Money can't buy you love...

[beautifulduckweed]

...but it can buy you a subsistence living, a measure of dignity and a way out of grinding poverty. Check this out: a basic income experiment in Namibia where all the residents in a village are given 100 Namibian dollars per person per month. No strings attached, no exceptions. Single mothers with seven children are given $800 a month. The rich German farmer down the street gets his $100 a month, too.

The results, if this story is to be believed, have been incredible. People have started up their own businesses, like bakeries and shoe repair shops. Attendance is schools have skyrocketed (because parents can now afford the $40/month fee), and because attendance has skyrocketed, the schools can all of a sudden afford things like paper, pens and printer ink. People with AIDS are doing better, because they're able to eat properly. Theft and other crimes are getting less common, and, interestingly enough, so is the chronic alcoholism. When you have enough money to actually be productive, as opposed to waiting around feeling resentful and helpless, it seems that you're much more likely to be, y'know, productive, instead of getting drunk.

Contrast this with the attitude the relatively prosperous farmers of German descent have towards the native Namibians:

[Siggi von Lüttwitz] pays his workers, his "cadets," the minimum hourly wage of 2.21 Namibian dollars, which is about 20 euro cents, as well as rations of meat and milk, which he believes is sufficient. He knows that the people in Otjivero are hungry. "They're poor wretches," he says, "and in some ways I feel sorry for them." But giving them money? "An idiotic idea," says Lüttwitz, insisting that it isn't the right way to teach them to be hardworking.

And further in the story:

He too receives the 100 dollars a month, which he doesn't need. Compared with the people in Otjivero, Lüttwitz is rich. "I don't see what all this is supposed to achieve," he says, smoking his unfiltered cigarettes. "They're just as dirty and tattered as they were before." He doesn't believe that people have a right to a guaranteed subsistence. He says: "If I give you 100 dollars, you should at least give me 90 dollars of work in return."

I'm not sure the people who pay their workers below-subsistence wages and then are outraged at the crime rates, alcoholism and "laziness" see the connection. Why work when working all day won't buy you enough food for yourself, much less your family?

I think it comes down to a very basic maxim: treat people like untrustworthy dickbags, and they'll live down to your expectations. Give people the basic tools for autonomy and dignity, and you'll see amazing things flourish.

I almost cried when I read this part of the article:

A man went to see Dirk and Claudia Haarmann. Beaming from ear to ear, he asked: "Don't you see?" They asked him what he meant. "Don't you see? I now have trousers and a t-shirt. I am now a person."

Even dignity, it seems, can be purchased for 100 Namibian dollars a month.

I know it's only the beginning of the experiment, and the experiment may yet go down in flames, and yes, I know the reporter is telling the story with a decided slant, but I can't deny this: it gives me so much hope.

Comments

[darwinpolice.livejournal.com]

Just wait until Lüttwitz's Namibian employees all quit to work for the newly-formed, local-owned businesses and he finds a way to sue the BIG Coalition for damages.

[misshepeshu.livejournal.com]

Please see LJ icon for response.

[jason-watkins.livejournal.com]

This is a great start, but the world needs more examples of this sort of program on a larger scale and at a longer term. There's a huge difference between subsidizing a village via charity and implementing a minimum income for an entire society. I'm not sure all the higher order economic effects are completely understood, and there are realpolitik concerns for how redistribution will be governed and potentially corrupted.

I've been a fan of negative income tax and similar direct payment social contracts for a while. It's one of the places where I start looking more like a libertarian than a liberal: I think limited wealth redistribution makes sense, but I react poorly to how most of those on the left want to dictate exactly how that wealth is spent by beneficiaries. It's particularly arrogant to simultaneously desire to help people but to also refuse to see them as individuals with just as much right to plotting their own course as you.

"I'm not sure the people who pay their workers below-subsistence wages and then are outraged at the crime rates, alcoholism and "laziness" see the connection."

Fundamental Attribution Error is pervasive in politics and very destructive.

[misshepeshu.livejournal.com]

You're right: I think it's working right now with the small village because there's relatively little bureacratization, and the people who are in charge right now seem to be genuinely altruistic, dedicated types. Putting this into action on a larger scale is going to raise all sorts of problems: fraud, corruption, etc.

I miss talking to you.

[seasong1.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking this.

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

That is such a fascinating story. Thanks for posting it.

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

This is excellent. Thanks for posting it

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Oh this. This is so good.