BLASCHKE, Ronald, OTTO, Adeline & SCHEPERS, Norbert (Eds.) (2010), Grundeinkommen : Geschichte – Modelle – Debatten, Berlin: Dietz, 2010.
The book, written by Germanys leading left-wing basic income supporters Ronald Blaschke, Adeline Otto and Katja Kipping, includes a detailed history of the idea of basic income as well as an overview about minimum income and basic income models, which are discussed in Germany right now. Blaschke draws a line from Thomas Paine and Thomas Spence about Charles Fourier and his student, Victor Considérant, to Erich Fromm, proving that fundamental questions related to basic income (means testing, basic income and public infrastructure, basic income and emancipation of female, basic income and attractive labour) have already been discussed by these protagonists. He also discusses some possibilities to determine a fourth criterion of basic income, which is required by the German Network of Basic Income (secure the individual’s livelihood and enable them to participate in society), while Kipping discusses the relation of basic income and democracy and describes the basic income as a fixed rate for democracy. The last part contains articles of various international authors (José Iglesias Fernandéz , Spain/ Ruurik Holm, Finland/ Melina Klaus, Austria/ Sepp Kusstatscher, Italy) dealing with different approaches to a basic income from a left-emancipatory perspective.
The book can be downloaded as a PDF at: https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Publ-Texte/Texte_67.pdf
