A Social Guarantee to Meet Everyone's Needs within Environmental Limits

Abstract

The Social Guarantee is part of the everyday economy and contributes a distinctive, normative approach. It maintains that the primary purpose of the economy is to meet everyone's needs within the limits of the natural environment. It offers a principled framework for policy and practice to address three interlinked crises that are all rooted in a failed economic system: soaring living costs, widening inequalities and the climate emergency. The starting point is that everyone should have a sufficient income. Crucially, this is derived not only from wages and cash transfers, but also from publicly funded services, infrastructure and other collective measures that constitute in‐kind benefits. These make a substantial contribution to living standards, they are highly redistributive and they are far more ecologically sustainable than aggregated market transactions. It is time to reassert the collective ideal and put in‐kind benefits at the heart of Labour's programme.

Is green growth happening? An empirical analysis of achieved versus Paris-compliant CO2–GDP decoupling in high-income countries

“…69,70 Livelihoods and wellbeing can be secured independently of economic growth, 71 by shortening and redistributing working hours to secure employment, 72 introducing a public job guarantee, 73 living wages, living pensions, 74 and a minimum income guarantee, 75 and providing universal access to affordable housing and good-quality public services. 76,77 Model studies suggest that such strategies, with equitable and sufficiency-oriented demand reduction in high-income countries and international convergence in per-capita consumption levels, could decrease global emissions fast enough to limit warming to 1•5°C. 4,42,55 A sufficiency-based climate mitigation scenario could cut total energy demand across 30 European countries by 55% by 2050 (around half due to sufficiency measures alone), and limit their combined cumulative CO 2 emissions to their combined fair-share carbon budget for 50% chance of 1•5°C.…”

Income Support in an Eco-Social State: The Case for Participation Income

“…Nonetheless, even in the context of widespread public provision, people will still need some level of disposable income if they are to enjoy central capabilities for play, senses, imagination and thought, and so on that are connected to the pursuit of varying life plans and exercise of agency and choice. Consequently, as Coote and Lawson (2021) argue, income supports and UBS are best thought of ‘as two sides of the same coin’ rather than conflicting alternatives.…”