[BI News – August 2013, BIKN contributed to this report]
A Korean academic journal, Marxism 21, published a special edition on basic income entitled, “Basic Income and Issues of Alternative Economic Strategies.” Marxism 21 is a quarterly academic journal published by the Institute for Social Sciences of Gyeongang National University (of South Korea) with financial support from the Korean Research Foundation. The special issue included the following two papers.
Nam Hoon Kang, “Precarious Workers and Basic Income”
ABSTRACT: This paper compares selective income support policy with basic income for precarious workers. In 2012, there were 17,027,000 precarious workers in Korea, which is about 62% of the total economically-active population. Under this situation, a basic income policy is more suitable than selective income support. If there were perfect information and no administrative costs, selective income support policy could have exactly the same economic effects as basic income. But given those constraints, it is impossible for selective income policy to have the same economic effects as basic income. The former has more administrative costs, blind spots, moral hazards, bad transition effects, lower labor incentives and labeling effects. If most of the population are precarious workers, basic income is more appropriate not only economically but also politically.
Popho E. S. Bark-Yi, “The System of Sexuality and Basic Income”
ABSTRACT: This paper suggests that the ideological idea that equates women to sexual objects, not to sexual subjects, is still pervasive in South Korean culture. The author argues that this idea puts women in an inferior position to men in social, economic, and political spheres. Arguing for this idea’s deconstruction, the author introduces the term ‘system of sexuality’. This highlights the key feature of the current system, in which relationships between women and men are deeply intertwined with and sustained by sexuality, economics and politics. Basic income implies unconditional cash payment to every individual regardless of gender, age, marital status, employment status or wealth. Negotiation power in relationships partially but significantly depends on one’s degree of economic independence. Women’s economic status, nevertheless, has been heavily weakened due to the heterosexual male-oriented economic system as well as the marriage system. Basic income which guarantees each and every woman a certain level of income will offer a meaningful contribution to enhance women’s negotiation power within the current system of sexuality.
Hoon Kang, Nam, and Popho E. S. Bark-Yi, “Special Issue: Basic Income and Issues of Alternative Economic Strategies” Marxism 21, vol. 30, 2013 is online in English
