and austerity; as a result our society is fracturing. This book speaks to the urgent need for everybody to have access to collective services that are sufficient to meet their needs.’
Diane Coyle, co-director, Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Cambridge University
The Case For series
Sam Pizzigati, The Case for a Maximum Wage
Louise Haagh, The Case for Universal Basic Income
James K. Boyce, The Case for Carbon Dividends
Frances Coppola, The Case for People’s Quantitative Easing
Joe Guinan & Martin O’Neill, The Case for Community Wealth Building
Anna Coote & Andrew Percy, The Case for Universal Basic Services
The Case for Universal Basic Services
Anna Coote
Andrew Percy
polity
Copyright © Anna Coote and Andrew Percy 2020
The right of Anna Coote and Andrew Percy to be identified as Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2020 by Polity Press
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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3984-0
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Coote, Anna, author. | Percy, Andrew, author.
Title: The case for universal basic services / Anna Coote, Andrew Percy.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2020. | Series: The case for | Summary: “The idea that healthcare and education should be provided as universal public services to all who need them is widely accepted. But why leave it there? Why not expand it to more of life’s essentials? In this bold new book, Anna Coote and Andrew Percy argue that Universal Basic Services is exactly what we need to save our societies and our planet”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019028827 (print) | LCCN 2019028828 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509539826 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509539833 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509539840 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Social policy. | Basic needs--Government policy.
Classification: LCC HV91 .C6759 2020 (print) | LCC HV91 (ebook) | DDC 320.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019028827 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019028828
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
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Acknowledgements
We are extremely grateful to Ian Gough for invaluable advice and support throughout, to Pritika Kasliwal and Edanur Yazici for their research, and to Alfie Stirling for helpful feedback on the draft. We are also indebted to Henrietta Moore and the Institute for Global Prosperity for their work on developing the idea of UBS.
Introduction
All of us, however much or little we earn, need certain things to make our lives possible – and worth living. A roof over our heads, nourishing food, education, people to look after us when we can’t look after ourselves, health care when we are ill, water and electricity, transport to take us where we need to go and (these days) access to the internet.
We also need money so that we can pay for some of these things directly, such as food, rent and utility bills, although sometimes we cannot afford them. We pay for other things, such as education and roads, indirectly through taxes because we could never afford to buy them outright unless we were very rich. In the United Kingdom, the National Health Service provides free health care at the point of need, so you do not have to worry about the cost of treatment or buying private health insurance. In most rich countries, there are some things that you don’t need to pay for directly because they are collectively provided – although free services sometimes fall short of adequate.
What all these things have in common is that they are everyday essentials that everybody needs to live a decent life.
Suppose, then, that we all clubbed together and made sure they were available and affordable for everyone. Suppose we pooled our resources so that the risk of suffering the ruinous consequences of going without one or more of these essentials was shared between us. That’s the goal of universal basic services (UBS): acting together to help each other, and ourselves, so that everyone has access to three things that are fundamental to a successful, peaceful, functioning democracy: security, opportunity and participation.
It is not exactly a new idea. It echoes the ambitions of Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s and the UK post-war settlement. Both were based on the premise that the whole of society is responsible for – and dependent upon – the well-being of every member of society. Therefore, governments were compelled to act against the scourge of unemployment and poverty and to combat the associated evils of illness, squalid housing and poor education. Funds were gathered through taxes and national insurance schemes to pay for schools, health care, housing and income support for those unable to earn – and all this helped to generate employment and a productive economy. As well as take-home pay, people received a virtual income in the form of public services. This has been described as part of a ‘social wage’ that includes state pensions and benefits. It was worth a great deal to everyone, and especially to
