle of "welfare state". On this aspect, please refer to Proposition 9.
Proposition 9: Basic income creates the basis for its own funding
The current post-Fordist social organization, or flexible accumulation, is focused on the one hand working on a technological paradigm that privileges the individualisation of employment relations, the development of immaterial production as increasingly essential component of creating a surplus by strong productivity gains not to redistribute social (or better retained only by profits and rents), on the other levels of uncertainty increasing with time horizons of decision very short and changeable as well as development tools that run on a global scale, outside the narrow confines of the national. In other words, in terms of labor relations are witnessing a growing fragmentation and breakdown leading to a precarious dell'attvità lavorativa stessa e a ridefinire i rapporti tra lavoro salariato, lavoro a prestazione e lavoro coatto, mentre sul piano della produzione e del suo finanziamento si assiste a processi di concentrazione e di omogeneizzazione all'interno di macroaree sovranazionali strategiche, grazie ai nuovi strumenti finanziari e allo sviluppo del mercato internazionale dei capitali.
In un simile contesto, la possibilità di attivare politiche economiche nazionali, soprattutto dal lato fiscale (dal momento che dal lato monetario si é già verificata un'espropriazione dell'autonomia delle singole banche centrali, sempre più subordinate o ad accordi sovranazionali - come quello di Maastricht - o agli organismi internazionali che incidono sui mercati finanziari), risulta molto ridotta. Ciò non toglie che proprio l'esigenza di armonizzare realtà fiscali differenti in un contesto come quello disegnato dall'Unione Monetaria Europea possa risultare particolarmente utile per la specifica realtà italiana.
In primo luogo è necessario fare alcune analisi quantitative per aver ben in chiaro l'entità della massa monetaria necessaria per avviare una politica di reddito di cittadinanza.. A tal fine immaginiamo di trovarci di fronte a tre scenari, supponendo (punto tutto da discutere ancora e che richiederebbe un'analisi a parte) che l'entità del reddito di cittadinanza corrisponda a L. 1.000.000 al mese (per un totale di 12 milioni all'anno). Il primo è quello che fa riferimento all'analisi theory of these notes, namely the idea of \u200b\u200ban income equal citizenship for all, given to all those who have more than 15 years of age, and whose introduction is immediate and not gradual over time. (see Proposition 1) . In this perspective, the latest statistical data pertaining to the end of 1997, we are told that the Italian population over the age of 15 years amounts to about 48 million people. To ensure that all of them a guaranteed income of one million lire a month, the state should be available to 576 trillion lire, ie 29.5% of gross domestic product in the same year, or 60.5% of total government revenues. The second scenario we assume that is an idea of \u200b\u200bincome citizenship, initially, does not cover all those who already enjoy a retirement income of more than two million monthly. According to data from the Treasury, the number of pensions to 31.12.1996 was 9,962,072 (about 9,839,000 people over 65 years of age) for a total expenditure of L.105.000 billion, for a 'average output of about L. 1,054,000 per month. According to the INPS data, 36.8% of the pension is more than one million lire a month for a total of approximately 3.670000000 people. If we exclude that rate, the basic income should cover 45.1 million individuals in the amount of expenditure equal to L. 541 trillion. Finally, again as a hypothetical scenario, we can imagine un'introduzione graduale del reddito di cittadinanza inizialmente riservata per tutti coloro che hanno un reddito annuo inferiore ai 50 milioni di lire lordi, per poi estenderlo negli seguenti a tutti. Si tratta di una quota di popolazione intorno al 70% (dato ancora da verificare), il che ridurrebbe il numero dei beneficiari del reddito di cittadinanza a 34,1 milioni di persone, per una spesa complessiva di L. 409.000 miliardi.
Tre sono infatti gli aspetti che ci interessano analizzare ai fini della questione del finanziamento del reddito di cittadinanza.
1. La proposta di reddito di cittadinanza si inserisce in un processo di riforma fiscale dello stato, basato sui seguenti punti principali:
tassazione di tutti i redditi indipendentemente the assets through a single heavy progressive or graduated income tax rates but lower than at present (from employment, business, investment ==> wages, profits (earnings), private and public financial returns);
reduction of corporate income tax rates to like those of personal income tax and the introduction of a business asset (capital tax) reform of the social contribution, proceeding to the elimination of taxation of social security contributions in exchange for a payment reduction and assimilation between paid work and self-directed work (with mandatory Participation also clients) (25) :
on prevalence of direct and indirect;
simplification of the tax system and cross-checks with regard to consumer services in order to minimize tax evasion.
introduction of a "Tobin tax" on speculative financial transactions of intermediate financial institutions (banks and investment firms), both national and international (26) ;
maintenance and / or introduction of capital on wealth movable and immovable property (with the exception of the first house).
