hertog2_(Xinhua Asad via Getty Images)_kuwait market

Arguments en faveur d’un revenu universel de base dans les pays arabes

Dec 9, 2020 Steffen Hertog

LONDRES – L’idée d’un revenu universel de base (RUB) distribué par la puissance publique suscite de plus en plus d’intérêt dans le monde développé. Si la mise en place d’un RUB se heurte en Occident à des obstacles politiques et budgétaires non négligeables, l’idée est séduisante dans une région où les conditions d’introduction d’un système universel d’allocation en numéraire sont plus favorables : la riche péninsule Arabique, productrice de pétrole.

Les monarchies pétrolières du Golfe, quoique largement autoritaires, offrent déjà à leurs nationaux des prestations sociales très généreuses : l’éducation et les soins de santé sont gratuits, l’énergie est bon marché et, surtout, l’emploi public est tacitement garanti. Les deux tiers environ des citoyens des pays du Conseil de coopération du Golfe (CCG) sont employés par le secteur public.

Ce système a engendré à la fois une classe moyenne conséquente et d’extrêmes distorsions économiques. Les subventions énergétiques créent des dommages à l’environnement et favorisent de façon disproportionnée les ménages les plus riches, tandis qu’une fonction publique pléthorique et improductive éloigne les nationaux de l’économie du secteur privé. S’il arrive souvent, aujourd’hui, que les nouveaux entrants sur le marché du travail ne trouvent pas d’emploi dans la fonction publique, leurs attentes sont néanmoins faussées pour ce qui concerne les salaires et le temps de travail.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 7 Comments on this article

Elizabeth Pula Dec 20, 2020

Well, Steffen Hertog, I do hope you comprehend the comment that is addressed to you as "Abominable Rentier”and recognize the allusion of that comment, so that you do NOT continue to exist under any illusions of your own or any other’s delusion especially of any globalist/elitist or member of that demographic group or sort. Now, I will reiterate the dystopia of the present global reality for the herd, especially females, since I have only referenced, and included a first level of the present extremes, here are two more, just to add a little more detail to a verbal picture:

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3114478/dai-syeds-rape-and-sex-charge-test-god-malaysias

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/egyptian-court-acquits-men-accused-abusing-coptic-woman-74800688

There are a number of quite revealing little facts in the links, but I will note a few, just for the well of it, since I am a female, and not an Arab of any sort, although I have not had my DNA analysis yet, so I really don’t know my full pedigree or non pedigree of sorts:

Note the photo of the civilized audience members. Note that the article from the SCMP is about a “preacher” and, how many wives? Note that the Egyptian court has acquitted Arab males from abusing perhaps Caucasian, or at least a Coptic Female, in the 21st century, in front of a real supportive audience, that also included females, I presume. So these guys know and have confirmed acceptable public social behavior globally. The women are too. There are quite a few details in not only the links but most especially in certain pleas from even the PS site itself that reveals such a fundamental disconnect in not understanding the present global reality that is really quite unbelievable within even a most general and basic context of messaging any of the sorts of any interpretation of acceptable, and well tolerated civil social reality. And believe it or not THAT reality of CHAOS is exactly what we are all getting at an ever more rapidly tic of the clock (and whatever MNE-fund), like by the second of changing reality.

The notes of the real disconnects could continue into ever increasing streams of data, that may or may not generate any real funds, or any real wealth, for any one other than the Arabian diaspora.

AND, guess what do you really think I should care one iota about any case for an Arabian basic income? I care just as much as that commenter that has addressed you as “Abominable Rentier”. Admittedly, an iota is really out-of-the-picture if the comment is just from an “AI” algorithm.

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year, as 2021 encroaches yesterday, the real world is enjoying the worst fun and more of the same of worse, worser, and “worstest” of any levels, dimensions, and stacks of games. Enjoy IT while you can!

This article is my take away on: class, which is the same thing as what equals what, which also includes processes of extremism and education.
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زياد الغفيلي Dec 13, 2020

Abominable rentier. This proposition admires the populists because there is no person in it who hates money, but it is assumed that there is a simple sense of knowledge that teaches you that spontaneous rentierism is impossible and it was going to bring us into ruin. Today, this is finished irreversibly.
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j. von Hettlingen Dec 11, 2020

