Advantage 19 – Full employment

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»Coming together is a start. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.«

– Henry Ford

American industrialist

Basic income and full employment are often seen as being in opposition to each other. This only applies to the unconditional basic income. The active basic income with its guarantee of unconditional participation creates full employment from scratch: every person has the right to contribute to the common good in line with their nature and earn an active basic income through doing so. The question as to financial feasibility does not arise as the basic income contributes to the creation of money.

Unconditional participation is something quite different from the current one-euro jobs. These are humiliating in several ways; first, you have to prove that you are not able to find a job on the normal labour market. After you have proved this, you get a right to receive welfare benefits. The procedure up to this point is already very humiliating. And then you are sentenced to do some kind of unskilled work for a pay of only €1 an hour.

Unconditional participation starts with not having to prove anything. We sit down and consider what the individual likes to do most and can do especially well. If necessary, individual or group discussions can help to develop the person’s full potential. After that, we look together at how the person’s skills can be used optimally for the community. The pay for this work is 20 gradidos an hour for a maximum of 50 hours a month, making a total of 1,000 gradidos a month.

Since everybody has the right to unconditional participation, 100% full employment is immediately reached.