On the expenditure side it is necessary to simplify the budget: maintenance and expansion of social spending, reduced military spending and defense and public order (the only voice in strong growth in recent years), removal of support and financial aid to businesses. Keep in mind that a serious policy to reduce unemployment (through short-time working) and a policy of support of the application (basic income) although it means for radical reform, have a dual effect on the public budget: reducing the burden of unemployment insurance (mainly indirect, in terms of redundancy, the list of mobility, early retirement benefits to businesses - cf. scrapped - etc.), now amounting to some 24 trillion a year directly and indirectly about 40,000 billion (early retirement calculated over the average duration of life, etc..) and then reduction cost of the public sector (the only costs that the owners are careful to cite), on the one hand, and increase tax revenue as a result the increased domestic demand, the other (an increase of one percentage point of application, means an increase of 1, 3% of GDP - a level playing field - and a tax increase of 0.6%, or approximately 15 trillion per year). Finally, it should be noted that spending on public welfare in Italy at the end of 1996 amounted to 30.857 billion lira, consisting of 61.8% from transfers to deserving nuclei (disabled, blind, disabled, etc..), 20% by transfers in cash and kind to the generality of the poor.
2. E 'must return to the issue the redistribution of productivity gains, driven by technological change and today for the exclusive prerogative of profit and income and employment. It should be remembered that rates of productivity growth are now by far much higher than the statistics do not tell. In fact, official statistics measuring the productivity gains in terms necessarily material (number of parts, hours worked, etc..) Without taking into account that this must be added another productivity productivity - Type intangible - intellectual-induced applied to production. E 'such that productivity in many other industry provides a significant share of value added, which is often not taken into account. And it is this added value which should be the tax base from which to deduct the funds to finance the basic income .. If the share of 1% on the production of goods and market services were devolved to finance the basic income, that would provide a figure. Similarly, at the end of 1997, about 20,000 billion lire.
Proposition 10: The income is an instrument of social reconstruction and conflict of conscience in the presence of individual bargaining.
If in the process of Fordist production, the homogenization of the workforce was a necessity for the exploitation of economies of scale and a static effect adoption of repetitive mechanical technologies, the forms of representation arose directly from the analysis of the subjective conditions of work. The subjectivity of the working-Fordism - as has been analyzed by the Quaderni Rossi - it was all contained inside the man-machine relationship, exemplified by the assembly line. This ratio determines the alternative living conditions and reproduction of labor power. In the paradigm of accumulation flexible, you can not find a single worker subjectivity, but a plurality of subjectivity, which correspond to styles and patterns of behavior massified. The process of social reconstruction can not be based solely sulle condizioni di lavoro soggettive. Paradossalmente, nel paradigma dell'accumulazione flessibile, i livelli di subordinazione e di intensificazione dello sfruttamento (sia in termini di tempo di lavoro che in termini di remunerazione del lavoro) sono maggiori e più pervasivi di quelli che operavano nella logica fordista, ma nello stesso tempo più diversificati e indiretti (28). In un simile contesto un processo di ricomposizione di queste diverse soggettività può quindi verificarsi solo partendo da aspetti che non siano direttamente riconducibili alle diverse esperienze di lavoro. In alte parole, il comune denominatore che possa legare insieme realtà soggettive di lavoro fra loro divergenti e spesso in contrapposizione deve far riferimento a situazioni parties outside the scope of work and not reducible to a purely corporate time. In the paradigm of accumulation
flexible, there are two aspects that are beyond the subjective conditions of their employment but who depend directly: income, on the one hand and control over their working time to the other. These two issues cut across the different types of jobs that exist today (whether in work or self employment) daughters in the process of relaxation of the mechanism of accumulation: the decoupling of remuneration for work by productivity gains and break the link production -employment (with a consequent increase in unemployment levels). These two aspects are reflected in everyday political practice in the application of a social distribution of income and a reduction in working hours. These are two aspects which are complementary and indispensable to each other in the sense that the existence of a social distribution of income (basic income) may allow a reduction in working hours for equal pay without the costs associated with it falling back on general tax revenues are attributable to a single economic entity (firms, workers, etc..) (29). In particular, the basic income appears as a cross-cutting of social recomposition of the work much more general than it appears the reduction di lavoro come forma di controllo del proprio tempo di vita. Infatti, se la riduzione dell'orario di lavoro è un aspetto tutto all'interno della categoria degli occupati, il reddito di cittadinanza riveste una funzione sociale, più allargata, riferita a tutta la popolazione. Al