A/HRC/35/26 I. Introduction1 1. The present report is submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 26/3 and is the third report submitted to the Council by Philip Alston in his capacity as Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. 2. The focus of the present report is on the idea of replacing or supplementing existing social protection systems with a universal basic income (“basic income”). 2 In recent months, this proposal has drawn increased attention from governments, scholars, and practitioners in a range of different fields, and four major books on the subject have been published in rapid succession. 3 As a report of the Government of India concluded, if “thinkers on both the extreme left and right” have all become basic income supporters, then it is “a powerful idea” which must be discussed seriously, even if that report concludes that the time has not yet come for its implementation. 4 Before exploring the details of the concept and its relationship to human rights, consideration needs to be given to the context in which the proposal has attracted such attention. 3. The fundamental values of the international human rights system are under attack in new and diverse ways in 2017. While competing explanations have been proffered, one that is included in most lists is that there is a rapidly growing sense of economic insecurity afflicting large segments of many societies. There is an increasing feeling of being exposed, vulnerable, overwhelmed and helpless, and of being systematically marginalized, both economically and socially. This situation, which previously seemed to be a fate reserved only for those living in low-income countries or in extreme poverty in high- and middleincome countries, now afflicts not just the unemployed and the underemployed, but also the precariously employed and those likely to be rendered unemployed in the foreseeable future as a result of various developments. Many of these individuals previously enjoyed a modicum of security and respect and felt that they had a stake in the overall system of government. As the new insecurity has ballooned and affected ever-greater numbers, many mainstream political parties have either remained oblivious, or have offered solutions that have only exacerbated the problems, further undermining faith in electoral democracy. 4. The neoliberal policies encapsulated in the 1980s-era Washington Consensus can be seen, especially in retrospect, to have greatly exacerbated economic insecurity, whether or not that was the intent. The State was assumed to be intrinsically inefficient and corruptionprone, and this led to constant pressure to shrink all those parts of it that provided social and basic economic services to the populace, while vindicating and reinforcing the State in its role as the regulator facilitating and legitimizing the privatization of the economy. Social security and social protection was transformed, including through the explicit policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, into a minimalist notion of “social safety nets” designed to avoid the very worst outcomes and make the State look beneficent while empowering officials dedicated to devising ever more efficient “targeting” mechanisms and to rooting out overinclusion while playing down underinclusion. The objectives of promoting tax reform and prudent fiscal policies turned into a race to the bottom to set the lowest individual and corporate tax rates, attracting businesses through expensive exemptions, turning a blind eye to illegal or unconscionably evasive tax practices, and eliminating estate taxes and other measures that would bring about even minimal redistribution. Privatization was promoted even in relation to what were once seen 1 2 3 4 4 The Special Rapporteur is grateful to Christiaan van Veen and Anna Bulman for their invaluable assistance in the preparation of the report. The concept is also known as citizen’s income, basic income guarantee, and guaranteed annual income. Philippe van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy (Harvard University Press, 2017); Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017); Thomas Straubhaar, Radikal Gerecht (Körber Stiftung, 2017); and Andy Stern, Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream (Public Affairs, 2016). Government of India, Economic Survey 2016-2017 (2017), chap. 9, p. 195.