Is G.A. Cohen’s Egalitarian Ethos Consistent with Unconditional Basic Income?

1.1 G.A. Cohen’s Egalitarian Ethos and Casal’s and Shiffrin’s Revised Versions

G.A. Cohen appeals to an ethical solution to solve the trilemma formed by Pareto efficiency, equality, and freedom without sacrificing any of these three (Cohen 2008: 181–228). According to those who pose the trilemma as unsolvable, one could not achieve all three, but just two: that is, one could have Pareto efficiency and equality, sacrificing freedom (the Stalinist-style solution in Cohen’s terms); equality and freedom by sacrificing Pareto efficiency; or finally, Pareto efficiency and freedom by foregoing equality. Cohen argues that the trilemma can be solved through the widespread adoption of an egalitarian ethos in society that makes people act according to Rawls’ difference principle in their private lives,^[1] that is, rejecting any inequality which does not benefit the worst off.

Cohen devotes an entire chapter to the Freedom Objection, which claims that the ethos is so demanding that it does not really save all three values but jeopardizes freedom. Cohen deals with two versions of the trilemma: the first one formed by equality, Pareto efficiency, and freedom of choice of occupation, and the second where the latter is replaced by freedom as self-realization within an occupation.

The proponents of the first form of the trilemma understand that

1. equality as the absence of individuals who are substantially better off than others with respect to both income and job satisfaction on a scale that exceeds what a personal prerogative might justify (2008]: 184)

2. efficiency as the acceptance options which are better for some and worse for none

3. freedom (in terms of occupational freedom) cannot be all simultaneously realized.

Instead of abandoning equality to obtain both Pareto efficiency and freedom of occupational choice, Cohen appeals to the misconstruction of the trilemma because of a lack of clarity in the description of its freedom element (2008]: 188). According to Cohen, morality merely inspires or informs – without constraining-the free action of a person, which can only be coerced by legal obligation.

Nevertheless, Cohen faces another objection according to which freedom to choose between two things would not make sense if only one is morally permissible or, as Casal points out building upon Raz, if instead of choosing between two goods, the choice is between good and evil (Raz 1986, as cited in Casal 2013: 10). To this last objection, Cohen responds that “the value of freedom lies in the absence of coercion itself, not in the absence of legitimate moral demands that, being legitimate, cannot be absent” (2008]: 195).

Cohen favors extending not only the liberty principle (to which Rawls gives lexical priority) beyond the sphere of the state but also the difference principle, so that the latter influences people’s private lives in promoting the interests of the worst-off within the limits of a defensible personal prerogative.

Unlike Rawls, Cohen considers it necessary to include not only income but also the quality of work experience in the metric of justice. Thus, he favors compensation for special labor burdens, like those incurred in unusually arduous jobs (Casal 2013: 6).

About the second form of the trilemma, namely the one constituted by equality, Pareto efficiency, and freedom as self-realization, Cohen claims that the latter cannot be put in binary terms (unlike freedom of occupational choice), but rather comes “in different amounts” (2008]: 206). Regarding this type of freedom, Cohen considers that we should not speak of “slavery of the talented” either. Instead, what an egalitarian Cohen-like society would demand of a talented person is not that they completely renounce their occupational preferences and opt for a working life of absolute devotion to the worst-off, but that they simply settle for a life that, being privileged, more closely resembles that of ordinary people.

In summary, the welfarist-egalitarian principle of distributive justice proposed by Cohen, synthesized in his egalitarian ethos complemented by an agent-centered prerogative,^[2] seeks to guarantee the freedom of individuals (both in the sense of occupational choice and self-realization) while moving towards a more egalitarian society that does not sacrifice efficiency.

However, for Casal (2013), Cohen’s egalitarian ethos continues to be very restrictive and leaves no room for freedom of occupational choice. Thus, Casal proposes revising the latter so that it guarantees occupational choice^[3] for all without needing an agent-centered prerogative.

Casal’s revised ethos makes, according to herself, two differences from Cohen’s original formulation: “first, there is a difference between being asked to make a sacrifice concerning our occupation – whether it is in terms of salary, working hours, or tasks – so that others can have occupational autonomy, and being asked to make the same sacrifice so that others can consume more […] The second difference is that Jill cannot now complain to have lost her occupational autonomy to others who preserved theirs, for the revised ethos protects the occupational autonomy of all, the more skilled and the less skilled, and so also protects Jill’s” (2013]: 15–16).