Steffen Hertog says oil-producing countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) might succeed where developed countries have failed - to make universal basic income (UBI) a reality. With the idea gaining traction in the West, critics warn against simple solutions to complex problems, saying UBI is a flawed idea, not least because it would be prohibitively expensive and come at the cost of deep cuts to the rest of the safety net.
For the time being, UBI remains unaffordable throughout the developed world, as it faces “significant political and fiscal obstacles.” However “the idea is catching on in a region where conditions for introducing a universal cash-grant system are more favorable: the wealthy, oil-exporting Arabian Peninsula.” The region is known for its rentier model of state - where Arab rulers collect oil rent and distribute proceeds, using generous handouts to ward off civil unrest.
Countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are oil monarchies, largely authoritarian, showering largesse in return for compliance from the populace. They “already provide their citizens with very generous benefits, including free education and health care, cheap energy, and, most important, an implicit public-employment guarantee. Some two-thirds of employed citizens… hold a public-sector job,” prompting criticism that much of the resources have been squandered.
According to the author, the rentier system “has created both a sizable middle class and extreme economic distortions. Energy subsidies are environmentally damaging and disproportionately favor richer households, while excess public employment is unproductive and takes nationals out of the private-sector economy. Although today’s new entrants to the labor market often do not have access to public employment, it nonetheless distorts their expectations about wages and working hours.”
In the face of falling oil prices and youth bulge, that increases the number of a working-age populace every year, the “established welfare systems have become fiscally unsustainable.” Reforming the bloated public sectors “has proved difficult,” let alone “mass government layoffs” which are “politically unrealistic” und unpopular. “The challenge is to find a new wealth-sharing model that is fairer, more transparent, less economically distortive, and fiscally sustainable.”
The author says, “the most intuitive and tamper-proof mechanism for such wealth sharing would be a UBI. In the GCC countries, exceptionally, such a scheme could be financed without tax hikes, by reforming existing wealth-sharing policies. The key idea is to separate domestic energy policy and public employment from the wealth-distribution process, thereby enabling badly needed rationalization in both domains.”
The many good ideas the author proposes may well be wishful thinking, because oil revenues go directly from the oil companies to the governments without passing through the public. As a result, citizens may not know much about their common property resources and the size of oil revenues accruing to their governments. The ruling elites are not held sufficiently accountable for the use of oil revenues, leading to waste, corruption, and other inefficiencies.
Critics believe governments should distribute these revenues directly to all citizens in equal amounts, and then tax them to finance public goods, instead of making unaccountable public-spending decisions with their oil revenues. There would allow citizens to have a better idea of how much revenues there were. Secondly, since spending is being financed from their tax payments, citizens may have greater incentive to scrutinise these expenditures.
This more efficient public spending agenda would resemble the UBI model. With better information about the magnitude of revenues, citizens have greater incentive to scrutinise government actions. Critics say the UBI scheme is highly recommended to resource-rich countries, where there are high resource rents, rampant corruption, mass youth unemployment, abject poverty, and weak institutions - grievances that led to the Arab Spring in 2011.
“Decoupling government employment from wealth sharing would give citizens stronger incentives to seek skills that are relevant in the private sector,” according to the author. The persistently low oil prices since 2015 have prompted many oil countries to rethink their subsidy schemes and public-sector employment programmes. Replacing these programmes with a more efficient way of sharing oil revenues is a way of turning unavoidable austerity into an opportunity.
Perhaps the UBI might have a better chance to succeed in the MENA region, which has a history of rentier economy. In the West - unlike in the MENA - the UBI will not have an impact on the political rights and freedoms of its populace.
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Rahul Basu Dec 10, 2020

The problem with distribution of inherited oil wealth as a UBI is that much of it will be consumed, making these countries poorer. This is immoral and unsustainable. Here's the IMF on the fiscal problems of the GCC countries
“At the current fiscal stance, the region’s financial wealth could be depleted by 2034. Fiscal sustainability will require significant consolidation in the coming years. Its speed is an intergenerational choice. Fully preserving current wealth will require large upfront fiscal adjustments. More gradual efforts would ease the short-term adjustment burden but at the expense of resources available to future generations.”
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Departmental-Papers-Policy-Papers/Issues/2020/01/31/The-Future-of-Oil-and-Fiscal-Sustainability-in-the-GCC-Region-48934
And the bigger issue is treating oil sale proceeds as "revenue".
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/102270/1/MPRA_paper_102270.pdf
- Rahul Basu Dec 10, 2020
  
  IMF just came out with a new report on the GCC. Appendix II on page 32 "Long Term Fiscal Sustainability in the GCC" is worth a read. Key quote "The fiscal sustainability gap
  based on the long run budget constraint is estimated at 32.7 percent of nonoil GDP on average across GCC countries, but with significant variability across countries, ranging from about 16 percent in Bahrain to a high of 65 percent in Kuwait—where a large nonoil structural deficit and high current reliance on oil revenues implies that without consolidation large overall fiscal deficits will emerge as oil revenues trend downward in coming decades.
  https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Policy-Papers/Issues/2020/12/08/Economic-Prospects-and-Policy-Challenges-for-the-GCC-Countries-49942?cid=em-COM-123-42403
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Elizabeth Pula Dec 9, 2020

There has already been an Arabian universal basic income that has been, and is increasingly quite generous if you are a born Muslim, with appropriate progeny records. Who already has the top per capita incomes? The enslavement of the masses that are not permitted to participate in the closed Islamic society is the inherent bottomline design to support the closed Arab economy by the "WORK" of the entire ostracized societies that support, the operational and growth systems by designs rooted in Sharia law.
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Per Kurowski Dec 9, 2020

It was precisely coming from an oil country were we citizens do not live in a nation but in somebody else’s business, which had me fighting for oil revenue sharing for soon four decades, that which directed me to an (unconditional) Universal Basic Income
http://myubi.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-universal-basic-income.html
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