In this comment piece, John Harris of the Guardian suggests that the demand for a basic income should form a part of new centre-left political agenda better suited to the changed social and economic territory of the twenty-first century.
John Harris, “The Tories own the future – the left is trapped in the past”, The Guardian, 2nd April 2014.
Photograph: Alex Dellow/Getty Images
SUMMARY: This article discusses the problems of wealth inequality discussed in Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Bruening suggests that a progressive wealth tax put into a sovereign wealth fund paying out a basic income should be a frontrunner as a solution to the problem Piketty points out.
Matt Bruenig, “On Piketty’s Capital: The Sovereign Wealth Fund Solution.” PolicyShop, Demos. March 19, 2014.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Democratic Wealth book cover
PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Democratic Wealth is a collection of essays that challenges the poverty of thinking around economic policy, particularly after the 2007 financial crash. It explores the renewed interest in republicanism and suggests this as a framework to shape an economy that serves the common good. It is a selection of articles from a series published by openDemocracy and Politics in Spires, a blog run by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
The book is split into three parts. The first, Taking Back the Economy, features contributions from Philip Pettit, Thad Williamson, Joe Guinan, Jessica Kimpell and others on republican thinking and the market. The second, Republican Economy in Practice, looks at application around the globe, including contributions on cooperatives, sovereign wealth funds, basic income, tax fairness and green solutions and discusses how to develop these models at scale. In the third, Republican Politics, contributors including Quentin Skinner, Alex Gourevitch and Karma Nabulsi discuss the politics of republicanism, from challenging the surveillance state to democratising the workplace and harnessing the demands of new social movements for freedom from domination by the one per cent. It ends with an afterword by James Meadway, senior economist at nef, on clearing a path for a better future.
Stuart White and Niki Seth-Smith, Democratic Wealth: Building a Citizens’ Economy (E-book). Published by OpenDemocracy, 2014
J. Hughes, “Embrace the End of Work”, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 24th February 2004.
J. Hughes
SUMMARY: This article uses the “surprising” results of Cherokee basic income to take a look at the convention (and conservative) approach to poverty. The author argues, “almost every single anti-poverty effort is supposed to work this exact same way … by increasing so-called human capital … Walk yourself through the process that leads from increasing human capital to decreasing poverty. It goes like this: increasing the human capital of poor people will cause them to have a greater productive capacity, which will cause them to get better jobs, which will cause them to get higher pay, which will cause them to have more money, which will cause them to not be poor anymore. Talking about human capital obscures the mechanism of this conservative approach to poverty reduction, but that mechanism is ultimately increasing the cash incomes of poor people. You cannot consistently believe that 1) increasing human capital will make poor people less poor, and 2) increasing cash transfers will not make poor people less poor.”
Matthew Bruenig
Matt Bruenig is a journalist who write about politics, the economy, and political theory, primarily with a focus on the set of interlocking issues that affect poor and working people. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, The American Prospect, Salon, The Week, Demos’ Policy Shop, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, Guardian, Forbes, NY Magazine, Mother Jones, Slate, Washington Monthly, Think Progress, Roosevelt Institute, Dissent Magazine, Jacobin Magazine, and elsewhere. He has lately written several articles on BIG.
Matt Bruenig, “A Cherokee Tribe’s Basic Income Success Story.” Policy Shop, Demos, January 19, 2014
This article discusses “Modern Monetary Theory” (MMT), an economic school of thought within the Post Keynesian tradition. Most MMT theorists favor a government guaranteed job. This essay discusses the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) as an alternative. Some MMT theorists favor the idea, but most believe BIG would create more inflationary pressure than a guaranteed job.
Rebecca Rojer, “The World According to Modern Monetary Theory.” The New Inquiry, April 11, 2014.
-The New Inquiry
