Transition to Post-Capitalism: Unconditional Citizen Income in Mexico
Unstoppable technology advancements in capitalism lead to the replacement of human labor, creating an insufficient wage-labor income link. The concept of an Objective Limit of Capitalism (OLC) suggests that the need to exploit human labor will diminish as science progresses, highlighting the necessity for delinking income from work for a sustainable future.
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For a Non For a Non- -violent Transition to Post violent Transition to Post- -Capitalism: Unconditional Sufficient Universal Citizen Income (USUCI). Unconditional Sufficient Universal Citizen Income (USUCI). The Case of Mexico The Case of Mexico Capitalism: Julio Boltvinik El Colegio de M xico julio.boltvinik@gmail.com
Unstoppable replacement of human labour The ceaseless search for more profits leads capitalism to constantly revolutionize the techniques of production, as happened in the two industrial revolutions, as well as in the Scientific and Technological Revolution initiated in the 2ndpost- war period and which has meant the definitive triumph of the automatic principle. In all these revolutions, machinery (first mechanical and then cybernetic, electronic) and later artificial intelligence, replaced human labour.
Insuficiency of the wage labour-income link The limit is being reached as labour replacement occurs currently in all activities, reaching the point where there are insufficient new labour intensive, commodified and lucrative activities to create enough new wage jobs, to replace jobs lost by automation and meet the requirements derived by the growth of population. This is intensifying economic crises and making stagnation the permanent condition of capitalism, and will soon make it non- viable, as the wage labour-income link becomes more and more insufficient as the main (almost unique) source to sustain life and effective demand.
Oppenheimer et al.: Marxs 1859s prediction is now a fact The continuance of the income-through-jobs link as the only major mechanism for distributing effective demand for granting the right to consume now acts as the main brake on the almost unlimited capacity of a cybernated productive system . (R. Oppenheimer, et al. Letter to the President, Ad Hoc Committee, The Triple Revolution, 1964.) Contrast this astonishing statement with Marx s famous 1859 Prologue in Contribution to the critique of Political Economy : At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution
The objective limit of capitalism (OLC) The idea of an OLC is found in Grundrisse and can be read as Marx s tenet that the application of science to production makes possible overcoming the need to exploit human labour, determines the end of society centred on paid work and makes it possible & necessary to delink income from work. Some extracts: as large industry develops, the creation of real wealth depends less on labour time (LT) than on the power of the agencies set in motion, power which depends on the general state of S&T. The great foundation-stone ceases to be LT . The theft of alien LT, on which present wealth is based, appears as a miserable foundation in face of this new one Surplus labour ceases to be the condition for the development of general wealth Production based on exchange value breaks down and production is stripped of the form of penury & antagonism To the reduction of necessary labour corresponds the artistic & S development of the individual in the time set free and with the means created. Capital is the moving contradiction: it presses to reduce LT while it posits LT as sole measure and source of wealth. This passage was later worked by R. Richta et al (1968/9) and A. Gorz (1998/9)
USUCI for a non-violent transition path to postcapitalism The unavoidable transition post-capitalism, will be a non-violent one, only if USUCI (Unconditional Sufficient Universal Citizen Income) is applied. J. Rifkin & M. Ford have proposed alternative (but weak) solutions to the challenge of automation. Neither their proposals nor an insufficient and conditional basic income would create the conditions for a peaceful transition to a desirable post-capitalist society. Andr Gorz & Erik Olin Wright have strongly advocated USUCI. Gorz thought that capitalism will be replaced by the society of multiactivity. Without USUCI, capitalism will unavoidably, pushed by worse & worse crises promote wars, repression, chaos . barbarism. USUCI makes it possible for humanity to overcome scarcity and enter the realm of abundance, saves capitalism but sows in it the seed of its gradual transformation into a post-capitalist democratic society where greed and fear will no longer be the prevailing motives.
A constitutional reform for USUCI in Mexico An initiative for a constitutional reform in Mexico, establishing the Right to Universal Citizen Income (UCI) has been presented in Congress; the initiative proposes a gradual implementation of USUCI throughout a period of 40 years, arguing that it is fiscally viable. The conditions of legitimacy for USUCI are given in Mexico, because unconditional monetary transferences to households/individuals have acquired social legitimacy, which is also reflected in the Supreme Court's thesis on the " Right to the Minimum Life-Sustaining Income , on which Pablo Yanes will speak tomorrow. The pioneer country, having a guaranteed demand level, would have competitive advantages that would stimulate automation, not hinder it as is happening in most countries.
