by Karl Widerquist | Apr 25, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in October 2010.
The political climate in the United States has gotten increasingly unfriendly toward the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG). Since 1990s, Democrats and Republicans have agreed that any politically viable approach to poverty must involve forcing the poor to work. But it is not only cash assistance to the poor that is nonviable in the current political climate. It is not only progressive social policy. Left or right, it seems to be that the government lacks the ability to employ any ambitious strategy.
America was once a very ambitious country: the New Deal of the 1930s, the G. I. Bill of the 1940s, the interstate highway system of the 1950s, the space program and the Great Society of 1960s were all hugely ambitious goals pursued with ambitious strategies. More than a century ago, when an earthquake hit San Francisco or a fire hit Chicago, we rebuilt those cities better than ever within a couple years. Today, five years after the engineering failure that caused the flood in New Orleans, large parts of the city lie vacant while the government struggles to get the levees back only to where they were before they failed.
It would be wrong to say that the U.S. government has not taken on any ambitious goals in the last 30 years. It has ambitiously pursued tax cuts for the most privileged Americans, but by doing so it has hampered its ability to ambitiously pursue most other goals it has taken on. Under the Bush administration, the U.S. government took on the incredibly ambitious goals of invading and occupying two foreign nations. But the government has pursued those goals largely with the strategies of long-range missiles in the air and bribes for warlords on the ground, rather than committing resources to stabilize and rebuild those countries. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. government has taken on the ambitious goal of establishing universal healthcare coverage, but it plans to do so by mandating that individuals buy insurance, often from for-profit companies. Whether these goals are good or bad, the ambitiousness of the strategy does not match the ambitiousness of the goal. Meanwhile, we don’t even have the ambition to properly maintain the public transportation systems, highways, and other infrastructure left to us by earlier generations.
And in this climate, BIG supporters want to talk about this hugely ambitious idea to eliminate poverty with an unconditional payment to all citizens. How can this be worth talking about here and now?
One important reason to keep pushing for a big ambitious change is that we must not mistake a current political mood for the permanent political reality. The political mood changes for the better and for the worse, and it can change abruptly and unexpectedly. In the 1850s, no one, not even Abraham Lincoln himself, had a good reason to believe that the United States was within 10 years of outlawing slavery. In the 1920s, no one, not even Franklin Roosevelt himself, had a good reason to believe that the United States was within 10 years of introducing old age pensions, unemployment insurance, a national minimum wage, and so on.
The political mood is only a mood. It can change abruptly because most people do not hold firm convictions about politics. True believers on all sides of any political issue might dominate the debate, but most people’s political positions are tentative and subject to change. I cannot predict when and how the political mood will change, but I know that a major change takes people pressing for it, and it takes people being ready with well thought-out new ideas to take us in another direction. We need to talk about BIG now if we want to make it viable later.
The outpouring of enthusiasm for the vague ideas of “change” and “hope” in the 2008 election indicates that the appeal of the ambitionless philosophy that has been dominant for the last 30-years is declining. The most active resistance to the Democrats over the last two years has been made out of the minority who voted against them to begin with. But a significant part of the frustration that might swing the upcoming election is motivated not by some belief that the Democrats have gone too far but by the belief that they have not done enough. It is a sign of continued frustration at the bipartisan lack of ambition that continues to handicap the U.S. government.
I wish I could say with assurance that we are on the verge of a major shift in political mood in the direction of BIG. I cannot say that. I cannot see the future, and neither can those people who confidently pretend they can. But I can point to indicators that things are moving in the direction of BIG and small things we can do here and now to push things in that direction.
As I see it, there are four parts to the BIG model: (1) it’s in-cash; (2) it’s enough to meet a person’s needs; (3) it’s universal; and (4) it is understood as a human right or a right of citizenship. Anything that establishes even one element of this model moves in the direction of BIG.
Looked at in this way, the United States is not as far away from the BIG model as it might appear. Some of the most successful and popular elements in U.S. social policy are cash-based: refundable tax credits; unemployment insurance, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, and so on. The Food Stamp program functions almost like a cash grant (although with a paternalistic twist), and it is clearly motivated by the idea that everyone ought to have access to food. Social Security—as imperfectly as it works—is clearly motivated by the belief that all people ought to have a financially secure retirement. Despite all the shortcomings of the health care reform law, it helps to establish the idea that all people should have access to health care.
