The Socialist Party of Catalonia has gone mad in its battle against basic income. No one would have thought that their bid against this proposal would be so obsessively opposed. Their belligerence against the pilot plan for basic income in Catalonia exceeds in stridency the opposition against BR of the PP and Vox. At the same time that this party was removing all mask of ambiguity on basic income, this manifesto was disseminated in Catalonia, which we now translate as follows
MANIFESTO
Those of us who sign this text express our support for the Pilot Plan for the Implementation of the Universal Basic Income, as well as for the establishment of this redistributive measure that expands the rights of the population as a whole. We believe that an unconditional and universal monetary allocation is a right that must be urgently won.
The investiture agreement between the CUP and ERC contemplated a Pilot Plan for the Implementation of the Universal Basic Income. As a result of this agreement, an Office has been created which has worked both on the design of this plan and on its national and international dissemination. During the last few weeks, we have seen how the PSC has publicly demonstrated against this Plan with very poor quality arguments and we have also seen that the budget allocated to it is outside the agreed budgets.
The Universal Basic Income is an essential measure to build a country that recognises the right to exist and that is based on freedom. Freedom which, if it is really taken seriously and not as an empty slogan, can only be exercised if the material conditions that make it possible are in place.
For without a material basis for life and freedom, all those who do not have wealth or capital are destined to accept any conditions for “making a living”. And necessity is not freedom. Freedom must be able to be a collective, concrete, universal desire, because the alternative is to maintain a country broken by the crisis, with dreams that are worth a lot and nightmares that never go away.
The Universal Basic Income is a complement to fundamental rights, those that are configured as shields for citizenship by the States and the depredation of large corporations. Universal Basic Income is, in short, a guarantee that life worth living represents an affordable right for all people:
- Because it overcomes the rumour-mongering and racist and xenophobic prejudices linked to conditional benefits through acquisition by accreditation of residence.
- Because, being individual, it does not bind to a certain family unit and does not reward certain sex-affective forms over others.
- Because it avoids the hell of poverty or mental or physical health checks to which many benefits are subjected; those who beg cannot be free.
- Because it allows space for the generation of community forms of association.
- Because it allows reproductive work to be valued.
If we want a free future, we must think of a present that rectifies the ravages of a crisis that has been sustained for too many years in a society in which the postcode and the family unit even define life expectancy. Catalonia must advance in rights, not retreat in the face of those who have feared the freedom of its people. There is much to be gained, public services must be strengthened and extended, but what we surely cannot afford is to retreat in the face of big capital.
For the right to an existence that allows a life worth living.
For the right to Universal Basic Income.
To sign this manifesto: https://forms.gle/wBcBRwvrW3AXakJB7
