In Vincent Liegey and Anitra Nelson, Exploring Degrowth, A Critical Guide (Pluto Press, September 2020).
Appendix 2: The content of the unconditional autonomy allowance
This is an adapted and updated translation from Vincent Liegey et al., Un Projet de Décroissance, Utopia, 2013, see: www.projet-decroissance.net
The unconditional autonomy allowance is for everyone, from birth to death, enough for a decent and frugal way of life. At the same time the unconditional autonomy allowance is a transition tool towards sustainable and desirable models of societies based on degrowth principles. One of the main challenges is repoliticisation – implementing democratic debates on defining basic needs and how to self-organise locally to satisfy them in sustainable and fair ways.
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ASPECTS |
AMOUNTS |
METHODS AND PROCESSES |
TRANSFORMING SYSTEMS AND DECOLONISATION OF IMAGINARY |
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Right to housing and access to real estate |
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Residential accommodation space |
A compact and specific maximum allowed space per capita: X m² |
Progressive re-appropriation of access to real estate via requisition laws and participatory deliberation to define local use rights and conditions of use |
Energy transition though improvements to insulation; flexibility, multi-functionality and sharing of spaces Challenge prevailing property rights and rehabilitate use rights |
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Space for social activities |
Economic and environmental transition via open relocalisation of production, exchange and other activities |
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Land surface for agricultural and other productive activities |
Agricultural transition to local food provisioning and self-governing territorial autonomy |
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Rights to basic needs: examples |
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Food |
Local participatory deliberation over what is ‘enough’, based on local estimates, plus deciding what and how to produce and share it |
Local currency, local exchange systems (time-bank, reciprocity economies) Temporary use of euro or national currency prior to implementing alternative economic systems |
Based on direct trade, relocalised and seasonal, less meat-based, organic and sustainable food production Production via agroforestry and agroecology principles |
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Basic tools such as bikes, furniture, clothes, toys and so on |
Implementation of open-source, low-tech, hand/home-made, sharing, recycling and makers’ workshops Includes all kinds of furniture, clothes, bikes, cargo bikes and trailers, machines, utensils, and so on |
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Free access to limited quantities of basic goods |
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Water |
Depending on local circumstances, enough for a ‘meaningful’ use Decided by local community |
Per capita – X litres or kWh monthly maximum free allocation Easily implemented via meters |
Democratic and local re-appropriation of water and energy management Phase out pricing and phase in free access for ‘good-usage’, and charge for overuse and/or misuse Energy transition based on sobriety, effectiveness, and renewable energy (in particular solar thermal) as local, low-tech, and handcrafted as possible toward territorial energy sovereignty |
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Energy sources (e.g. fuel, petrol, gas, wood) |
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Mobility rights |
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Local and short-distance transport |
X km per capita allowance Might be phased in gradually depending on transport type |
Free local public transport, e.g. limited number of km by train per capita |
Rethink urbanisation and dependency on transport as relocalisation of activities is implemented Develop active/soft transport systems (bikes, walk) Right to free public transport gradually reduces following relocalisation to avoid meaningless daily transport |
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Long-distance transport |
X km, per capita allowance (conditional) |
X km per capita package (options) |
Following open relocalisation, access to long-distance travel, dialogue, cooperation and solidarity all remain open and negotiable Preference for travel by train, bike and sailing boats and visit of long duration |
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Rights to public services |
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Health |
Free access conditional on revising the content and form of public services (as in column to right) |
Preventative approach to medicine through eating and living healthily |
As a cultural evolution and transformation, a progressive implementation of the unconditional autonomy allowance is necessary, whereby the political imaginary is decolonised The transition raises continual questions, discussion and debate around the meaning of our life and lifestyles – What do we need to produce? How will these goods and services be produced? In what ways will they be used? How will the hard tasks be shared? |
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Education |
Deschool society (Illich) Skill citizens for autonomous society |
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Culture |
Arts play a central role in shaping new political imaginary |
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Information Communication |
Open right to access all kinds of information |
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Other services of care and so on |
Care of all people’s various needs, e.g. for children, people with disabilities and the elderly, funerals, etc. |
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Maximum acceptable income as an example of implementing associated measures |
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Maximum acceptable income |
A multiple (say quadruple) of the minimum income |
Taxes on all income over and above the guaranteed minimum income Taxes democratically decided |
Associated with radical reform of banking and financial systems: reassessment of public debts with moratorium on debts deemed illegal, unfair or unethical; democratic and transparent governance of central banks and money creation, and other financial and banking systems; implement alternative local/complementary non-speculative currencies linked to transition projects Strict regulation of fiscal evasion, tax havens, and sectors such as military industrial complex, advertising and marketing, mega-infrastructure projects. No planned obsolescence |
