Guaranteed Basic Services

We want to decommodify essential goods and services, enabling public stewardship and the fixing of maximum prices. Unprecedented public investment is necessary to ensure the accessibility, sustainability and high quality of public transport, housing, renewable energy, clean water, food production, healthcare, education, and cultural and social spaces necessary for living a good life. Everyone should have guaranteed access to these services, irrespective of their level of income. 

Guaranteed basic services are a cornerstone of the eco-social transformation of the society that we advocate for. The concept of guaranteed, or universal basic services captures the idea that public services should be provided to each and everyone of us to meet our essential needs in a sufficient way, irrespective of our abilities to pay for these services. These services include, among others, education, healthcare, child daycare, elderly and disability care, public transport, food production and housing.

The idea of basic services differs from a universal basic income. A basic income supports people in their individual ability to buy the services and goods they need, without dealing proactively with the provisioning systems behind these services. Providing basic services turns this logic around and takes a collective approach in making sure that the essential social and material infrastructure exist to cater for our shared needs, providing the conditions for living flourishing lives.

This collective take on catering for our needs brings both social, ecological and economic advantages which can prove very helpful in our times of ecological crisis and economic transformation. 

Socially, the beneficial effects of guaranteed basic services are felt by all, but most strongly by those with low incomes. As research shows, government spending on public services helps decreasing income inequality and reduces poverty rates. Moreover, since basic services serve as a form of extended disposable income, it might also help people to spend less time in wage labour (see also the explainer on meaningful work). For example, in Flanders half of the people renting a house or apartment on the private market spends more than 40% of their disposable income on paying for rent and related costs. This means that 40% of their time spent working merely serves to have a roof over their head. Having a decent place to live is an essential need and taking more public control over a provisioning system such as the housing market could cater in a more socially just way for this need.

Guaranteed basic services also bring ecological and cost-efficiency benefits. First of all, many of the jobs in the basic service economy are meaningful and low-carbon jobs. Second, collective provisioning systems have a smaller energy and material footprint than individual and market-based solutions, and can be more cost-efficient. Public transport versus private car use is another clear example of this. Currently, the company car system costs the Belgian federal government nearly 5 billion euros. This sum almost equals the entire, combined government spending on public transport in Belgium, while only 5% of the population is granted such a car (in 2022, there were 560.000 company cars in Belgium). Re-allocating subsidies for private car use could thus double current investments in public transport improving its capacity, quality and affordability.

How can we move towards such a system of guaranteed basic services?
First of all, existing public services that are essential to our well-being urgently require strong re-funding and well-deserved social recognition. Lack of sufficient investments in healthcare, education, public transport, child day care, elderly care, disability care are well-documented and long-standing. 

Second, domains such as renewable energy provision, decent housing and sustainable food production would benefit from being brought under more public control. This could involve direct state interventions in those markets, but also state-supported community control in the form of energy, housing and food cooperatives.

Obviously, significant government spending would be required to level up and expand current public services. Also, services can only be delivered if there are enough people willing to do this work under fair conditions. For these two points, see the explainers on fair distribution of wealth and meaningful work.

This explainer is not necessarily endorsed by all coalition partners

Further reading