by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 19, 2011 | Research
Standing, Guy (2011): Eine Stimme für das Prekariat?, Der Freitag (online), June 7, 2011
In this article Guy Standing gives the opinion, that progressive powers have to address the new class before it is done by the extreme right. The great left parties in Britain and Europe have no progressive agenda, because they lost the basic rule, that each progressive movement is fed by the rage, the needs and hopes of the developing class, which tends to represents the majority. He calls this new class “Precariat.”
Standing describes its appearance with recent protests in Spain, Italy, Greece or the Near East, where especially young people show their frustration and demand for a future with more security and better job perceptivity. Yet, this “Precariat” is not a consistent class, but unified by fears and insecurity. The flexibility of the labour market makes it for the Precariat impossible to feel related to a specific community, which values they share and to which they feel solidary.
On the other hand, there is a rise of the extreme right, which tries to abuse the situation of the new Precariat. An affluent and powerful international elite support such development, that even the social democrats fell for this elite’s charm. Because of such a neo-fascist spectre, the progressive powers must risk a bit utopia. The politics must not longer orientate at a strict work moral of the industrial society, but must recognise the right for economical security and different forms of work and activities. Standing closes, that the Precariat will understand this, but politicians on the left should listen to them.
Link: https://www.freitag.de/politik/1122-wer-gibt-dem-prekariat-eine-stimme
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 17, 2011 | Research
Brookings: Social Security Reconsidered (for National Tax Journal)
from Henry J. Aaron, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies
Social Security is currently much in the news because it faces a projected funding gap, because of overall budget deficits, and because of doubts in some quarters about its design. Minor adjustments are sufficient to close the funding gap. Benefit cuts, even if considered desirable, would not help close the overall budget gap in a timely way. Some adjustments in Social Security benefits and financing are desirable, but large scale changes would be disruptive and would not well serve the program’s basic purposes – to provide assured, basic income to retirees, the disabled, and survivors – unless they more or less replicated the current program.
Available at:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/2011/06_social_security_aaron.aspx
Full paper:
https://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/articles/2011/06_social_security_aaron/06_social_security_aaron.pdf
by Sandro Gobetti | Jun 3, 2011 | Research
The book of Bin Italia with AAVV published by ManifestoLibri
https://it.bestshopping.com/prezzi/Manifestolibri-Reddito-per-tutti.-Basic-income-network-Italia.-Un-utopia-concreta-per-l-era-globale-.sku=9788872855867%7C.html
In the smoking ruins of the wage-based society, facing a global crisis of civilization, and before the full blown bankruptcy of neoliberal policies, Basic Income for All is the watchword providing a way of escape through the setting up of a new social project. A new social project that is able to create a society eventually based on the ideas of the “right of existence”, the freedom of choice, the freedom to create, the distribution of wealth and the equal dignity for all. The authors of this anthology, gathered together by Bin Italy – the Italian Association for the Guaranteed Income – are completely convinced of it. Through a radical insight and a reckless theoretical attitude, the idea of the Income of Citizenship is analysed by using a plurality of approaches and disciplines – the result is a multifaceted, rich and cogent framework. An essential book to cope with the challenges of our time, free from any bias.
(The book is in Italian language)
For more info write to: sandro.gobetti@bin-italia.org
by Karl Widerquist | Jun 1, 2011 | Research
Harada, Yutaka (2010), “Basic Income will eliminate poverty: A Basic Income for All rather than Welfare Benefits” Chuo Koron (Monthly) Vol. 125-6, June 2010, published by Chuo koron Publishing, Co, Ltd.
This article is in Japanese.
Abstract: The author presents a BI scheme which pays every adults (between 20 and 64 years old) 70,000 JPY (around 84 USD) a month without tests on means, work willingness, dependents. He argues that it is financially affordable by cutting off a half of the budgets for useless public works, aids for farmers and minor businesses, and abolishing the present welfare benefit system not covering the real needy. He offers counterarguments against expected criticisms.
Author: Mr. Yutaka Managing Director/Chief Economist at the Daiwa Institute of Research. He is a former economist at the Japanese Finance Ministry
by Karl Widerquist | May 28, 2011 | Research
Guy Standing is former co-chair and honorary co-President of BIEN. In this article, he discusses the role of cash transfer in aiding India’s rural poor. This article is online at:
https://www.indianexpress.com/news/give-cash-some-credit/796426/
by Karl Widerquist | May 27, 2011 | Research
AVINUS Magazin, 2011 (originally published 2008)
ABSTRACT: The idea of a basic or citizens’ income rests on the principle that everyone is entitled to the resources which make possible at least a minimum standard of subsistence. This principle is well-established in those countries, particularly in Europe, with a developed welfare state tradition, although its implementation, even in those countries, is surrounded by qualifications centered on the obligation of able-bodied citizens to work and the restriction of public assistance to those who can prove their need for support, which are monitored by an enormous inhuman and incompetent bureaucratic apparatus of inspection, regulation and control. Moreover, the solidaristic welfare tradition is being eroded by individualistic approaches to welfare provision based on compulsory or voluntary, state or private insurance principles.
The full text of the article can be downloaded at:
https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/View/?resid=25123&lang=en