In an attempt by Casal (2017) to reconcile Rawls, Cohen, and Mill, once a society has reached a certain absolute level of advantage in the sense of development and material prosperity, occupational freedom will take priority over greater material gains. Therefore, in Casal’s less-directive restatement of the ethos, the requirement that people work as hard as they can in socially useful occupations is contingent on reaching an absolute level of affluence.

On the other hand, Casal (2013) emphasizes that there is, in fact, a sense in which the ethos actually goes beyond the Rawlsian requirement insofar as it does not protect a merely formal or negative freedom but a real freedom as well (Van Parijs 1995, as cited in Casal 2013: 17). For this reason, she concludes that “for now nobody needs to have their occupational autonomy protected from the ethos because the ethos itself already protects occupational autonomy for all” (2013]: 18). Moreover, since occupational autonomy is a satiable requirement, the importance of absolute levels of advantage is already built into the ethos (2013]: 19).

To summarize: given that there is a difference between sacrificing occupational autonomy so that others can be entitled to it and so that they can consume more, given that from a certain level of material affluence onwards, occupational autonomy takes priority over greater material gains, and given that occupational choice is satiable, we can argue that the validity of an ethos^[4] a la Casal reinforces instead of undermines occupational autonomy for all.

It is precisely on the appeal to “real freedom for all” that Van Parijs (1995) intends to base his proposal for a universal basic income: “the real freedom we need to be concerned with is not just the real freedom to choose among the various bundles of goods one might wish to consume. It is the real freedom to choose among the various lives one might wish to lead” (1995]: 33). The attempt to put in dialogue both approaches, namely the distinct revisions of the egalitarian ethos and UBI, is what we will cover in the third section. But before that, we will briefly delve into Van Parijs’ and van der Veen’s proposal for an unconditional basic income.

1.2 The Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) in Van Parijs and van der Veen

Van Parijs starts his reflection on UBI from a definition of real freedom according to which “one is really free, as opposed to just formally free, to the extent that one possesses the means, not just the right, to do whatever one might want to do” (Van Parijs 1995: 32–33). In more theoretical terms, Van Parijs applies a leximin criterion of freedom according to which “each person has the greatest possible opportunity to do whatever she might want to do” (1995]: 25).

Building upon this conceptualization of real freedom, Van Parijs defines ‘basic income’ as “an income paid by the government to each full member of society (1) even if she is not willing to work, (2) irrespective of her being rich or poor, (3) whoever she lives with, and (4) no matter which part of the country she lives in” (1995]: 35).

The fact that UBI as conceived by Van Parijs is granted to all full members of society means that people sometimes refer to it as “universal”. However, throughout this work, we will use the term “unconditional” to underline the four unconditional traits that define its guarantee.

Regarding the amount that UBI has to reach in order to fulfill its purpose, Van Parijs claims that “there is nothing in the definition of basic income, as it is here understood, to connect it to some notion of basic needs. A basic income, as defined, can fall short of or exceed what is regarded as necessary to a decent existence” (1995]: 35). Instead, Van Parijs prefers to talk about the highest sustainable basic income for all consistent with security and self-ownership (1995]: 33; 39).

Once we have made these terminological clarifications, we are in a position to delve into those trends that, according to van der Veen and Van Parijs (1986), concur to undermine the claim that work alone (or at least the willingness to work) entitles one to any part of the social product: the first trend has to do with the revaluation of unpaid work that the women’s movement has led to. Basically, if one agrees that there are several activities that it is undesirable for them to become paid work – such as caregiving tasks – and if one insists that people can specialize in such tasks for part or for all their lives, then there is no reason that we continue to defend the principle according to which only those who carry out paid work or show intention to do so are entitled to an income of their own (van der Veen and Van Parijs 1986: 727).

The second trend is related to technological progress, which has attenuated the truth contained in the fact that what a worker produces is due entirely to his effort. When income level has so little to do with work performed, Van Parijs and van der Veen ask themselves, “how can one oppose the introduction of a universal grant on the ground that capitalists would then no longer be the only people capable of getting an income without working?” (van der Veen and Van Parijs 1986: 728).

The third trend has to do with the fact that privatization and destruction of the remaining commons by industrial society have left whoever does not get a monetary income with such meagre possibilities for subsisting independently. This would also justify, according to the authors, the introduction of a universal income (van der Veen and Van Parijs 1986: 728).

