Crowdsourced funding as a ‘basic income’ for artists

Crowdsourced funding as a ‘basic income’ for artists

by | Aug 17, 2018 | Opinion

Written by: Alfredo Roccia

We talk so much about freedom.

-Ingmar Bergman, The passion of Anna

As argued by Karl Marx, “it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.”[1] Despite acknowledging the importance of external factors on men’s freedom, Jean-Paul Sartre did not share the Marxian thesis, however, asserting that “we have the war we deserve,” namely man, “being condemned to be free,” is only “responsible for himself,” regardless of their surrounding environment.[2] Therefore, according to the French philosopher, human beings have the decisive possibility to give meaning to their existence in absolute freedom, without any influence from pre-established principles.

However, what do we do when the future we want is precluded by precarious economic conditions or a staleness social system? What if we had to settle for what Martin Heidegger called “inauthentic” existence rather than pouring all our abilities out?

It is on the fine line between what Marx and Sartre exposed, that we could position the Universal Basic Income (UBI) and its significative impact on humanity’s freedom in a future scenario.

Although the reasons-be them of political, economic and social nature-which UBI advocates opt for, we could essentially group them in three sets of problems: (1) the current levels of unemployment, (2) the work threatened by the new advent of machines, (3) the current social care system as not sufficient for twenty-first century needs.[3]

However, the aspect of UBI which has won me over, besides the financial security that would result, is the freedom of choice that UBI could generate or at least reinforce in modern society. Also, those who Need Money Desperately might find this a huge relief. It can also pave way for their financial planning because now they have a recurring income to depend on.

A freedom that would allow everyone to express and legitimize his or her own talent through any job or activity without any kind of diktat from the market or society.[4] I personally consider this aspect deeply interesting since today, more than ever, human beings seem to have lost the ability to say “no,” being slaves of constant financial insecurity, trapped in not always satisfying careers, stressful working hours and short leisure time.[5]

Indeed, how do we define leisure time? Would it be perhaps a vacation every month, running away from the working stress, an apparent getaway from an unsatisfying life? Or maybe focusing on our own passions and talent just during weekends, because of the scarce free time we have, stolen from a job we do not love-therefore constantly working, ignoring the need for a vacation?[6] I believe it is clear how greater financial security would consequently enable a greater possibility of choice, less influenced by external factors, allowing our creativity to run riot, giving us greater flexibility within our lives.[7]

Staying in the creative sphere, it is clear how UBI could have a significant weight within the work of artists. Namely, it could help those who choose to devote themselves to art, despite sometimes agreeing to accept jobs not totally in line with their ambitions or realizing works whose typically commercial nature is imposed by the market and the need of paying the rent by the end of the month, rather than their artistic will.


Not being technically an artist, but feeling very tied with disciplines like photography, music, cinema or literature, I quite sympathize with those persons who, not being able of practice their own talent freely, are forced to follow careers alien to their pure artistic ambitions. However, thanks to current web platforms like YouTube, many young artists-among which also poets and philosophers, categories perhaps more penalized today than in the past from the job market-can display their own knowledge and talent through video tutorials, lessons, performances, etc., that are free and available to everyone. But, how can they finance all of this, since the working time required for writing, shooting, editing, and post-producing a very short video requires quite a lot of time? There are ways to make money from YouTube, such as by growing a large following and monetizing your videos. For small channels, it might be worth visiting Venturebeat to learn about buying YouTube subscribers. That could help the channel to grow, eventually leading to the channel making some money. However, there are other ways too. Crowdsourced funding platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Patreon (just to mention some), can help young creative minds by promotional campaigns for financing a single project (see Kickstarter) or by subscriptions that provide an income on a recurring basis or per work of art, in return of special contents or rewards (see Patreon).[8] Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?


