There are lots of talks and talks and talks about Basic Income, but is it “technically” possible to implement this idea?
In fact, the question is how it can be funded.
There are some approaches, which I’d like to outline.
One possibility shows the Alaska Permanent Fund – in Russia it would be suddenly possible because of their natural gas resources. Ukraine has also some resources, like steel, coal or land. The question is: Who owns actually all these resources?
But there are countries, too, who have no resources and they can introduce a redistribution of wealth by taxation. Today the main tax source in most countries is the income tax . About 2 years ago the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI) proofed the realization of a model for BI, which is based on income taxation. Even in the 1960x/70x James Tobin calculated a similar idea in the USA – the Negative Income Tax from Milton Friedman. But Tobin warned in those years, that not all social benefits should be replaced by a sole Basic Income.
2005 a proposal arose in Germany: because all taxes are at leased paid by consumers, why not levy a sole consumption tax, which would be quite high (50-100%).
Matthais Dilthey on the contrary proposed something like a “production tax”, which would replace the income tax. This means: today the taxation is based on the income of human work, but work of machines is not taxed. This would change with this kind of taxation.
Another idea is the “Tobin tax”. Originally it should slow down the financial market with a tax on financial transactions. The income of this tax could fund a Basic Income.
Other possibilities, how a state could fund a Basic Income are: Sale on rights. E.g. “cap-and-trade” (a proposal in the USA), but also the trade with “work permissions” (Mr. Fuellsack told in a private talk about this).
A Basic Income is from a technical point of view possible, if it is wanted.
