Recall those dreams or goals, please, for a moment at least. What did you want to do or be?

Did you dream of getting a job and working eight or ten hours a day at, say, Wal-Mart or some other big company? Were you eager to have a boss who told you what to do and when to do it? Probably not.

That’s how most of us live. With current economic conditions, moreover, many of us are pleased to have any job – even if the job provides barely enough money or not even enough to pay our bills.

Our whole society is organized around jobs. Our government and political system are focused on creating jobs and saving jobs. Jobs are good, jobs are necessary, jobs are the goal of public policy. With the stated rationale of creating or saving jobs, our government has given billions or tens of billions to Wall Street, GM, Chrysler, AIG, and other big corporations.

Whatever happened to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Suppose you had an income of, say, $1,000 a month, guaranteed – an unconditional income in addition to whatever you earn or get from other sources. Call it Citizen Dividends.

We can have that. And we should. Bailout the people, all the people, not Wall Street or GM. Our government can and should give every American citizen an income sufficient for food and shelter. The same amount for everyone, to create a baseline of economic justice and economic equality. Everyone will have some income, some economic security, which will allow us to participate as citizens and in the market. Each of us will be more free to pursue our dreams.

This is a serious policy proposal. Guaranteed income was a mainstream idea in the 1960s, and a plan to provide it passed the House of Representatives by two-to-one, but was blocked in the Senate. Proponents including leading economists from the left and the right, and Martin Luther King called for it in his last book. Millions of Americans joined mass movements for income security in the 1930s, and similar ideas inspired significant political reforms in the 1890s and early 1900s. Previous proponents of some form of income security included Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Abraham Lincoln.

Why don’t we have that? Because we’re not demanding it. Because we’ve settled for jobs instead.

To learn more about these ideas, visit the home page and other material on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

You can read the complete plan, the idea and how we can implement it, in Peaceful, Positive Revolution, which is available from Tendril Press.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

That’s more evidence for why we need Citizen Dividends, a guaranteed basic income.

Economist Paul Krugman discusses falling wages in his New York Times column today. He notes the paradox in this and other areas of economics. Workers in one company or industry can save their jobs by accepting lower wages, but when many companies do so that creates downward pressure on all wages and all workers, and thus more unemployment.

Wages fall. Workers have less money to spend. Workers also have more incentive to save, preparing for harder times ahead. Less spending means less economic activity generally. Economic conditions worsen. Employment falls. It’s a “vicious circle” according to Krugman, and he concludes the column by warning of the prospects for long term economic stagnation.

We can break the circle by implementing Citizen Dividends. Conservatives ought to support this idea because it will stimulate economic activity. Markets will be more free, more active, more productive, because more people will have more money to spend. The guru of free market economists, Milton Friedman, endorsed the negative income tax for that reason. Liberals, including Krugman, ought to support this idea because it will help workers directly, protecting everyone from economic hardships.

Most conservatives, however, are reflexively anti-government, and opposed to any new programs, especially programs that would help ordinary people. Most liberals are merely timid, afraid to endorse anything so bold as Citizen Dividends. Their idea of an aggressive program to end hunger and homelessness is to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit.

If we ordinary citizens want real reform, we have to demand it. We have to get angry and start talking about these ideas with our family members, friends, and neighbors. This is a key part of the solution to many of our problems, including health care reform and reversing climate change.

It’s up to us. If we really want to save GM and Chrysler, and help their workers, and possibly save our own jobs, we can do all that and more by demanding and winning Citizen Dividends.

To learn more about these ideas, visit the home page and other material on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

You can read the complete plan, the idea and how we can implement it, in Peaceful, Positive Revolution, which is available from Tendril Press.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

Regarding swine flu: Is the Obama administration prepared? Are they doing the right things? What about the fact that Congress has not yet confirmed people to fill critical jobs, particularly Kathleen Sibelius for head of the Department of Health and Human Services? Her nomination is reportedly being blocked by Republicans who are concerned about her position on abortion. Links are here and here and here and here.

Regarding GM: Will it file for bankruptcy? Will it need more government bailout money? How many jobs will be lost, where, and how soon? Links are here and here and here.

These and similar news stories typically start with some big issue – swine flu, GM, jobs, government, the economy – and add details about individuals and families to supply human interest. That’s common for most issues and problems. Individuals and families, in other words, are only secondary, relatively passive, sometimes victims. Most of us seem to think of ourselves in that way, as relatively passive and sometimes victims.

The true power of Citizen Dividends is in transforming the political discourse. Providing everyone with a guaranteed basic income is a way to put individual citizens first – real people, unique individuals and our families, not “people.”

This is especially important with regard to jobs. Everyone will have an income for food and shelter, guaranteed, independent of any job.

Regarding GM: Everyone who works for GM, directly or indirectly, will have an absolute financial safety net regardless of what happens with GM, its suppliers, dealers, and so on.

Regarding swine flu: Everyone will have an income as they cope with the uncertainties. Consider, for example, people who work in a shopping mall or commute through a train station that might be closed to prevent the spread of the disease. Or the challenges for parents who have to adapt if their kids go to a school that’s suddenly closed.

Citizen Dividends will give each of us and all of us more resources and much greater freedom to cope.

