This is a CTP of initiative: BIEN/Vereniging Basisinkomen (Netherlands)
On December 17th 1994, two Dutch ministers publicly spoke out in favour of the basic income. On that day it is front page news and opening item on the national television news how the minister for Economic Affairs speaks out for a basic income on the long term. The minister from the Democrats Party is backed by his colleague from Finance (Liberals) from the Finance department, coming up with a similar plea in a television programme on societal-political developments.
These two endorsements by leading politicians can be appreciated as empowering events to the VBI activists. They were important in lending reputation/legitimacy to the basic income concept. In hindsight, the interviewee is far less convinced that this was a breakthrough than he was at the time. He underlines how the statement of the first-mentioned minister was in no way a political choice, but rather had to do with positioning as a visionary minister. To a certain extent, the minister seemed to be mainly imitating the character of the radical reformer, rather than wanting to actually be one. Wait, wait… [regarding the question on apparent political support for the basic income]...If Hans Wijers, from D’66 and minister of Economic Affairs, if he says in an interview with NRC in 1994, ‘well, that basic income’, and saying it with a jumped-up appearance like that, ‘that’s an inevitable development, that is where we’re heading, in one way or another..’ then that’s just a well-known D’66 theme. D’66 has kept stating that from time to time. And there you had it, the newly started, fresh minister of Economic Affairs, says it as well. But, that does not mean anything at all. That lacks any backing or anchorage, not even in the D’66 party either…
Similar half-heartedness he considered to apply to the then minister of Finance Zalm. In the latter’s case the ambivalence was even more striking, as he had been speaking and publishing quite affirmatively about the basic income as director of the Central Planning Bureau (see further under [related events]). Well, he was saying it just as Wijers, ‘well, if you think about it rationally, what’s all happening with globalization, with the fragmentation on the labour market, what could happen with global trade, which sometimes can plummet and eventually yield unemployment effects for the Netherlands, well, if you let all of that sink in, then you should give that basic income a serious chance…it should be discussed’. However, that is just not the same as, ‘compared to the political alternatives available at the moment, the basic income is the direction we’re taking’. And the latter is what you need, and that is what just isn’t happening here.
On the other hand, in a book chapter he co-authored at the time he was markedly more confident that these two political statements from highest-rank politicians marked a breakthrough and indeed a critical turning point in the basic income discussion. Under the subheading ‘the matured basic income’ he and his co author open their editorial introduction chapter on ‘the basic income as completing element of the welfare state?’ (*) as follows: It has taken twenty years, twenty years of ups and downs, but anno 1995 the basic income – an unconditional, not on labour efforts dependent income guarantee for every citizen – has become a mature political ideal. The moment of that maturation can be indicated very precisely. (...). In the days after [the Saturday December 17th 1994), political and societal reactions are waving back and forth. Other prominent cabinet members like Labour ministers Melkert and prime minister Kok choose their positions, and Wijers and Zalm nuance their (already cautious) positions. But ‘the genie has been let out of the bottle’, they cite a newspaper headline from April 1995. Through this ‘December coup’ by Wijers and Zalm, the basic income has definitely come forward out of the solemn margins of advisory councils and calculation bureaus – nestling in the epicentre of Dutch politics. (Pels & van der Veen 1995: 7)
The two ministerial public endorsements were thus ‘critical turning points’ in bringing the Dutch basic income discussion to a next stage of maturity. The interviewee’s recent comments and his analysis at the time clarify that the significance of these events for political agenda-setting and actual reforms was overestimated at the time. In the end, the basic income did not make it to the welfare state reform discussion that the newly started cabinet had announced for September 1996. What is more, the cabinet postponed any transformative interventions to the far future, and opted for a quite traditional full employment oriented set of interventions – all casting doubt on the extent to which the basic income had been a serious, ‘mature’ option. In retrospect, it has thus become more evident how ambivalent the endorsements were, and how great the gap can be between (non-committal) public statements by individual politicians and binding, collective governmental decisions.
(*) Pels, D. & van der Veen, R.J. (eds.) (1995), Het basisinkomen; Sluitstuk van de verzorgingsstaat?, Amsterdam: van Gennep
The public endorsements of the two ministers were actions of individuals. As suggested by the interviewee (and other VBI members), the ministers may have felt the urge to stir up debate and attract attention as newly installed ministers, out of political profiling. Apart from tactical political play and self-serving motives, both ministers were in fact quite well-known for their (liberal-)progressive ideas. Their great aversions to the inert and inefficient operation of the Dutch welfare bureaucracy were genuine. A first observation is thus the co-production of an important political episode by two (highly ranked) individuals.
