The concept of a Universal Basic Income is not just about relief for beneficiaries being increasingly excluded from meaningful participation in society. It is much more than that. It is a catalyst to a new way of doing things that does not marginalise or disadvantage. It values people most highly and enables them to be creative and positive throughout their whole lifetime at all levels of society.

The "free market" approach, with its claimed "removal of government from our lives" (but really only from the lives of the wealthy) and the (more obvious imposition of) selective targeting of "remaining state intervention" (in the lives of those disadvantaged by the 'free market'), is promoted as the only answer to the problems of the past. The "removal of government" from some areas while statutory controls are enacted in support of corporate and financial sectors, grossly distorts the "level playing field". The market is controlled for the benefit of these sectors to the detriment of the less well off. The interest rate policy of the Reserve Bank exemplifies this. The more selective targeting of support systems, creates problems it is supposedly designed to overcome. It forces the disadvantaged into dependency. The "free market" claims to remove constraints on individual initiative through the removal of government involvement in our lives. Thus taxes ("disincentives") are replaced by "user pays". While this reduces public expenditure in some areas, any savings are passed on in costs to those who are increasingly the least able to pay. This is particularly so in health.

Throughout history there has been a lively tension between the rights of the individual and the role of society to ameliorate on behalf of the disadvantaged. The essential issue at present is whether the "free market" operates within limits set by societies, or whether societies operate within parameters set by the "free market". The removal of barriers to the international movement of capital increasingly suggests that this is not necessarily to the benefit of most people. The present economic direction in New Zealand is one in which the market is paramount and only minimally constrained.

The country of origin of this philosophy, the USA, has not taken this direction to the degree embraced by other countries including New Zealand. The "free market" approach (deregulating the economy and labour market, privatising public services, protecting the corporate and financial sectors) has been imposed systematically by the IMF and World Bank on developing countries (and NZ) desperate for finance and deep in their debt. There is also no historical precedent for the successful adoption of this model of society. It is promoted as purely economic but in reality is one so broad that it determines the function of societies and how individuals inter-relate. A model that was found wanting last century cannot be promoted now as innovative. In fact, until recently the course of history has been away from the "free market" solutions. It is essential that social innovation comes from within societies, not imposed from without. The development of the legal structure of society has involved the delicate balance between the rights and needs of individuals and the necessary checks and balances to ensure fairness and justice.

The "free market" structural adjustment model rejects this historical process.

Those that claim the so-called "failure of communism" have declared capitalism the "winner". We are told that capitalism is a simple, clearly-defined package although there are as many models of it as there are capitalist countries, and the "free market structural adjustment" model is merely one of many. No country has accepted this model with the support of its people. New Zealand is no exception. The method of implementation is by stealth, excluding people and removing key policy areas from the political process.

As a result of the restructuring started in 1984, significant areas of the economy slowed down or stopped. The economy, now supposedly recovering from the changes, is according to Tim Hazledine, back on NZ's natural growth curve, although, according to Brian Easton, at a lower level. Growth is despite the changes, not because of them. Inflation control is the primary objective. Growth (except that in the "real" level, of un- and under-employment) is incidental. In most aspects, New Zealand's current performance is below that of pre-1984, except for the growth rate (however this is measured) which has now dropped back after an unrealistic high. Using a very different approach Australia has achieved better results, casting considerable doubt on the necessity of the pain suffered. This also rejects the "There is No Alternative (TINA)" excuse for the pain that we have been told is so good for us. Whatever the justification for the changes, and these are debatable, they were imposed without political mandate. They rejected hard won "treasures" of the New Zealand ethos and culture. That this is much resented is born out by recent polls. Collective responsibility, checks and balances and an involved, caring government are essential to the redevelopment and maintenance of the positive, creative and inclusive society that most of us want.

While there is positive state support for the corporate and financial sectors, the negative, narrow, targeted approach of other state interventions ensures that "beneficiaries," are severely disadvantaged. Support is deliberately withheld from those desperate for it and able to benefit from it. This only encourages the growth of excluded groups, further depressing the rate of adjustment to the changes. By the time people qualify for assistance, their ability to respond positively is greatly reduced, their initiative drained. This reinforces depression and alienation. Support is not available until those made redundant, have been unemployed for some time. When they eventually qualify, there are real disincentives in place which make rejoining the workforce, in the absence of well paid, full-time work, an unreasonable risk. Thus the "removal of the state" from our lives has a paradoxical effect. The more the targeting, the more the state intrudes to ensure that draconian criteria are met. "The liberation from state dependency" ensures that even more become locked into deeper and deeper dependency and despair.

