by Yannick Vanderborght | Nov 23, 2011 | Research
BAERT, Anthony (2011), ‘Experiências de transferência de renda universal e recomendações para o projeto de Renda Básica de Cidadania em Santo Antônio do Pinhal’…
This timely paper is aimed at contributing to the understanding of the concrete implementation of the Citizen’s Basic Income. Firstly, the author (A. Baert from Louvain University, Belgium) describes the concrete functioning of the three experiences of universal income transfer that have been conducted in the world until today: the Alaska Permanent Fund, the pilot project of the BIG Coalition in Otjivero-Omitara (Namibia) and the pilot project of the NGO ReCivitas in Quatinga Velho (Brazil). For each, Baert distinguishes four aspects of their functioning (institutional structure, funding, eligibility and payment) and analyzes their sustainability. Secondly, on the basis of this comparative research, the author makes recommendations for the implementation of a Citizen’s Basic Income in Santo Antonio do Pinhal (Brazil). Baert concludes that it is not viable on the short and medium term, and he suggests to launch a five-year pilot project instead.
Full references:
BAERT, Anthony (2011), ‘Experiências de transferência de renda universal e recomendações para o projeto de Renda Básica de Cidadania em Santo Antônio do Pinhal’, Center for Studies on Inequality and Development (https://www.proac.uff.br/cede/), Discussion Paper No. 54 – September 2011, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil. The paper is available at: https://www.proac.uff.br/cede/sites/default/files/TD54.pdf
by Yannick Vanderborght | Nov 17, 2011 | Research
A collective volume entitled Arguing about justice has just been published on the occasion of Philippe Van Parijs’s 60th birthday. The book was launched on October 28th, 2011, during the celebrations of the Hoover Chair (Louvain University) 20th anniversary, and remained a complete surprise for Van Parijs himself. The editors Axel Gosseries and Yannick Vanderborght had managed to convince almost 50 authors from all over the world, who all respect Philippe’s ideas and like him as a person, to join this secret project. The authors were asked to write pieces trying out new ideas, taking risks if possible, without knowing anything about who the other authors were, their number, the publisher’s name, the venue for the gift-giving, etc.
The diversity of Van Parijs’s research interests is reflected in the volume, with contributors from various disciplines covering a wide array of issues. Papers on basic income are of course well represented. They consider how and to what extent such a basic income can be justified (Christian Arnsperger & Warren A. Johnson, Samuel Bowles, Paul-Marie Boulanger, Ian Carter, Robert van der Veen, and Karl Widerquist) as well as the prospects of its implementation, based on experiences from France (Denis Clerc), the United Kingdom (Bill Jordan), Brazil (Eduardo Suplicy), or at a more general level (Almaz Zelleke). Among the other authors are Anne Alstott, Bruce Ackerman, John Baker, Joshua Cohen, Jon Elster, Robert Goodin, Claus Offe, John Roemer, Erik Olin Wright, and many others.
The endorsement by Amartya Sen reads as follows: “A book of quick and sharp thoughts on a grand theme is a novel way of paying tribute to a leading philosopher. But it has worked beautifully here, both as a stimulating book of ideas on justice, and as a fitting recognition of the intellectual contributions of Philippe Van Parijs, who is one of the most original and most creative thinkers of our time”.
Further details about the book (including all abstracts) and how to order it online are available at: https://www.uclouvain.be/394650.html
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jul 30, 2011 | Research
In a new book, Guy Standing develops a theme that has underpinned his advocacy of a basic income since the 1980s. There are many rationales for supporting a basic income, but effective political pressure may emanate from the emergence of a new mass class, the precariat. It is a dangerous class; not yet a class-for-itself, in the Marxian sense, but a class-in-the-making, in which distinctive groups are torn politically in different directions.
Those in the precariat – and the millions who fear they could fall into it – are characterised by having insecure lives, in and out of short-term jobs, with volatile and generally low incomes. What stands out most is that they lack a secure occupational identity, and have no sense of control over their work, labour, recreation and leisure.