riguardo occorre notare che da ormai una decina d'anni è ben presente all'interno del mercato del lavoro flessibile la tendenza all'allungamento della giornata lavorativa, non solo all'interno del segmento degli occupati dipendenti (in seguito al massiccio ricorso degli straordinari), ma soprattutto all'interno di della categoria dei lavoratori autonomi eterodiretti (30). Tali lavoratori, per definizione, in quanto autonomi e imprenditori di se stessi, non sono subject to an adjustment of working times. Accordingly. only the reduction of working hours is likely to become a formal element of dualism between workers with different legal status, but basically in the same production model. The flexibility and job insecurity passes through the segmentation and the breakdown of the labor market. From this point of view, the issue of basic income can play an important strategic role of a unifying factor and consolidation of different forms of delivery of work, just because they do not issue internal to the logic of accumulation. More specifically, the basic income can become the policy objective and economic, which not only allows the reduction of working hours but becomes an instrument of homogenization of the following three categories of work: the category of the unemployed, because the basic income, in addition to ensuring their purchasing power without having to initiate immediate to return illegal, they know they can be a viable short-time work that offers them a future career, the category of self-employed and casual workers, in part driven by the Fordist production processes, through which a citizen's income, may implement a reduction in their work without this necessarily implies a drop in income, while offering them greater ability to contract not subject to the blackmail of the need to work as employees in employment, which can result in a reduction of working hours resulting in an improved quality of life. As you can see, the issue of income represents a powerful factor of social recomposition factor comparable to the area's identity for some types of work in Northern Italy.
The spread of language as an instrument of production and distribution of intangible items in the production process completely redefines the traditional relationship between manual and intellectual work, emptying this concept of much of their historical significance, whatever the form of delivery of work performance (independent or dependent). The mechanization of intellectual activity, as demonstrated by its growing insecurity on the one hand and new forms of corporate elite (see education) on the other hand, has as an unavoidable (another prerequisite for discussing the social transformations) as the question of culture social problem. The decreasing level of culture medium is indeed a useful tool for the creation of a sort of dictatorship of information and the stereotype. Without considering the merits of the argument, which would require much more space, it suffices to note that the conditions of flexibility and precarious employment taxes in most cases prevents any process of awareness and analysis of their individual subjective conditions. The development of individual contracting instead of collective bargaining does not in widespread production in the country and not only place the subjective perception of their condition. The citizen's income may also play a decisive role on this payment collector consciences.
From a theoretical point of view, therefore, it is possible to think of instruments of social recomposition which act also on a different individual or sectoral conflict. However, that does not dissolve the contradiction of how policies through which the conflict (if it is) is can exert on the practical and effective. For example, in the context of the paradigm of accumulation flexible, uniform and homogeneous forms of conflict such as those represented by the strike, see lessen its punch if they are not closely related to one type of work, both at the sectoral level that task. As soon as the strike becomes an instrument of conflict more generally, tends to lose its effectiveness, especially as the economic environment is fragmented and broken up (31). Assuming (but not granted) that factors rebalancing Cross of subjectivity and attitudes of different segments of the work (especially central) can take place based on the watchwords of income and control time, it remains entirely unresolved the problem of defining both the political entity which puts the demands of the political entity that would accept them. In the Fordist logic of representation, it would first identify a form of union and / or association and the other to restore the role of the state as a place of self-implementation of fiscal policies necessary for the introduction of any income citizenship (32). However, repeat forms of representation superseded by the structural dynamics of production processes would not only be heard, a harbinger of illusion and confusion. To be recognized however that at present one can see new models of representation that can capture the many aspects of working life and to tell the story of the various departments here today. A help in this respect could be provided not by the creation of new forms of representation, but by the creation of physical locations and delivered to meet the diversified work experience. Self-administered by the Centers associations in recent years there has been a hive of activity and structures based on voluntary or combining forms of mutual aid (33). And 'This is the challenge that still remains open, in which are stored the more constant demand for change and to which we are not yet able to offer a satisfactory answer.
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