A Citizen’s Income could work at different levels

A Citizen’s Income would certainly work at the level of the nation state. In federal states it could work at the level below the nation state: for instance, at provincial level in Canada, or at state level in the USA. All that would be required for a subnational Citizen’s Income would be a robust list of citizens resident at the subnational level. In such semi-federal nation states as the United Kingdom, existing experience of devolved government suggests that a Citizen’s Income could work in each of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Again, all that would be required would be complete and accurate lists of citizens resident in each of them. Scotland recently made use of such a list to hold its referendum on independence. Whether a Citizen’s Income could be administered at more local levels is an interesting question. Individuals and households move frequently within the countries in which they live, and within the states and provinces of federated states. The UK’s new locally regulated means-tested property tax rebate, Council Tax Support, suggests that means-tested benefits can be managed differently in different locations, so we should expect Citizen’s Income administrations to be able to keep track of who was living where. But adjusting personal tax allowances only in those localities in which a Citizen’s Income was in payment could be too much to ask. Local Citizen’s Income schemes are probably not on the agenda for developed economies. Local pilot projects in India and Namibia have shown that it is possible to administer temporary Citizen’s Incomes at the local level in developing countries, but those local experiments were plagued by migration into the pilot communities, so permanent local schemes would probably not be viable. Countries in the European Union already have free markets in labour, goods and services, and countries in other regions of the world are moving in this direction. A Citizen’s Income at bloc level would make a lot of sense. The really interesting question is whether a global Citizen’s Income would be possible. Why not? It could be funded by income tax collected within each country, or by regional or global carbon or financial transaction taxes. Such a Citizen’s Income could reduce poverty around the world, and therefore reduce both armed conflicts and migration flows. Everyone would benefit.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.