The public school system is an enormous in-kind universal benefit that is not even limited to citizens. Although the system has great inequities, the ideal of universal education is strong. A fully market-based educational system would offer no more than the faith that all parents will somehow find a way to purchase adequate education for their children. It’s not such a big change in mindset to go from the realization that we can’t assume every parent can provide an adequate education for their children, to the question of what makes us so confidently assume every parent can provide adequate food, shelter, and clothing for their children.
Looking beyond U.S. federal government policies, there is an increasing trend worldwide toward the use of in-cash benefits. Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend, Mexico’s conditional cash transfer program, Brazil’s Bolsa Familia, and South Africa’s pension system are just a few examples of how well cash grants can work and how popular they can be. All of this experience provides lessons for U.S. federal policies big and small.
There is nothing good about the current recession. But sometimes good things arise out of bad. This recession has reminded many Americans that they are not so different from people in need. Unemployment did not rise from 3 to 10 percent because people suddenly became lazy; the foreclosure epidemic was not caused by a sudden increase in the number of deadbeats. The government has put most of its effort into bailing out the economy from the top down, but there is growing belief among the American public that we should be aiming our policy from the bottom up instead.
What can we do? Two things: we can be on the side of big ambitious change and small incremental changes in the right direction. The world has big problems; we can be on the side of the ambitious strategy necessary to build a better world in the face of those problems. At the same time, there are small policy issues and many, many opportunities to nudge policy in the direction of a universalistic, rights-based, or cash-based strategies to meet human needs. Efforts to expand refundable tax credits and the cap & dividend approach to global warming are two small steps in that direction that are under serious consideration right now.
-Karl Widerquist, Portland, Oregon, October 2010
by Florie Barnhoorn | Apr 12, 2018 | News
Credit Picture CC Flickr.com / Foam: Futures of the Universal Basic Income
Reyer Brons, editor-in-chief of Vereniging Basisinkomen (Association for Basic Income), the Dutch branch of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), and also member of the Network for Political Innovation (NPI, a Dutch think tank), has, in recent months, collected about seventy objections that people might bring up in discussions about (the introduction of) an unconditional basic income (UBI). All objections are subdivided into twelve themes and provided with a short explanation and a refutation or relativisation.
The intention of the work is to give people some background information which can help them in debates about the UBI with supporters and opponents of the policy. As the complete work is rather comprehensive and written in Dutch, only the themes and objections will be presented in this article. An overview of all objections is given (unfortunately only in Dutch) on the website of the NPI with links to the full descriptions. The arguments are also published on the website of the Vereniging Basisinkomen, in a special category of objections (‘Bezwaren’).
In this article, a first example is presented, a short description of an argument with its concomitant explanation and relativisation. Then, some other themes and objections are listed.
For instance, one of the arguments under the theme ‘Implementation’, states “We cannot oversee the long-term effects”.
The objection is followed by a short explanation, that notes:
“It is probably true, that disadvantages of the introduction of a basic income will become obvious in time. However, it will be regarded as an acquired right by that time and therefore it is to be expected that negative developments will evoke opposition among the general public. For example, lowering the level of the basic income would lead to major problems, because many people will not be prepared to face the reduction.”
Subsequently a refutation is given:
“This type of argument is fatal for every policy change. Of course, there will be unforeseen effects, but what policy has none? There are many examples of unexpected consequences, but it did not stop progress. Who could have thought that the exploitation of gas fields in Groningen [a province in the north of the Netherlands] could cause serious earthquakes after decades of drilling? Or that fatal traffic accidents could increase again as a result of the introduction of the smartphone?
In the course of time, society will change in a variety of ways due to the introduction of the policy. Proponents look forward to experience with an unconditional basic income. In their eyes, the effects will have a strong positive influence on society. Furthermore, it is also possible to model the long-term effects (e.g. via micro simulation studies).
If undesirable long-term effects arise, further measures must be developed to counteract the unfavorable consequences. This also applies to the current welfare system. It must be understood that the adverse effects of the current system can hardly be tackled, until that system is thoroughly addressed. When economic conditions deteriorate in a given society, it cannot be ruled out that the basic income payment must be lowered, but the same applies to current benefits. On the other hand, it also cannot be ruled out that the payment will increase over time.”