In a more recent book, Van Parijs and Vanderborght (2017) focus again on technological progress and ask themselves:

Should a morality that stigmatizes access to an income without work and thereby tries to restrict material gratification to those willing to contribute to society’s production not be abandoned when technological progress is leading to overabundant workers? […] We have moved from a situation in which, say, 90 % of the population were required to satisfy everyone’s basic needs in food, housing, and clothing, to one in which, say, 10 % suffice (Van Parijs and Vanderborght 2017: 101).

In relation to this last point, we should reflect on the automation process that has been accelerated by the covid-19 pandemic and the debate on the future of work that it is sparking. According to OECD’s 2023 Employment Outlook, jobs with the highest risk of being automated make up 27 % of the labour force on average in OECD countries. In addition, 60 % of workers are worried about losing their jobs to AI in the next ten years (OECD 2023). A seminal study published by Frey and Osborne ten years ago predicted from a technological capabilities point of view that 47 % of U.S. jobs are automatable. The authors were able to examine a total of 702 occupations, which in 2013 made up 97 % of the U.S. workforce.

Regardless of which figures are more accurate, in this paper we are interested in reflecting on the normative implications of a process that is unstoppable and that, therefore, forces us to rethink questions such as the relationship between participation in labour markets and the perception of an income, the amount of work that is socially necessary (inside and outside formal employment) to satisfy basic human needs, and the balance between economic short-term efficiency and medium- and long-term sustainability of our ways of life.

Among other trends, automation is fostering an increasingly dualized labor market – on one side, with highly specialized workers capable of retraining and in high value-added professions and, on the other, with increasingly expendable workers in rudimentary tasks that machines are able to perform better and cheaper and that cannot be absorbed and are mostly thrown into vulnerability. According to Van Parijs and Vanderborght, an unconditional basic income, without being a panacea but being more adequate than similar proposals such as the negative income tax or conditional minimum income schemes, would be a fundamental measure to alleviate these problems.

However, although the focus of this paper is on UBI and the ethos, this does not mean that there are no other alternatives and strategies aimed at ending workers’ precariousness and increasing their bargaining power, such as workplace democracy (Gourevitch 2016; González-Ricoy 2014) or universal basic services (Coote and Percy 2020), which can complement a monetary cash income by defending the collective provision of certain strategic sectors, such as energy, transport, care or food. The analysis of the components of an “egalitarian policy package” (Offe and Van Parijs 2013; White 2015) and the trade-offs and relations between the UBI, UBS, unionism, an egalitarian non-productivist ethos … deserves a separate article.

On the other hand, the phenomenon of the “Great Resignation” that has taken place in the United States^[5] because of the economic crisis derived from the pandemic can be interpreted as a symptom of a generalized discontent of many workers in this country with the monetary rewards and expectations of progress that the labor market currently offers. Although this phenomenon has reached extraordinary levels in the US, it is a shared trend in many Western capitalist economies where individuals have seriously reconsidered in recent years their work and life priorities.

In short: the labour market is undergoing profound transformations related to the processes of automation and digitalisation, but also to more complex dynamics that have to do with the demands for reduced working time, the disidentification of people with their jobs (due to increasing turnover, precariousness, etc.) and the balance between working time and time devoted to other activities such as care, leisure, etc. In these circumstances, UBI is a proposal that can function as a “buffer” to prevent these structural transformations from generating greater inequality as well as, individually, it increases occupational autonomy by allowing for less costly transitions from one job to another, temporary exit from the labour market to pursue other tasks, etc.

To close this section, we want to dust off a quote by Marx from the third volume of Capital that can shed light on the problems we address here:

The realm of freedom actually begins only where labor which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; […] Beyond the realm of necessity begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite (Marx and Engels 1967: 593).

Ultimately, the logic behind the working day’s reduction that Marx defended is similar to that which underlies the UBI or the 4-day working week: to broaden the sphere of freedom by minimizing the influence of forced wage labor on our lives. However, according to Van Parijs’ defense of UBI, the work-time reduction will be less preferable than UBI for two main reasons: first, because of economic efficiency and, second, because work-time reduction would be more prescriptive and favour a certain trade-off between working time and leisure, while UBI opens the range of possibilities among a wide combination of time uses, encouraging a pluralism of lifestyles and choices. A third reason to favour UBI instead of work-time reduction has to do with its political emancipatory potential: by decoupling income from labor performance, the labor force is partially decommoditized and the individual’s dependence on market requirements is reduced, opening up possibilities for association outside of market logics.

1.3 Why Might G.A. Cohen’s Egalitarian Ethos and the Unconditional Basic Income Be Inconsistent with Each Other?

In the present section, we will explore the apparent inconsistency between Cohen’s egalitarian ethos and Van Parijs’ proposal for an unconditional basic income grounded on the principle of “real freedom for all”.