The relevance for basic income arises because the precariat’s economic insecurity is chronic and is mostly uninsurable. In a globalising market economy, the precariat faces systemic uncertainty and exposure to threatening hazards and shocks. Social insurance cannot provide basic economic security in such circumstances. But in any case governments have increasingly resorted to means-tested social assistance, ‘targeting’ on the so-called deserving poor. Even with tax credits, this has generated well-known poverty and unemployment traps, whereby those in the lower echelons of labour markets face marginal tax rates close to 100%, prompting moral and immoral hazards.
It has also led to a proliferation of precarity traps, whereby anybody losing a job or income must enter a debilitating process of trying to obtain state benefits, during which time they have no income and build up debts. If they do obtain benefits, they will be disinclined to take a temporary low-wage job in case they have to start the process all over again.
The precariat consists of three groups. First, there are progressives, mostly consisting of frustrated educated youth, intellectuals and others who resent the insecurity and lack of occupational opportunity. They embrace various non-conformist lifestyles. It is this group that has been filling the squares in protests against the austerity programmes that have followed the financial crisis. They reject old-style social democracy while looking for a redistributive strategy that would give people like themselves basic economic security in which to build their lives. They openly support a basic income, even if some have to be alerted to the feasibility of it.
The second group in the precariat is anomic, politically detached, including many morally defeated people, as well as migrants keen not to be noticed by the authorities, many of the so-called disabled and many who have been criminalised. This group could be mobilised to support a basic income, but would have to feel they were moving from a denizen status to citizens in order to feel it would be something for them.
The third component of the precariat is what makes it the dangerous class. It consists mainly of those falling from the old working class and the partially educated condemned to a life of insecurity. This disparate group listens to populist politicians offering variants of neo-fascism, a far-right agenda depicting government as against them and strangers, notably migrants, Muslims and ‘liberals’, as the cause of their insecurity.
The far-right is gaining ground in country after country, often at the expense of social democrats. The trouble is that the latter has not offered the precariat an attractive vision, and are paying the political price, deservedly. But here, paradoxically, there is reason for some optimism. Increasingly, we may see that those wishing to be centre-left politicians will have no alternative to offer other than a universal basic income, if they want to foster an economically secure citizenry and to reduce inequality.
That is why the book ends on a mildly optimistic note. However, it goes one stage further, which may be controversial for basic income supporters. The argument is that the commodification of politics combined with the growth of an increasingly angry and active precariat have accentuated the thinning of democracy and the erosion of deliberative democracy. In that context, it advocates a basic income in which every adult on establishing eligibility makes a moral commitment in writing – not a legally binding one – to vote in general elections and to attend at least one local public political meeting each year.
Strengthening deliberative democracy will surely be a vital part of a new progressive politics in which the precariat would feel an integral part of society. That is consistent with the values that have guided BIEN for the past twenty-five years.
Guy Standing, The Precariat – The New Dangerous Class, has just been published by Bloomsbury, and can be ordered online.
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 26, 2011 | Research
There are strong Lockean considerations that count in favor of a global basic income program. This paper articulates a conception of equal share left-libertarianism that is supported by the rights of full self-ownership and world-ownership. It is argued that an appropriately constructed basic income program would be a key institution for promoting the rights of full self-ownership and world-ownership.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 14
Link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1872580
by Sandro Gobetti | Jun 21, 2011 | Research
BIN Italy published the BIN Report No. 12 March-June 2011, the online journal of the Basic Income Network Italy. It is published in Italian on a regular base each two month and contains information about national and international news on Basic Income.
You can download the Report in Italian as PDF at:
https://www.bin-italia.org/UP/bin_report/BIN_REPORT_n12%20marz-giu011.pdf
At the official website of BIN Italy you can also find previous issues of BIN Report and numerous documents, articles, and up-to-date news on the topic:
https://www.bin-italia.org
BIN Italy has also an online TV at:
https://www.livestream.com/binitalia
