This past week, an article in USA Today broke the news that Switzerland may be able to pay each of its citizen’s $2,600 a month, tax-free. Those who don’t work will receive $2,600 a month that is not reduced with taxes. If you make more than $2,600 than you will not receive a money parcel from the government. Yet in a way you do receive an incentive from the government because government taxes will not be applied to $2,600 of the total money you earned during a month’s salary.
So, what does this mean if you lived in Switzerland? What it means is that if you lived in Switzerland and your father owned his own business, worked hard, and put his time into providing for his family, he wouldn’t be taxed based on the total earnings he received for a month’s work. Instead, government taxes would be applied to his monthly earnings minus $2,600. Now, we hope that your father’s business is making more than $2,600 a month but this law would guarantee that he can walk home with $2,600 a la “under the table” just like you used to at your first busboy job in high school!
According to the article, if this law were to be passed by Switzerland’s parliament this tax would transcend class lines, and significantly transcends all ages! What is interesting about the initiative is that children, by law, will receive $650 a month. Without struggling to find a job, children are eligible to receive a stipend from the government. The author of the USA Today article attributed the mention of this law to the wealth of Switzerland. But in review, why is it that Swiss citizens are able to propose this law, yet in the U.S. this law wouldn’t be considered a feasible initiative?
For one, money distribution is relative. Switzerland’s international reputation centers on financial soundness. In fact, it is the global center for banking and to make investment even more substantial to the land of beauty (and really good chocolate), it is considered a key market for investment in pharmaceuticals. The money set aside for this basic income initiative is distributed according to the “income earned” amongst eight-million citizens. Clearly taking U.S. GDP and giving every one of its 320 million citizens a basic income amount poses a different challenge.
For another, Switzerland is closer to the Ancient Grecian philosophy of direct democracy because its citizens regularly make use of initiatives and referendums. This monthly “Venmo-like” proposed transfer from the government to the Swiss citizens is an example of the proactive legislation passing through the chambers of the two-house parliament or Switzerland’s Federal Assembly.
And even beyond Swiss citizens’ exercise of democracy, it appears they are also making amusing and creative messages to their leaders. This past week, Robots were seen protesting in Zurich. Nothing short of public relations genius on the part of the Swiss, Robots in Zurich, is suggestive that even artificial intelligence is fighting for the rights of citizens. By the Robots’ calculations, it is mathematically logical for all Swiss citizens to receive a basic income. The only short to this picture on the streets of Zurich is that these robots were very square, as in cardboard boxes, incapable of electrical circuits or even more simply, calculating two plus two on a 1980s calculator. Yet, while these robots aren’t up to par with the next wave of products from Boston Dynamics, their rigid structures solidified the idea that passage of this legislation would allow Switzerland to enter into a new, productive age where perhaps even personal robots could be a possibility aside a basic income for its citizens.
To read more about Switzerland’s potential law, please refer here.
To read more about Robots promoting the basic income vote for June 5, please refer here.
