Ralf Welter. Photo: Michael Jasper
SUMMARY: Economist and Chairman of the Catholic Workers’ Movement in Aachen, Ralf Welter, discusses his fight for unconditional Basic Income for everyone.
Language: German
Rauke Xenia Bornefeld, “Das Grundeinkommen ist eine Pflicht [The basic income is a duty]”, Aachener Zeitung, February 21 2014.
Empowering women through a basic income guarantee
[Craig Axford]
Citing Virginia Woolf’s famous essay, A Room of One’s Own, the author of this article makes the feminist case for a basic income guarantee. A guaranteed income would, according to the author, enable “women to make an authentic choice as to where on the spectrum their preference lies between paid work and any caring responsibilities women might choose to undertake.”
Dr. Anna Hedge, “Basic Income and a Room of One’s Own”, Pieria, February 26, 2014
Götz Werner: "You never have to work for what you need." Martin Heimann
[Michael Millar]
SUMMARY: The entrepreneur and owner of German drugstore DM, Götz Werner, talks about his wish for an unconditional basic income.
Language: German
Enita Vogel and Armin Müller, “Wirtschaft ist eine Kulturveranstaltung [Economy is a cultural event]”, Handels Zeitung, February 26 2014.
Bloomberg View
[Craig Axford]
President Obama is proposing to significantly expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). This program arose out of conservative economist Milton Friedman’s idea of a negative income tax (form of BIG) and has traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support.
Bloomberg View, “The Working Poor Get Their 15 Minutes”, Bloomberg View, March 4, 2014.
Ignaczak, Nina Misuraca, “Could Free Money Solve Poverty?” Shareable. February 2, 2014.
This paper by Simon Birnbaum (Stockholm University, Sweden) is a review essay of Arguing about Justice. Essays for Philippe Van Parijs, that was published in 2011 (now available for free download in PDF). In his review, Birnbaum stresses the fact that this volume is a “massive firework display of brief essays”, and concentrates on some of the chapters discussing – directly or indirectly – basic income. He discusses the Marxian heritage and justifications of basic income (chapters by Elster, and Zelleke), the left-libertarian arguments (chapters by Steiner, and again Zelleke), Van Parijs’ real-libertarian justification of basic income and the challenges to his views (chapters by van der Veen, and Widerquist), and the tensions between the Marxian and liberal-egalitarian arguments (chapter by Roemer).
Full references: Simon Birnbaum (2013), “Self-Ownership, Liberal Neutrality and the Realm of Freedom: New Reflections on the Justification of Basic Income“, Jurisprudence 4 (2): 344-357.