All objections are listed below, arranged by theme:
1. Common misconceptions
- Basic income is a utopian dream or a fantasy
- Basic income is a hype or a cult
- Basic income means free money and that is not possible
- Basic income is a new and still immature idea
- Basic income is a new label for the same old social security system
- Basic income is unaffordable or antisocial
2. Values and philosophy of life
- Reciprocity is necessary for the legitimacy of the social state and its moral support, that means that an unconditional basic income cannot be solidary
- Having a paid job gives dignity, status and a sense of social integration, basic income will make people lazy
- With basic income, young people no longer take the trouble to study
- Only a small group of people is capable of handling freedom well
- Basic income leads to an increase in the use of alcohol and drugs
- Basic income is bad for the emancipation of women
- The basic income lowers the participation of women at the labor market (they might stay at home to look after the children or take up other unpaid care work)
- Talents remain unused
- Basic income promotes overpopulation
- People always want something more than they see with someone else, therefore they will begrudge someone a basic income
- The group consisting of free-riders, maladjusted or anti-social people will grow, if there is basic income for everyone
- Many are annoyed by the behavior of free-riders, profiteers and anti-socials. Those people are not worth to get a basic income. If they should receive the payment, it would be disastrous for its acceptance
3. Social vision and ideology
- The idea of a basic income goes in the direction of communism, and that is bad
- Basic income is a socialist idea, that cannot work
- It is a reprehensible neoliberal idea
- Basic income creates an undesirable class distribution in society or a strengthening of it
- Basic income increases the chance of ghetto formation
- Basic income increases the power of the state and makes citizens passive and dependent
- Basic income requires unjust redistribution and is actually just theft
- Basic income is a Trojan horse, as soon as it is introduced, massive savings on government spending will be realized
4. Economy
- Basic income is unaffordable
- Basic income does not use sophisticated information and is therefore cumbersome and limited in its goals
- A basic income causes a huge inflation
- Introduction of the UBI will lead to higher taxes and that is bad for innovation and industry
- Basic income worsens the position of the Netherlands on the international market
- Basic income will boost the informal economy, illegal transactions and fraud
- Basic income promotes consumption and is therefore a catastrophe for the environment
- Basic income means that fewer people will accept work, hence the economy will stagnate or shrink
5. Job market
- Nobody wants to accept unpleasant work after the introduction of an UBI
- Many people will be satisfied with the basic income payment
- The loss of income due to unemployment will have a much greater effect with a basic income than in the current situation without a basic income
- If you give people a basic income, that means that you let them down
- Paid work is no longer necessary, so the meaning of work will ebb away. Which fulfilling, decent activity will replace it?
6. Government and bureaucracy
- Basic income makes us all too dependent from government
- The provision of cash to people is not a task for the government
- A basic income turns us all in benefit claimants
- Basic income will never be high enough in order to eliminate all bureaucracy
- Basic income promotes corruption of the government
7. Borders and migration
- The Netherlands on its own is too small for a basic income
- Basic income promotes immigration, especially of economic refugees
- Basic income is discriminatory for foreigners, who want to settle here, if the payment is only for residents
- Basic income promotes unwanted emigration
- Basic income promotes the closing of borders
8. An unconditional basic income will not solve the really important problems
- People with a lot of debt are no better off with a small basic income
- The growing inequality will not be resolved
- Introduction of an UBI is not good for the environment
- It is a solution from the system world, problems in the real world will not be solved
9. Interests
- Trade unions lose their position of power and are therefore against the policy
- Employment at social security agencies is at stake
- Basic income means a radical change in our common live as a society, which is of no interest for the ruling elite
- Most people don’t like the idea of an unconditional basic income
10. Procedures and institutions
- It is not in our hands, it is up to other people to decide on basic income
- The policy is too big for us to handle, we only have four years as a government
- Firstly, we have to do this and then that …, there are so many urgent problems that need to be addressed. The basic income case removes more important reforms from the political agenda
- The design of existing experiments is too small, they can’t tell anything about the real effects of a basic income
- When an UBI is implemented, and it fails to succeed, we can’t get rid of it anymore
- Anyway, introduction of the policy in our country is impossible
11. Amendment and modification
- Political decision making always leads to watery compromises that make our lives worse, not better
- Under the flag of a universal basic income, we introduce a very different policy
- People who really need a basic income will not benefit, others will benefit from it, rather than those for whom it is intended
12. Implementation
- We should not start with the policy, the introduction of a basic income is far too complex
- A basic income can’t be properly phased in, because if we do, we will have two concurrent welfare systems, which might lead to a lot of nasty implications
- We start enthusiastically with the introduction of the policy, but ignore all warnings pertaining to possible implementation problems
- We cannot oversee the long-term effects of a UBI
The reader will notice that some objections are in conflict with each other. For instance, some people may view an unconditional basic income as a ‘communist’ or ‘socialist’ idea, while at the other end of the political spectrum, it is considered as ‘neoliberal’ policy. The idea is rejected for all of these reasons. After all, opposition to the basic income comes from different angles. The same is true for immigration. One person might say that a basic income promotes immigration, whereas another thinks that it inhibits the influx of immigrants.
