by Josh Martin | Aug 22, 2014 | Research
[Josh Martin]
Dolan’s post focuses on Representative Paul Ryan’s recently proposed welfare reform, which would consolidate many individual welfare programs into one grouped “Opportunity Grant” for each applicable citizen. While Ryan should be praised for trying to cut back on the bureaucracy in welfare, Dolan believes that Ryan’s biggest error was continuing to impose work requirements on each beneficiary, thus maintaining the work disincentives associated with moving from benefits into work. Dolan believes that Ryan’s plan should have gone further in allowing states to implement a universal basic income if they choose.
Ed Dolan, “Universal Basic Income: An Idea Whose Time Has Come”, Real Clear Markets, 6 August 2014
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 22, 2014 | Research
John Danaher, NUI Galway
John Danaher, a lecturer at the National University of Ireland, Galway and a regular blogger at Philosophical Disquisitions, has written a series of blogs about basic income. The series contains nine articles so far, post from December 23, 2013 to July 18, 2014. According to the author’s summary, “I’ve written a number of posts about the ethics and justice of the basic income grant. I thought it might be useful to provide an index to all of them in this post. Most of these posts look at whether an unconditional basic income grant can be justified from a particular theoretical perspective, e.g. feminism, libertarianism, liberal egalitarianism, and republicanism. One of them asks whether there should be a right not to work.” Items in the series include:
From Philosophical Disquisitions
John Danaher holds a PhD from University College Cork (Ireland) and is currently a lecturer in law at the National University of Ireland, Galway. His research interests range broadly from philosophy of religion to legal theory, with particular interests in human enhancement and neuroethics.
John Danaher, “Blog series: Philosophy and the Basic Income.” Philosophical Disquisitions, July 18, 2014 [December 23, 2013 – July 17, 2014]
by Jenna van Draanen | Aug 21, 2014 | Research
In this opinion piece, the author lays out an argument for basic income on the grounds of needing to democratize the economy, protect human rights, and allow freedom. The article argues that we need to decentralize the creation of money to avoid having a privileged group of bankers controlling society.
Language: French
Thierry Crouzet, “Pourquoi défendre le revenu de base? [Why defend basic income?]” Blog at tcrouzet.com, July 16, 2014.
Tant qu'on voudra vivre là, il faudra de la monnaie. -blog.tcrouzet.com
by Josh Martin | Aug 20, 2014 | Research
[Josh Martin]
Fitsnews decided to write on the basic income as a response to the debate started by Zwolinski at Cato Unbound on the basic income. Fitsnews provides a basic introduction to the negative income tax and provides some humor by noticing that the basic income guarantee has the same abbreviation as the infamous Notorious B.I.G.
Fitsnews, “The Notorious (Basic Income Guarantee)”, Fitsnews, 4 August 2014.
The Notorious (Basic Income Guarantee) (Source: Fitsnews)
by Josh Martin | Aug 19, 2014 | Research
Abstract:
“Basic income is a radical idea which has gained more attention in many countries in recent years, as traditional welfare states are having trouble solving the problems they were created to solve. Basic income promises to solve many of these problems in an effective and simple way. The purpose of this thesis is to study basic income in a way which can supplement the existing literature, and make it relevant in a Norwegian perspective. Hopefully this can contribute towards placing basic income on the political agenda and in the public debate. A large amount of literature is written on basic income, but by comparing the arguments used to promote a basic income with empirical data from previously implemented social policy in Norway, I hope to contribute towards an area which is not well covered.
To do this I identify the arguments used to promote a basic income, and compare them to the arguments used to promote other universal social policy in Norway at the time they were introduced. The empirical cases of the universal child benefit and the universal old age pension in Norway has been chosen, because they resemble a basic income in many ways. The study is of a qualitative nature, and the method of document analysis is used to conduct the study. The data material for basic income is mainly scholarly literature. The data materials used for the analysis of the child benefit scheme and the old age pension are government documents, mainly preparatory work for new laws, legal propositions put forward in parliament, white papers, and transcripts of debates in parliament.
This study finds that there are many similarities between the three social policies studied in this thesis. Most clearly the arguments are similar in two areas: arguments related to economic and administrative considerations, and arguments related to poverty and social justice. The main differences are related to arguments related to freedom and justice, and arguments related to feminist, green and post-productive considerations.”
Christian Siegwart Petersen, “Money for nothing? Arguments for basic income, universal pensions and universal child benefits in Norway”, University of Bergen, 2 June 2014.
by Jenna van Draanen | Aug 18, 2014 | Research
John Danaher -IEET
This piece discusses feminist perspectives both for and against basic income as well as examines the possible effects of basic income for women. The author brings up potential effects such as: changing women’s labor market participation, the amount of money women (and mothers) receive, flexibility in work choice, re-valuation of unpaid work, positive psychological effects, bargaining power, loss of non-pecuniary advantages of paid labor, depreciation of women’s human capital, and increased systematic discrimination against women. The article then describes four feminist arguments in favor of BI and two feminist arguments against BI and concludes that there is no single feminist position on this debate.
John Danaher, “Feminism and the Basic Income (Part One)”. Philosophical Disquisitions, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, July 17, 2014.