A second important dimension of the co-production was that the statements were media performances. The front page of the NRC newspaper – the principal ‘high brow’ newspaper in the Netherlands – and the national eight o’clock news bulletin both guaranteed broad exposure and maximum impact. This media coverage typically created political events that other political parties needed to respond to and relate to. Irrespective of the precise agenda-setting ambitions of the two ministers and the urge they really had to make the basic income into a central political theme, the coverage by the politically most important media channels allowed the ministerial utterances to become serious ‘pebbles in the pond’ or statements that ‘made waves’. The basic income proponents thus received help through sympathising politicians and their habit of speaking through the media. Moreover, Pels & van der Veen (1995: 25-26) add that the various newspapers were not only providing extensive exposure but also were significantly more appreciative of the Ministers’ statements than the altogether rather dismissive political actors.
Thirdly, it is telling that the interviewee and his co author describe the media appearances in terms of a ‘December-coup’. The latter term obviously overstates matters, but it does indicate how the ministers’ utterances, once broadcasted widely, unavoidably became political events. It indicates that they were deviant statements. The ministers were speaking well ahead of the cabinet decisions announced for more than a year later. It was therefore unsurprising to the interviewee that the minsters turned silent on the subject soon after: Wijers has subsequently stayed silent about it, as the discussion went on. He said not to be doing any further public utterances about it anymore. And that can mean only thing, I think, namely that he has been called back in the council of ministers. Which is not a surprising thing, as there were ministers in the council who were not in favour of it.
The ministers’ pleas for a basic income were not intended as authoritative ministerial indications on Dutch welfare state reforms - as the prime minister found necessary to clarify firmly. Instead, the statements also reflects, fourth, how several political parties were involved in internal discussions on the feasibility of the basic income. Especially within the D’66 democrats party the concept had been repeatedly brought up already. In March 1995 the party even organized a conference on the ‘feasibility and desirability of the basic income’. At that more internal occasion the Minister stated again that the basic income merited serious consideration, adding however that it would have to be accompanied by a shift in the Dutch workers’ mentalities towards a more entrepreneurial mind-set. Under the prevalent orientation towards lifetime employment, it would not work (Cf. Groot & van der Veen 2011: 155).
Fifth and finally, the critical turning point was co-produced by a host of societal trends and political interpretations of those. The public utterances had everything to do with the widely felt need for welfare state reforms, which had already been declared a key mission of the newly installed ‘purple’ (liberal-socialist, for once without the Christian-democrats) coalition. Key concerns in those times were the precarious balance between the active and inactive workforce, social exclusion, economic competitiveness, the national economic balance. Again crucial was the temporary recession and associated unemployment figures in 1993-1994. The economic tide changed soon however, and this closed the political ‘window of opportunity’ again. As recalled by the interviewee of the previous CTP, it was the economic boom of the late 1990s that left the ‘December coup’ as a ‘last eruption’ of basic income popularity: And well, after that it really receded. Economically it went much better, you had the internet bubble…etcetera.
In the book released soon after, the interviewee described the utterances of the two ministers as the moment at which the basic income became a ‘mature political ideal’ – the significance of which he downplayed considerably in the 2016 interview. His detailed analyses in Pels & van der Veen (1995) and Groot & van der Veen (2001) help to identify a few key events that help to understand the ‘December coup’ day as part of broader developments in the basic income discussion.
First of all, the CTP on the 1985 WRR report (link) was a relevant background, as both indicated interviewees remark. The basic income concept had already matured to a significant degree, and both VBI members and others had further developed its justification and economic underpinnings ever since. The report by the Scientific Advisory Council had not been a great political success however; ‘seven lean years’ followed in which political actors largely avoided the contaminated concept.
Second, there had been a recent reinvigoration of the basic income debate. Although the political discussion on basic income appears completely dead around 1990, the tide suddenly turned in 1992 when the CPB [Central Planning Bureau, see later CTP], led by the future minister Zalm, lays its future scanning ‘Netherlands in threefold’ on the table. (…) The CPB study is well received in a circumstances of increasing disquiet amongst citizens and politicians about the deepening financial and moral crisis of the ‘old style’ welfare state. The awareness grows that one cannot go on like that, and also growing is the need for radical alternatives to the failing policy of activation [policies towards the employment of the long-term inactive parts of the workforce]. Pels & van der Veen (1995: 10-11). This report, featuring a scenario in which a form of basic income came forward as part of a simplified welfare system and a program of retreating government, re-asserted the basic income as an arrangement also fitting with liberal political agendas. As indicated by the second interviewee, de Roo: So that lead to the situation that, in any case amongst public servants, the bureaucracy feeding the politicians, that a serious attention has grown for the basic income. The 1992 report was also an important related event as the then CPB director was soon to become one of the two ministers waging the ‘December coup’.
