Douglass Universal Income for All

In addition to Douglass Community Dividends, all members of the Douglass community will receive a higher than basic Universal Income.  The Douglass Universal income transforms precarity, it recognizes social labour, and it extends the space in which to experiment with how we organize communities and families. 

The most salient feature of the Douglass Universal Income is its capacity to both decommodify and decenter labor. Decommodify by making space for work outside of labor markets, but also decenter by providing income unconditionally without requiring activity articulated as productive, whether inside or outside the market. 

Fundamentally a feminist proposal

Douglass' Universal income is a fundamentally feminist proposal. The Douglass Universal basic income disregards the gendered division of labour, and overcomes some of the biases of the traditional welfare state predicated upon a male breadwinner. Douglass' Universal income recognizes the contributions of unwaged domestic laborers to the reproduction of society and provides them with an income accordingly. By eliminating the reliance on wage labour, workers gain control over how much labour to supply, giving them significant power in the labour market.

More than a living wage

The goal of Douglass UI is for it to be significantly higher than living wage, this  removes the cost of survival from the productive system. This lowers externalities in production, lowers the labor costs of products significantly, and ultimately make the productive system much more adaptable.

No more Zero Sum

Without the need for a job to survive, there is  no systemic pressure to win at all costs, this effectively eliminates entire classes of externalities and also reduce the pressure of competition within the system. Companies, Organizations, and Cooperatives will no longer have to balance survival with being community members, because survival will no longer need to be covered by the productive system. Companies, Organizations and Cooperatives, will be free to expand and contract as members see fit without needing to worry about the welfare of those who might come and go. Industries that find themselves teetering on obsolescence e.g. the fossil fuel industry) can be phased out easily and quickly when the participants in that industry no longer rely on their jobs for survival. The Douglass Universal Income will play a role in mitigating climate change, freeing us to cleave toward a carbon-neutral economy without worrying about the balance of jobs gained and lost in the course of a harrowing energy transition.

 Emancipatory Freedom for All

With the Douglass Universal Income the amount of time spent working for a wage can be modified to the members desire, with free time spent building communities and engaging with community governance. Members of the Douglass Beloved Community can slow down and reflect, safely protected from the constant pressures of structural patriarchy. The anxieties that surround work and unemployment are reduced with the safety net of the Douglass Universal Income. The Douglass Universal Income combines the needs of the employed, the unemployed, the underemployed, migrant labour, temporary workers, students and the disabled. It articulates a common interest between these groups and provides a modern Emancipatory freedom for all.

To live in a world of Douglass Community Economic abundance means to live in a world of peace, love and purpose, where everyone is guaranteed free  access to housing, food, clothing, sanitation, water, energy, healthcare, education, child and elder care, as well as means of communication and transportation, without exception. 

The steadfast material security of Douglass Community Economics is what allows people to ask “How can I help the suffering and oppressed?” rather than “How am I going to live?”

Community Owned Automation raises the value of UI

As Douglass' community owned automation advances, the value of the Douglass UI will grow, until the power to purchase all goods and services is provided by this alternative distribution mechanism. This will mark a radical advance in equality; at its limit, it would lead to life beyond wage labor.