by Guest Contributor | Mar 28, 2018 | Opinion
Written by Michael Laitman
Michael Laitman
Sadly, 33,000 Toys ‘R’ Us employees are about to be let go. They’ll pack that family vacation picture from their office wall in a brown cardboard box, take a toy or two for keepsakes, and, begrudgingly, go home. They will be joining a growing list of hundreds of thousands of people who are losing their jobs, not because they need to improve their performance or their work ethic, but simply because they are no longer needed.
More and more products are being manufactured using robots, which is more cost-effective for companies, as well as cheaper for consumers, who can order online with a swipe of a finger. Toys ‘R’ Us is only one example of the virtual-technological tsunami that is washing over the business world. It appears in the form giant corporations such as Amazon, Alibaba, Google and their trade partners, trampling every area of commerce possible: retail, banking, clothing, food, advertising and more. This wave doesn’t stop at the private sector; it’s washing away the public sector as well. For instance, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos and Jamie Dimon are already on a joint venture to reinvent healthcare.
While it may seem like a silent revolution, these changes promise a socio-economic earthquake the likes of which humanity has never seen before. The virtual-technological future is gradually taking over the very foundations of the global economy and businesses are having to adjust to the change. From small things like providing virtual collaboration training for their employees to implementing more efficient computing operations, technology is changing every industry.
It is becoming normal to talk about robots replacing human labor, but we still have not yet acknowledged the magnitude of this change. Many politicians, economists, and analysts are seeing this as another industrial revolution that comes with labor pains, giving birth to a whole slew of new professions, and are predicting that a newly booming economy will emerge as a result. The use of machinery is always needed in manufacturing circles, that is why universal mills, CNC machines, lathe machines, etc. are constantly evolving to assist in as many areas as possible, hopefully not to entirely take over jobs just yet. Machines play a huge part in this industry, no matter how they are used, so it is important for them to function as a unit and provide what is needed of them. When they have to be moved, fixed, or changed, the use of equipment like Custom Skates as well as other supplies, are needed to keep everything efficiently moving along.
Surely, this is an encouraging view, but it is based on a limited understanding of new technologies being developed at an exponential speed. Even today, we could automate 45% of the activities people are paid to perform in the U.S. with existing technologies.
It’s not about the advanced machinery that replaces our hands and feet at work. It’s about the artificial intelligence being developed to gradually replace human intelligence. AI will think creatively, produce, analyze, develop, program, and work many times more efficiently than the most gifted employee, all the while being many times cheaper and easy to operate.
Artificial intelligence can learn and self-upgrade much faster than a person’s ability to retrain, and will eventually replace human labor everywhere: scientists, doctors, programmers, designers, financial experts, human resource managers. Only a fraction of the workforce will be required to operate and calibrate the various smart machines and advanced software.
Let’s Revolutionize Society – Without the Pitchforks
If you can fathom the future of technology, you can immediately spot the upcoming social crisis. Masses will go into indefinite unemployment, and modern economics will have no answers for them. Current economic models can hardly deal with a 15% unemployment rate. What’s going to happen when we hit 30%, 40% and 50% unemployment? That is unaccounted for in current economics.
If we settle for positive thinking, hoping this upheaval will somehow result in a new booming economy, we run the risk of a mass unemployment crisis. If masses of people have no hope of providing for their basic necessities, they will not sit calmly at home. Without hope, people could default to violence, extremism and support of radical leaders who will offer economic safety in order to come to power, as we have seen in the past.
Alternatively, if we plan in advance, we can revolutionize society – without a revolution. The sooner we acknowledge the inevitable redesign of our socio-economic infrastructure, in a way that jobs will no longer exist in the same sense as before, we will come to grips with the necessity to provide for the basic needs of all members of society.
