Rather than savage cuts, Switzerland considers “Star Trek” economics
Switzerland will vote on giving every adult in the country a $2,800 check every month. How would that work?
By Josh Eidelson
What strikes you about the contrast between the current U.S. budget shutdown and the conflicts over austerity in Europe since the crash?
The debate is so different in the United States. We are basically in the midst of a government shutdown because one party wants to give people insurance, and change for the better the terms people have in negotiating with their insurance companies. We’ve shut down the government for something that is taken for granted [elsewhere]. There’s almost no political parties in Europe that would argue actively for dismantling their healthcare system. In fact one of the reasons why the far right has grown in many countries in Europe is precisely because social democrats have participated in cutbacks to the social welfare system, and the nationalist right has said things like, “The reason why the government is cutting back is the rise in immigrants, who are making it impossible to afford our social welfare system.”
Here [in the U.S.], we have much higher levels of inequality, we have much less by the way of political leadership from the unions, because the unions are a lot smaller and less powerful, and we don’t have a strong social democratic tradition.
The European debate on guaranteed income has been somewhat divisive on the left. Because on the one hand, it’s a very generous way to provide support for people who desperately need it. On the other hand, it threatens the existence of the existing social welfare systems there, because it’s very hard to finance both the full set and full range of social welfare institutions that exist already, and side by side to give people $2,800 a month, or even substantially less than that.
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