Fernando Alcoforado*
Capitalism has contributed in its evolution throughout history to the advance of unemployment and extreme poverty. According to the ILO, in 2018 the planet had 172 million unemployed. Even without a recession, the world’s population increase will inevitably lead to an increase in the number of unemployed (173.6 million in 2019 and 174.3 million in 2020) because the market will not be able to absorb new workers. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) annually prepare the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index. The recently published 2019 edition shows that there are 1.3 billion multidimensional poor people in the 101 low- and middle-income countries that the study examines, that is, suffering several shortcomings of a list of 10 related to health, education and quality of life. They are almost double the 736 million of those considered extremely poor, who live on less than $ 1.90 a day [AGUDO, Alejandra. Quem são e onde estão os pobres do mundo (Who are and where are the world’s poor). Available on the website <https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2019/07/13/actualidad/1562972599_738643.html>].
How can the countries of the world, including the richest, have so many unemployed and poor people and what can be done about it? We must combat the view of right-wing parties and politicians who see unemployment and poverty as inevitable problems and should not be the object of government intervention and that of left-wing parties and politicians who see unemployment and poverty as insoluble problems in milestones of capitalism. The right-wing parties and politicians , reactive to state intervention in the economy and too convinced that the free market will automatically bring about universal welfare, does nothing to solve the problem. The left-wing parties and politicians emphasizes the need for changes in the model of society to solve the problem. The future trend is that of worsening unemployment and extreme poverty. Given this perspective, what would be the solution to alleviate unemployment and poverty within the framework of capitalism? The solution would be the adoption by national states of public policies aimed at the development of the social and solidarity economy to alleviate unemployment and the implementation of basic or universal minimum income to alleviate poverty.
Regarding the Social and Solidarity Economy, it is important to note that it is one of the solutions to alleviate the problem of unemployment and pave the way to invent in the future other ways of producing and consuming contributing to greater social cohesion. This is the opinion of Géraldine Lacroix and Romain Slitine presented in their book L’Economie sociale et solidaire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2016). According to Lacroix and Slitine, from equitable trade to solidarity savings through social innovations in the field of environmental protection, the fight against social exclusion or equal opportunities, the Social and Solidarity Economy offers answers to numerous questions of contemporary society. The authors of this book state that the social and solidarity economy accounts for 10% of GDP and accounts for 12.7% of employment in France. In Brazil, the social and solidarity economy represents 1% of GDP [REDE BRASIL ATUAL. Com autogestão, economia solidária já representa 1% do PIB no Brasil (With self-management, solidarity economy already represents 1% of GDP in Brazil). Available at the website <http://www.redebrasilatual.com.br/economia/2015/08/economia-solidaria-ja-representa-1-do-pib-no-brasil-3696.html, 2015>].
The Social and Solidarity Economy is a new model of economic, social, political and environmental development that has a different way of generating work and income in various sectors, whether in community banks, credit unions, family farming cooperatives, fair trade, barter clubs, etc. The Social and Solidarity Economy is a new form of organization of work and economic activities in general emerging as an important alternative for the inclusion of workers in the labor market, giving them a new opportunity through self-management. Based on the Social and Solidarity Economy, there is the possibility of recovering and continuing the bankrupt companies with a new mode of production, where profit maximization is no longer the main objective, giving rise to the maximization of quantity and the quality of work.
It should be noted that the Social and Solidarity Economy emerged in Europe with the first Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century. However, it was in Britain (more precisely in England) that it took the clearest form from the nineteenth century, as a “Response to the worsening labor crisis” and growing dissatisfaction with the performance of the public social security system. Faced with these economic and social gaps that the history of capitalism has produced emerges, as an alternative model, the Social and Solidarity Economy [SILVA, José Luís Alves e SILVA, Sandra Isabel Reis. A economia solidária como base do desenvolvimento local (The solidarity economy as the basis of local development). Available on the website <https://journals.openedition.org/eces/1451>, 2008]. It should be noted that the Social and Solidarity Economy was invented by workers in the early days of industrial capitalism.