A Basic Income is part of a package offering an alternative approach. It recognises that people are the economy. It is based on valuing, liberating, supporting and enabling people to develop their inherent creativity to their own benefit and that of the whole community. It values co-operation as well as competition. It is a pro-active rather than a laissez-faire negative, reactive approach. The package included free access to health and education and support for low-cost housing for the disadvantaged. Healthy, educated, well-housed people, provided with the basic necessities of life are the sort of citizens who produce a caring and prosperous society. Nurturing fundamental creativity and initiative would be on a basis of inclusion not exclusion. Thus care-givers and voluntary workers would be valued as highly as those involved in commerce and industry. The home-cooked meal would be as essential a part of the economy as the restaurant-cooked meal. Spending on creative and nurturing activities would be as important as that spent on the negative aspects of a failed society - crime prevention and detection, security, and pollution control.

The way forward cannot deny past experience and wisdom. Nor can it continue to deny access to basic human needs to those excluded from "economic miracles." No alternative will be successful without the full support of a majority of society. The "free market" structural adjustment approach is an imposition with a growing litany of social and economic disasters well demonstrated in Mexico a few years ago. The consequences of IMF emergency "relief" there showed that the "solution" had the same effect as the "cause". We have done much better in our past and can do so again. The positive inclusive, supportive alternative, of which a UBI is a major component, combines wealth generation at which capitalism excels, with the caring, sharing society that most New Zealanders want. We must assume that Mexicans, Koreans, Indonesians, Americans and Japanese would not be entirely dissatisfied with more caring and sharing regimes. This surely is a more reasonable return for a little wealth sharing than continued pointless, greedy capital accumulation. It could become an alternative path to failed IMF structural adjustment.

We believe that the UBI package will attend to the shortfalls of the "free market" and recreate a positive environment in which all will feel valued and included. With the tenuous link between meeting living costs by receiving adequate payment for work, recognised officially, as forever broken, more real-life choices will become available to all. The fruitless search for disappearing paid work can be replaced with hope for the future based on self respect, initiative and enterprise.

Everyone will feel part of the mainstream of a society in which their contributions are valued. The psychological effects of this upon creative ability and choice-making will be enhanced across the entire socio-economic spectrum. Because initiative will be enabled rather than discouraged, frustration, now evident in displays of anger against society or self, will gradually diminish. New Zealand should soon lose its high world-ranking in youth suicide. Some groups who will benefit directly from a UBI are:

• parents who have chosen to stay at home to care for their children;

• care-givers of the elderly and disabled in their own home environment;

• the voluntary who labour at all levels of society;

• the unemployed wishing to move into the workforce;

• the sick or disabled wishing to do something within their abilities for themselves;

• the low-paid wishing to gain new skills;

• those in mid-life wishing to make career changes; the over-worked at all levels wishing to take a break or lessen their involvement in paid work;

• those wishing to move from paid work to self-employment;

• and all can make these choices with security guaranteed for their life time.

People currently discouraged from taking up work will be able to do so without feeling they could be disadvantaging themselves and their families. There will be fewer barriers to increasing skill levels or to introducing new technology. Families will be freer to make real choices as to whether or not both parents seek employment, whether couples stay together, separate, have children or not. A more positive environment will create a more diverse, vital and enterprising economy where individuals and families are valued.

The costs of a UBI package are not nearly as diverse as the costs of not adopting it. The costs of a UBI are positive. The hidden costs of the current social crisis are the negative "imponderables" consistently omitted in cost comparisons. No one includes the costs of crime, social disruption, broken families, abused women and children, that are absorbed in propping up the current system. The 1986 seminal presentation of the modern version

of the UBI, established that it is economically viable. All that is needed is to establish its social viability. That in turn will produce the "political will" to make it happen. Usurped "political will" inflicted the current situation on an unsuspecting and incredulous population. The next change will have to be as a result of trust in what is being offered and a burning desire to make it happen. It cannot be imposed. It has to be wanted.

Initially it was thought that higher taxes on earnings other than the UBI would be acceptable. But lack of trust in taxation schemes due to the ability of those who already have more than they "need" to avoid paying their share of the cost of a decent and caring society, casts a cloud over that simplistic idea. The alternative, offered in 1994 by James Robertson, to replace all income tax and GST by new taxes on the rentable value of land and on energy use, is most attractive. His detailed scheme is worthy of serious consideration. It is reminiscent of a 1796 rudimentary proposal by Thomas Paine concerned that people were being denied access to land for cultivation.

There's nothing much that is really new. However, to actually allow people to make their own decisions as of right, would be new. To see autonomy not as anarchy, would also be new. To admit that what we have now does not and cannot work for a decent society, would be new. But not to act and to allow by default the current social crisis to develop into a terrible revolt against its unfairness and lack of concern for fellow citizens, will bear costs that can never be estimated. Nor can they ever be worth that unpredictable expense in either social or economic terms.

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