The first and most obvious reason why both proposals might be a priori incompatible is that Cohen’s egalitarian ethos requires that individuals work hard and that they do so in socially useful occupations without receiving any inequality-generating incentives^[6] (Casal 2013: 5). On the contrary, Van Parijs’ basic income is unconditional in relation to four dimensions: (i) people’s willingness to work, (ii) their income from other sources, (iii) their place of residence, and (iv) their household situation. In short: while the ethos includes a “productive requirement”, the UBI has an unconditional character.

If we pay closer attention to Cohen’s conceptualization of the ethos, we notice that the first part of his solution – “the requirement to work hard at socially useful occupations” – poses a problem to argue in favor of UBI. The ethos implies a highly demanding “work requirement” with three additional specifications: (1) these occupations performed by highly capable people have to be socially useful, (2) individuals have to work hard in them and (3) without asking for differential economic rewards. The consequence, according to Casal, is that Cohen was forced to the ad hoc insertion of an agent-centered prerogative to carve out some breathing space for the autonomy of the more skilled (Casal 2013: 18). This agent-centred prerogative is justified to allow workers to discount the moral value of benefits to others compared with benefits to themselves (Scheffler 1982: 20).

On the other hand, a universal grant or basic income as understood by Van Parijs and van der Veen “cannot be justified by reference to solidarity (in favor of the “unlucky”) or to any desert principle (nobody “deserves” it). It can only be justified in terms of real freedom from toil for everyone” (van der Veen and Van Parijs 1986: 727). Some might argue that while Cohen faces serious difficulties guaranteeing freedom (in particular, occupational freedom), Van Parijs and van der Veen base unconditional basic income precisely on that principle, that of “real freedom for all”.

We can also observe the points of disagreement between both authors in light of the old Marxist principle of distributive justice that claims “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”: while Cohen argues that “to avoid unfair burden on the talented, or on anyone else for that matter, the first part of the slogan should, instead, be constrained by its second part … ” (Cohen 2008: 208–209), Van Parijs and van der Veen pursue a situation in which the social product is distributed entirely in the form of unconditional grants, possibly modulated in terms of such proxies of objective needs as age or disability (“to each according to his needs”), without anyone being coerced into performance (“from each according to his abilities”) (van der Veen and Van Parijs 1986: 723). In short, whilst Cohen defends a revised version of the classical Marxist principle, according to which the first part is constrained by the second, Van Parijs and van der Veen fully reject the first part and base the core of their proposal on the second. An open question that we will try to address in the last section has to do with the level of a UBI that is sustainable over and capable of satisfying everyone’s needs without generating negative incentives to work that prevent its financing.

Along with the above incompatibilities, we must bear in mind that Van Parijs justifies the introduction of UBI on the basis of “real libertarianism”, according to which all full members of society have the right to live like the Malibu surfer and receive an income from the government. That is, Van Parijs defends a conception of real individual freedom not subject to any kind of limitation, neither by the government nor by the rest of society. On the contrary, Cohen’s egalitarian ethos requires a contribution in the form of work so that citizens are ultimately assets to society without them sacrificing their occupational freedom. It is thus evident that both authors depart from theoretical coordinates distant from each other.

1.4 Five Possible Solutions to the Incompatibility Between Cohen’s Egalitarian Ethos and UBI

Having briefly analyzed those points where Cohen’s egalitarian ethos conflicts with the unconditional basic income developed by Van Parijs and van der Veen, it is time to try to bridge this apparent incompatibility. For this purpose, we will describe below a series of distinct solutions that try to escape the former-described tension.

First, we will examine what we have called “the Equality-Enhancing Solution” based on the assumption of UBI as a tool capable of drastically reducing inequality. Second, we will briefly explain “the Occupational-Freedom-for-all Solution”, according to which the introduction of both a UBI and the revised ethos would increase the range of employment opportunities for individuals, thus expanding their occupational freedom. Third, we will outline “the Self-Realization-for-all Solution”, whose main idea is that the implementation of UBI makes it possible to choose those jobs that allow us to develop our personal skills and tastes. Fourth, we will present “the Material-Autonomy-based Solution” proposed from republican-socialist positions, according to which the introduction of UBI takes precedence over the requirement that individuals display a contributory ethos in their daily routine. Fifth, and finally, we will address “the Contribution-Beyond-Employment Solution”, which argues that there are many socially useful non-remunerated activities beyond formal employment that the introduction of a UBI can foster.