The Social and Solidarity Economy, in its resurgence around the end of the twentieth century, appeared as a workers’ response to the productive restructuring of globalized capitalism and to misuse and without criteria of new technologies that led to mass unemployment and the bankruptcy of companies. The Social and Solidarity Economy stands as a possible alternative to generate employment for workers who are mostly excluded from the formal labor market and from consumption. Social and Solidarity Economy has emerged in various parts of the world with practices of economic and social relations that are enabling the survival and improvement of the quality of life of millions of people. These practices are based on relationships of solidary collaboration, inspired by cultural values that place the human being as the subject and purpose of economic activity, rather than the private accumulation of wealth in general and capital in particular.
In turn, the basic income or universal minimum income policy for the population is one of the solutions to alleviate poverty. This idea is not new. Friedrich August von Hayek, Austrian economist and later naturalized British philosopher, considered one of the greatest representatives of the Austrian School of Economic Thought, was the proponent of this idea when he published between 1973 and 1979 his Law, Legislation and Liberty (Routledge, 1988). The neoliberal income transfer program of the Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments in Brazil, Bolsa Familia, is an example of the application of Hayek’s basic income policy. Rutger Bregman’s book “Utopia for Realists” (London, New York: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2017) shows that giving free money to everyone, ie a universal minimum income program, would make it possible to alleviate or eliminate poverty. Among the reasons he points out for this idea to come true is that distributing money decreases crime, improves the health of the population and allows everyone to invest in themselves.
According to Bregman, a major challenge in implementing the basic income policy for the poor is the fear that, by giving the minimum to survive, people would become lazy. Bregman’s belief is that the minimum income will be like venture capital for the people giving everyone the opportunity to take risks. This will generate a wave of entrepreneurship. Bregman advocates the utopia of money for everyone and not just for the poor. In the book, Bregman cites a series of successful examples of how homeless people, Indians, and populations in vulnerable regions developed by receiving money without asking for anything in return. For him, it will be better with less bureaucracy and setting requirements. The basic income program should be universal in expanding to the rich and the middle class so that it becomes a right of all citizens, not a favor, Bregman says. The theme of basic income or universal minimum income has been gaining momentum in Silicon Valley, the main technological hub of the United States, as production systems based on artificial intelligence and automation advance, raising fears that they will eliminate a number of jobs. In the book, Bregman states that all the great achievements of civilization, such as the end of slavery, universal vow, women’s rights, were utopias at some point that came true.
It can be said that the adoption of the Social and Solidarity Economy is undoubtedly the solution that would allow, within the framework of capitalism, to tackle mass unemployment that tends to grow dramatically in the future with the replacement of skilled workers and not qualified by robots in the labor market. This is an important alternative for including workers in the labor market, giving them a new opportunity to work with a new mode of production where profit is no longer the main goal. Adopting the basic income or universal minimum income policy for the poor is one of the solutions to alleviate poverty as it would make it possible for the poor to have money to meet their basic needs of food, health, housing, etc. It is important to note that poverty is the condition of those who are poor, that is, those who do not have the basic conditions to guarantee their survival with quality of life and dignity.
It should be noted that an individual acquires the condition of poverty when he does not meet his basic needs because his income is not sufficient and he has no income because he is unemployed or has no income because he is not able to perform any productive activity. In short, poverty results from the fact that the individual does not have enough money to meet his basic needs. The basic income policy for the poor would bring numerous advantages such as reducing crime, improving the living conditions of the poor and increasing the consumption of goods and services by the poor. The government, the provider of the basic income for the poor, would have the benefit of lower spending on police repression and the prison structure as a result of reduced crime and homelessness and increased tax collection resulting of increasing consumption of the poor.
It is important to note that the basic income thesis for the poor is widely questioned because there is a widespread view that no one should have income without working. However, it is a conception that should not be applied in a conjuncture such as the current one in which the job offer does not meet the needs of the population and the poor population grows vertically worldwide. There will be no social peace in countries that do not adopt the policies of social and solidarity economy and basic income for the poor.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).
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