Both sets of issues, in addition, illustrate the massive size and complexity of government. Our federal government, according to the Constitution, is supposed to “promote the general welfare.” The most direct and effective way to do that would be Citizen Dividends – providing for each citizen equally, generally, unconditionally.

There’s nothing in the Constitution about ensuring the welfare of GM or any other corporation. And, though it clearly serves the general welfare for our government to be responding to the swine flu outbreak, that response is potentially being thwarted by an unrelated concern.

Citizen Dividends will restore political power to ordinary individuals, because each of us and all of us will have more freedom to participate as citizens. We’ll be better able to organize and demand the government we want and deserve.

Citizen Dividends will bring a Peaceful, Positive Revolution, and that’s the title of my recent book, which is available from Tendril Press.

Steven Shafarman

The numbers are just about everywhere, so there’s no need to cite or link to sources.

Conventional policies are little more than rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship. Government has a duty to help the poor, most of us believe, aiding and comforting people when necessary. A duty, too, to ensure that there are enough lifeboats and they don’t leak. But no amount of bandages or duct tape can keep us from sinking further.

The core assumption that government should be saving, creating, or providing jobs – that’s what we have to abandon, that’s how we can best save and restore the ship of state.

Ensure that everyone has some income independent of any job. Break the link between jobs and income.

Steven Shafarman

Reading and listening to the news, it’s interesting to note the abstract, passive language. One formulation I like is “The economy shed 598,000 jobs.” Shedding? It suggests that the economy is a dog and jobs are so much excess hair.

The more fundamental concern, in my opinion, is with that abstract term, “the economy.” To be quite literal and precise: There is no such thing as “the economy,” which means “it” has never lost, shed, saved, or created any jobs.

That abstract language is a key reason for many of our problems. Terms like “the economy” and “the market” create a fog that makes it difficult for us to see clearly. Economists, politicians, journalists, and most of us ordinary folks, too, are lost, sometimes seeming to be hypnotized by the words.

Or worse, this abstract language makes it seem as if “the economy” has some great magic and power, and we must defer to it and serve it. Almost a modern form of idolatry.

One way to free ourselves from the illusions and delusions is to think more concretely, to focus on ordinary people and our everyday lives. The first step toward fixing “the economy” is to ensure that every individual has an income for food and shelter. That should be the priority in our politics and public policy.

Steven Shafarman

The true cost per job of the Obama plan will probably be closer to $100,000 than $275,000 – and the net cost will be as little as $60,000 once you take into account the fact that a stronger economy means higher tax receipts.

But Krugman, only slightly less than the conservatives, is trapped by conventional thinking.

No matter how much money government spends, it cannot possibly create jobs for all the people who are unemployed. In addition to the unemployed, moreover, tens of millions of us are at risk of losing our jobs, and many more tens of millions are burdened by debts and struggling to pay our bills.

Basic income is a much better approach – the most direct, rapid, reliable, and responsible way to end the recession.

Let’s give every adult citizen some amount, say $800 or $1,000 a month. Everyone who’s unemployed will have some income for food and shelter while they find or create their own jobs. Everyone, regardless of employment status, will have, guaranteed, some real income security. No one left behind. No one.

Give it to everyone, the unemployed and those who have jobs, the poor and rich, married and single, women and men, black and brown and white. That will minimize the bureaucracy and means-testing that come with most government programs. It will also create a baseline of economic justice and economic equality.

The proposed $825 billion would pay for the basic income for four or five months. The rest of the money can come from eliminating bailouts, subsidies, and other forms of “corporate welfare”, and from cutting local, state, and federal individual welfare programs that become superfluous.

Krugman and Obama and their conservative critics will, of course, have to compromise on the details. If our elected officials are serious about ending the recession and helping ordinary Americans, they’ll be willing to make the necessary compromises and they’ll endorse basic income.

Steven Shafarman

If it’s three million jobs, that’s $260,000 a job. Four million jobs would be $194,000 each.

These calculations are overly simplistic, of course, because the government spending will provide far greater benefits than the number of jobs created, but they’re still meaningful. The numbers illustrate the absurdity of conventional policies.

Suppose that, instead of spending the money to create jobs, we provide every American with a basic income, Citizen Dividends. Enough for food and shelter, say $1,000 a month, but just enough, so there are still lots of incentives to work and earn more. People who are unemployed will have some income while they find or create their own jobs.

Everyone who’s unemployed will have some income. The fundamental flaws and failures with efforts to create jobs are that many people are left out. Government spending helps only some people, in some places, some of the time. It’s somewhat random, somewhat arbitrary — regardless of the specific policies that seek to create the jobs. While Democrats and Republicans debate the relative merit and logic of their preferred approached — tax cuts, extended unemployment benefits, infrastructure spending, buying up bad mortgages, bailing out banks or auto manufacturers, investing in health care, and so on — both parties ignore the deeper questions.

We’re in a recession, just about everyone says. But there’s an old quip that a recession is when your neighbor loses his job, while a depression is when you lose your job. This is a depression for at least 11 million Americans, and that number grew by 564,000 in the month of December. Conventional policies always leave some people behind, unemployed, depressed.

Basic income would be universal and guaranteed. It will benefit everyone, including those who cannot work or do not work for any reason, and they are, typically, the ones who most need assistance but don’t get it with any type of jobs program.

Steven Shafarman