Third, the ‘December coup’ was preceded by elections in 1994. The resulting cabinet announced serious discussions on welfare state reforms for 1996, and basic income was one of the options that was more or less on the table. There was quite some media coverage on the topic of welfare state reform in this period. One example is a five-fold series of interviews with leading politicians in the NRC newspaper in September 1993, providing an overview of the positions on the basic income across the political spectrum (ibidem: 13).
Fourth, there are the cabinet discussions in the wake of the 1994 ‘December coup’ until September 1995 that eventually lead to the postponement of basic income into the indefinite future. This sequence of events took largely place behind the closed doors of the cabinet, and involved considerable contestation (see further below). What basically happened was that the liberals and socialists managed to converge upon less radical reforms instead of the controversial basic income. Entirely contrary to what basic income proponents advocated, the cabinet only increased efforts towards employability and activation. …by the time of the annual review of the budget in September 1995, it became apparent that the social-liberal coalition had no intention starting to prepare for a fundamental reform discussion in the summer of 1996. In retrospect, it seems to have made its choice for the refurbished version of the existing system well in advance. It is most likely that this was due to the fact that employment growth was rapidly reducing the unemployment figures, and the need to increase the rate of labour participation became more evident within the coalition. It was time to get back to work, and to stop speculating about reforms. (Groot & van der Veen 2011:156)
Fifth and finally, the politically neutralized ‘December coup’ was followed once again by a period in which the basic income dramatically lost political relevance; a repetition-of-moves. The economic boom made it less urgent, and counterarguments had been firmly articulated. The new period of silence – in political life, at least – was paradoxically confirmed by what the interviewee has described as ‘implementation by stealth’. This referred to the tax reforms of 2001, which amongst others included an intervention in tax credit. As described more extensively in Groot & van der Veen (2001: 161-162), it effectively introduced a small basic income in the Netherlands. The authors clearly express how it was both a breakthrough and a clear sign of political death: The present mood amongst policymakers, and among the political parties who voted for the tax reform, is that one is allowed to name the tax credit as one wishes, as long as it is not called a ‘basic income’. (ibidem: 162)
The ‘political breakthrough of basic income’ was ‘deceptive’ in the sense that the so spectacular ministerial endorsements eventually did not translate into any tangible political achievement. The fact that the prime minister intervened marks the significant contestation that the media appearances of the ministers evoked in the cabinet. As the second interviewee expressed the subsequent restoration of cabinet unity in slightly exaggerated terms, prime minister Kok tried to ‘get the basic income under the table again as soon as he could’ – after which it was end of story for the basic income again. Apart from the formal-procedural contestation of the ministers’ discretions to speak independently from cabinet positions and governmental agreements – which did not back the ministers’ statements, it needs to be said – there was abundant contestation about the basic income endorsements themselves. The December 1994 event was the occasion par excellence for that to come out. In the 8-10 months that followed, a multitude of arguments and analyses was brought forward that made for a wide and high-quality discursive maze on basic income contestation. The following three observations contestation stand out.
First, there was the aforementioned ‘maturation of the basic income as a political ideal’. To a certain degree this maturation reflected how political parties had slowly been adapting and domesticating the basic income into something they could at least relate to. Pels & van der Veen (2015: 11) speak of a ‘centripetal’ tendency. They describe how the basic income discusiion already started to become less polarized, with proponents on the left and opponents on the right side of the political spectrum. On top of that division there was the division between the younger and older generations, with the former typically being more positive about the basic income. Moreover, the discussion started to go into variations of the basic income and various combinations of it with other welfare system reforms. The result was an increasing ‘ideological confusion’ (ibidem: 12), in which political parties became internally divided over the basic income rather than forming blocks for or against it. A situation of political-ideological confusion & chaos had arisen – yielding criticisms and adhesions from unexpected political quarters.
Still, the maturation and centripetal tendencies did not mean an overall shift into consensus. The result was rather that new points of contestation emerged and that certain argumentative battles became more specific. As an academic and basic income researcher, the interviewee mentioned a point of contestation that he has published about as the ‘impossibility theorem’. The basic point of this argument is that the basic income is either too high an amount to be affordable through tax revenues, or too low to provide sufficient social security for the most vulnerable in society (for whom there were hard-won social security arrangements in place in the Netherlands). A detailed academic-political debate developed on this theorem: High-ranked economists within the political parties (and the two rebellious ministers were only two of the many economy experts in the ranks of political parties) moved forward to settle the both academically complex and normatively charged debate. The contestation was thus beyond the unfruitful pro and contra, but it came to underline the great practical difficulty or even impossibility of having the basic income implemented in a balanced, satisfactory and sustainable way.
