Despite the provocative advertising campaign, the Swiss have rejected the 'unconditional basic income'
Data published by the opinion research institute gfs.bern on behalf of the Swiss national public broadcaster SRG SSR show that only 23.1% of citizens voted for unconditional income, while 76.9% voted against. This result should surprise no one: preliminary polls predicted that an absolute majority in the country opposed the idea of unconditional income.
Let us recall that the idea of introducing an unconditional basic income (UBI) in Switzerland is the result of reflections by an initiative group of citizens far from any parties or movements. What exactly did they propose? This benefit would be received by unemployed citizens, while employed people would continue to receive their salary, with the only difference being that a certain portion would be deducted from it and immediately replaced by a sum equivalent to the UBI. Exactly the same mechanism of income redistribution would apply in the field of social insurance.
Nevertheless, as Swissinfo.ch notes, this idea had no chance at the referendum, being too radical for a society where a person's prestige and social status are determined by their position in the labor hierarchy. Moreover, it would simply blow up the entire financial system of the country. Supporters of the initiative argued that UBI could be an adequate response to the problem of employment amid widespread job cuts caused by the process of robotization and automation of industry. However, the prospect of a complete 'reformatting' of all labor and employment relations in the country, as well as the need to completely overhaul the entire social insurance system, made the idea of unconditional income unacceptable to the people.
In the Swiss parliament, only a few deputies from the far 'left-green' political flank spoke in favor of UBI. As a result, both the National Council, the large chamber of the Swiss federal parliament, and the Council of States, the small senatorial chamber of parliament, rejected the basic income idea by an overwhelming majority of deputies. And now the people have also spoken out against it. The Swiss liberals, for example, are pleased with the vote: 'Our people stand for honest work and personal responsibility – our traditional values.'