Whether we do it through some form of Universal Basic Income, or any other technical mechanism, we must understand that a change of social values is the core issue at hand: Every country’s leadership must acknowledge that looking out for the basic needs of every citizen-food, shelter, clothing, education and health-is their top priority.
But what will people give back to society? If only few man-hours will be necessary to maintain the machines, what will human beings do? They will be busy “being human,” which means developing themselves, their families, their societies and all that makes us human rather than robots.
The Real Driver of Technology Is Human Evolution
The so-called “technological revolution” is not accidental, and it’s not actually technological. It’s an evolutionary revolution. Its purpose is the evolution of human society. It will help us step out of the endless rat race, fueled by a material obsession that doesn’t actually make us happy; a chase around the clock that has created a society of little cogs in giant corporations, accumulating stress and rust, while losing touch with one another and ourselves.
Instead of investing our collective energy into working like machines, we could be engaging in the only work that makes humans different from machines. In a society freed from the cyclical chase for material acquisition, we would invest a large portion of our time on a daily basis, investigating, exercising, and developing the sense of the natural human connection that binds us together. One method to realize our potential as human beings at the workplace is to engage in a variety of activities that are not directly related to work. Let’s say you’re at an event hosted by Uniqueworld destination management companies or something similar, and you get a glimpse of how employers function outside of the office. This could give you an outlook on what all you can do as an employer that might benefit your company.
When masses of people are doing this regularly-as their new job-a new society will undoubtedly emerge. Its product will be the positive social energy required to preserve societal balance. It will be a society whose members’ daily work is to maintain the sense of unity and solidarity that prevent violence and extremism, allowing human beings to live together in productive peace.
This work can be done in unlimited creative ways, where people can apply their passion and desire, as long as they contribute to a warm social climate. But it has to start from fundamental training and education on the science of human connection, learning how positive social connections make us healthier, happier and better at everything we do.
Surely, all of the above sounds foreign in a world where we have been trained by advertisers to chase things we don’t need in order to impress people we can’t connect with. But when material needs are taken care of, human nature demands a deeper, more meaningful type of satisfaction. It’s no coincidence that happiness studies show time after time that healthy social relations are the number one predictor of human flourishing.
Our evolutionary social development pushes us to utilize our wiring for human connection, to distill it through constant work on our relationships, and evolve to a new social reality. Rather than competing with robots for an old school job, let’s make our job the only function that no robot will ever replace, and find the kind of happiness that money will never buy.
Michael Laitman is a Professor of Ontology, a PhD in Philosophy and Kabbalah, an MSc in Medical Bio-Cybernetics, and was the prime disciple of Kabbalist, Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag (the RABASH). He has written over 40 books, which have been translated into dozens of languages.
Featured image from Wikipedia.
Editing by Dawn Howard
by Julen Bollain | Mar 10, 2018 | News
Daniel Raventós and Julie Wark have just published a new book titled “Against Charity”.
Both authors argue for an unconditional universal basic income above the poverty line and paid for by progressive taxation to both eradicate poverty and empower recipients—the result being the human right of material existence. The burning issue is not charity, but justice.
Raventós and Wark affirm that charity is not a gift. In their own words, “gift-giving implies reciprocity, an ongoing relationship. When requital is impossible, the act of giving remains outside mutual ties and charity becomes yet another manifestation of class structure, a sterile one-way act upholding the status quo”.
Vacuuming up all the profits thanks to a weak labor movement, lower taxes, and tax havens, the global elite then turns around and remakes the world in its own image, distributing charitable donations that can hardly be mistaken with generosity. In the book, postmodern versions of nineteenth-century charity are described as trying to keep wealth and power in a few hands, countering people’s desire for greater income equality.
Daniel Raventós and Julie Wark present a thorough analysis of charity from the perspectives of philosophy, history, religion, and anthropology. They conclude that charity is an unequal relationship, presupposing the persistence of poverty and serving as a prop for capitalism.
Book reference:
Daniel Raventós and Julie Wark, “Against Charity”, CounterPunch, 2018
by Toru Yamamori | Mar 7, 2018 | Opinion
The International Women’s Day is approaching.
