Addressing Social Pathology and Precarity via A Community Basic Income in North-West Tasmania

Abstract

The discourse on the need for systemic transformation is becoming more coherent and integrated. However, substantial concrete approaches to progress towards this transformation are still lacking. This paper aims to fill this gap in terms of a policy that can help progress the long-term systemic transformation needed. First, however, the paper briefly outlines the literature on the evolution of social pathology and precarity, which indicates the nature of our challenge in re-creating sustainable societies. It is contended that the current prevalence of a level of irrationality and lack of reason characterizes late modern society, creating major problems for human survival and thriving. One key challenge is the increased cooperation as the basis for interdependence as our only sustainable survival and thriving strategy. Transcending the desire for independence and the denial of our dependence on each other (Wilding, 2013) is an important part of this challenge.

Community Basic Income, a community co-produced and community co-designed scheme where participants are paid income for engaging in activities beneficial for individual health, environmental health, and/or to build social systems, is posed as an eco-social policy to, in the short term, address un-and under-employment, poverty, a non-fit for purpose welfare system, and a lack of resourcing of eco-social community-based projects that can help progress systemic transformation. The more commonly discussed Universal or Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) is contrasted with the conditional Community Basic Income (CBI), with the CBI posed as a stepping stone to building the capacity needed to capture the benefits of a UBI. Finally, a campaign for a Community Basic Income in North-West Tasmania is briefly discussed for its potential to help progress towards transformation.