Third, the contestation reasserted how the moral dimension continued to play an important part in the discussion. As described in the preceding CTPs already, the principles that ‘one should earn one’s income’ and that everybody should be helped towards an active, productive inclusion in society counted heavily in Dutch society. Across the political spectrum – even if for different reasons – it was maintained that it would be irresponsible to leave certain groups behind, and to give up on the mission to provide jobs for them. A basic income arrangement would resign into the unemployable status of large groups, and into an unhealthy balance between the active and the inactive parts of the workforce. This is how Liberals and Labour arrived at a political pact in which activation and employability were chosen – with the basic income counting only as a very last resort.
The ‘December coup’ came suddenly. It took the basic income proponents of VBI by surprise, as they didn’t have any influence in ministerial circles. They were spectators to this critical turning point. The ministers also took their colleagues from the cabinet by surprise. Even if there had been a relative increase in attention for the basic income and welfare reforms were high on the political agenda, the particular media appearances came unexpected. Pels & van der Veen (1995) note how the election programs of the political parties had been silent about the basic income, with only some implicit allusions to it.
The significance of the event was clearly assessed higher at the time than it was later on, in hindsight. It is telling how the interviewee considers it a deceptive turning point as he looks back on it in 2016 – emphasizing how non-committal the public statements were. Also in his 2001 article he suggests that the governmental decision against the basic income (and in favour of the ‘productivist’ employability course) had been arrived at well before it was made public. In hindsight, he seems to consider the public statements of the ministers as instances of symbolic politics, as endorsements without significant political commitment. This assessment stands in strong contrast with the far more optimistic assessment speaking from his Pels & van der Veen (1995) comments. In that publication, written just after the fact and even during the discussions of 1995, there is much greater attentiveness to what the ‘December coup’ did achieve: A political discussion in which the so radical concept of the basic income became an issue for the cabinet to consider.
Finally, it becomes clear from the discussions in the early 1990s that the following major economic upswing of the late 1990s was unanticipated. This took away much of the urgency for radical reforms – which not only the two ‘rebellious’ ministers but also many other politicians did seem to feel in 1994.
Even if the interviewee seriously hesitates to call the event a ‘critical turning point’, he has drawn various lessons from it. These lessons mainly pertain to the difficulty of getting the basic income beyond the status of an ‘interesting’ or ‘seriously to be considered’ political proposal, i.e. to the difficulty of actually having it on the political agenda. Three lessons can be distinguished, several of which have been intensively discussed amongst members of the BIEN network.
First, he has described the ‘December coup’ episode as an example of non-committal political support. Even if genuine in intentions, such non-committal support can give social innovation initiatives such as the VBI false hopes of emerging breakthroughs – which can easily evaporate soon after. He seems to see a certain repetition-of-moves in this regard, in which progressive political parties and unions raise the topic, put it on their internal agendas, make public statements about it, but eventually do not push through. With a smile he recalls how over the years he has given three presentations on the basic income for a political party, which led to three discussion evenings unfolding in strikingly similar way.
Second, he has come to see how the internal dynamics within political parties are not conducive to firm political commitments on the basic income. Even when there are outspoken proponents of the basic income in many political parties (such as the two ministers in this CTP), this tends to be offset not only by internal opponents but also particularly by those who are neutral or indifferent about it. And that is a view of Philippe van Parijs that I’m wholeheartedly sharing, that you [always] have proponents and opponents that keep in each other in balance, and who have a clear interest in discussing it, but who are not numerous enough to get the neutral middle field in motion - who are just occupied with other political issues, and with political survival, and with their search for niches within the party factions…
Third, he has learnt that the ‘implementation by stealth’, the implicit introduction of a basic income such as happened through the 2001 tax reform, that that is a form of implementation that basic income advocates should not be putting much trust in. At the time (1997-2001) he eagerly studied this positive side-effect of tax reform as a new pathway towards the basic income. Also his BIEN colleagues were quite passionate about the silent revolution that was about to start. Yet since 2001 he has seen that little basic income only shrink to be eventually even phased out – whilst the conscious and committed policy choice for a full basic income only became as remote as it had ever been. If a (partial) basic income is introduced only implicitly and without the political-ethical justification for it, it will be difficult to sustain: I think that if it has to go like that [in stealth], then you’re sure that it’s just not going to happen. What is possible, is that it starts for a while like that, but after that there has to be somebody who acknowledges it, and says, ‘and now it should be over with this stealth, this is just a good idea, and this is what I’m going to mobilize political forces for’…Otherwise it will be discarded again through that very same back door, if that happens to be politically opportune…and that is precisely what has happened, with that tax reform. (...) Without anybody even saying, ‘that basic income, that was a bad idea’. No, there’s just not talk about it [the merits of basic income] whatsoever.
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