This is a poster for the International Women’s Day march 45 years ago. (Photo above) Two working-class women, one carries a buggy, and the other carries a placard containing written slogans reflecting three of the original four demands of the British Women’s Liberation movement. It displays the name of organization: London Women’s Liberation Workshop. Naturally, it looks like a photo of two women in a protest that London Women’s Liberation Workshop organised or took part.
However, it isn’t. The photo was edited. Here is the original photo. (Photo below) Between two women, there was a man, and the original placard said: ‘End Cohabitation Rule / Fight with the Claimants Unions’. The photo was taken at a protest that the Claimants Unions organised.
Several years later, women in the Claimants Unions raised a motion for asking the whole British Women’s Liberation movement to endorse an Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) at the National Women’s Liberation Conference, and succeeded. So UBI was an officially endorsed demand of the British Women’s Liberation movement. However, this fact slipped away from the official history of feminism, like erasing what those two women in the poster demanded by editing the photo. Let me reclaim their struggle briefly, and demonstrate it’s modern relevance.
The first Claimants Union was formed 50 years ago. It was intended as a claimants’ version of a trade union. A trade union is for workers. A claimants union is for welfare claimants. It wasn’t a feminist organisation. The membership of claimants unions consisted of women, men, and trans-gendered people. The majority of membership consisted of women, and their demand for ending the cohabitation rule is related to sexist administration of welfare benefits.
Under the ‘cohabitation rule’, many of the women claimants were subjugated to snooping by welfare officers. Those ‘sex snoopers’ conducted spot checks late at night. If a woman claimant had a sexual relationship with a man, it was assumed they should be supported by him, honestly by the sounds of this females claiming back then would have been better off exclusively using a suction dildo or another pleasurable toy instead of getting involved with a male. Sometimes just friendly activities, such as a male neighbour coming into the house to help fix a tap or a bulb would be assumed to be a partner/boyfriend; the next week her benefit would be suspended. If this was still the case in this day in age, any woman that went on Find a fuck buddy or a similar online site to find sexual pleasure, would immediately be seen as in a partnership and lose their financial support. Does this seem fair?
The philosophy behind this sexism has not yet gone to the dustbin of history.
On 13th February 2018, the department for work and pensions (DWP) of the British government sent out its Valentine Day message:
Claiming to be living alone is one of the most common types of benefit fraud – don’t ruin #ValentinesDay by failing to declare your true circumstances https://ow.ly/3bkn30imZya
The attached gif image reads:
Declaring your true love tomorrow?
Don’t forget to declare your true living arrangements too.
Don’t get separated from your Valentine.
Tell us of a change now.
They put the link to the article by the Daily Express that reports several cases that claimants didn’t report their relationships and financial supports.
A similar message from DWP was circulated on TV during the 2007-8 season. One of DWP’s TV advertisements called ‘we’re closing in‘, trying to focus in on what DWP calls ‘one of the most common types of benefit fraud’. The video shows a woman, who seems to claim a benefit and to declare that she lives alone, and then chats with a man on her door step. When she went inside to iron men’s shirts, the end-roll says ‘We’re closing in. Targeting benefit thieves’.
In order to make sense of this advertisement, we need to accept several assumptions. First, if you are female and chatted with a male on your door step, and/or you iron men’s cloths, it means that you are in an intimate relationship with that male. Second, if you are in an intimate relationship with a male, you share a household budget together. Third, that male should support you financially. Fourth, that male can support you financially.
Some might say that spreading this kind of message is needed for running our society in a just manner. DWP seems to think so. However, as we have seen, there were many women who suffered because of assumptions made by the government, assumptions that are behind this kind of message. Some of them (with other claimants of both sexes) depicted sexism behind the message, revealed how it affected them, and proposed a less sexist policy alternative, which is now called a UBI. This year marks the 50th anniversary of their movement.
Oh, I have forgotten to retweet the DWP’s message on the Valentine’s day. I would retweet with the following question: Isn’t true love unconditional?
For more on this forgotten struggle, see:
Toru Yamamori, ‘OPINION: Reclaiming the Women’s Liberationist Demand for a Citizen’s Income’, The Basic Income News, 17 April 2015.
Toru Yamamori, ‘A Feminist Way to Unconditional Basic Income: Claimants Unions and Women’s Liberation Movements in 1970s Britain’, Basic Income Studies, 9(1-2), 2014, pp.1-24.
Reviewed by Michael Gillan Peckitt and Tyler Prochazka