So, it seems a kind of artistic basic income is already here and works quite well: many of these young artists can support their expenses with the help of their own backers, changing also the direction to their own career. It is common to see some of them quitting their job or devoting themselves to that virtual activity indeed.[9]

For instance, a case that personally surprised me and which I consider significative is that of a young YouTuber, Paul Davids, a Dutch musician who has shared video lessons about guitar and music theory since 2009.[10] Later, Paul joined Patreon, proposing special contents for his patrons, in exchange for a subscription. On February 20, 2018, Paul published a video telling his followers that he quit his job as a guitar teacher so he could devote himself to what he truly loves: offering high-quality videos, investing his time to improve his guitar skills and making more music.[11] It is interesting to note how Paul decided to quit that activity on which many musicians are “forced” to make do, namely scholastic or private teaching.[12] A difficult choice, but he thinks it could bring him more freedom to “take on bigger projects requiring more time.”[13]

Another example is the Patrick (H) Willems channel, registered on YouTube since 2011 and dedicated to short movies production and video essays about cinema. On a video published on May 7, 2018, the founder Patrick Willems shared the ambition of financing his works through Patreon community, so as to update his working tools, acquire a proper studio, and become more independent. He stated that he was grateful for getting as far as he could using equipment similar to avid media composer first editing software, audacity, and other free resources.
[14]

Those of Paul and Patrick are only some of the hundreds of cases in which young YouTubers, by the funding of Patreon or similar services, can finally pour their own ambitions out through a greater financial security.[15]

But, how long will all of this last? Can we really think that platforms such as Patreon could support young artists forever, behaving as a proper basic income?

Actually, it is important to stress how crowdsourced funding could not replace any form of UBI because of their fundamental differences. It is true how they allow people to collect money through crowdfunding and perhaps even more than what a person could get with any current experiment involving UBI. However, crowdsourcing is breaking what is probably the first rule of UBI, namely its universality. Platforms such as Patreon are not open to everybody in so far as creators need to offer content in return for being supported by their community. Poor or “uncreative” people are evidently excluded from this policy. Moreover, those platforms are usually made by private companies and run for private purposes: they could stop anytime, evolve in something totally different or even close the business for any reason. This could really affect people from planning their own career grounding on a variable amount of money they can get every month, while UBI would be potentially perpetual as well as more inclusive.

However, despite being its surrogate, crowdsourced funding is the proof that the UBI concept can be extremely useful for young artists, at least at the beginning of their career. Moreover, it could allow them to go beyond the current constraints which those platforms implicate-not always making frequent content can be an attractive thing for videomakers-as well as to exceed the rather narrow frame of YouTube.

Perhaps, we should start with what those platforms are representing at the moment and try to mutate the modern perception we have about work and the current values system which characterize it. A greater freedom for artists could mean a boost of creation of those “things that enable market production but lie outside the monetary system,” in a structure in which UBI would have been seen “as capital, and not just money,” allowing a cultural renaissance and the production of new values for an invigoration of the twenty-first century economy.[16]

About the author:

Alfredo Roccia is an Italian-born architect working in London, UK. He studied architecture at the “Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II”, where he graduated in 2012. In the past five years, he has worked in Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, where he currently lives.

[1] Karl Marx, preface to A contribution to the critique of Political Economy, trans. Nahum Isaac Stone (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1904; initially published in German as Zur kritik der Politischen Oekonomie in 1859), 11–12.

[2] Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956; initially published in French as L’Être et le néant in 1943), 553–5; Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism, trans. Philip Mairet (1948; repr. London: Methuen, 1960; initially published in French as L’Existentialisme est un humanisme in 1946), 29.

[3] For a deepened analysis about UBI and its more recent applications consult: Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, Basic Income: A radical proposal for a free society and a sane economy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017); Guy Standing, Basic Income: And how we can make it happen (London: Pelican, 2017); Amy Downes and Stewart Lansley, eds., It’s Basic Income: The global debate (Bristol: Policy Press, 2018).

Various are the forms that UBI is assuming in current debates and during tests adopted by some countries. However, herein I will refer to its most “pure” version, that is “an unconditional, automatic and non-withdrawable payment to each individual as a right of citizenship.” Malcolm Torry, “History and the contemporary debate in the UK” in Downes and Lansley, Basic Income, 123–4.

[4] “Somehow release those who are technically and imaginatively proficient from the restraints imposed by the business system and there will be unprecedented productivity and wealth in the economy.” John Kenneth Galbraith, A history of Economics: The past as the present (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987), 172. In this passage, Galbraith summarizes the thought of the economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen as he made explicit in his Theory of business enterprise (1904).

[5] Matt Zwolinski, “The libertarian case for universal basic income” in Downes and Lansley, Basic Income, 152. According to Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), “nearly two-fifths (38%) of U.S. employees reported that they were very satisfied with their current job, whereas a greater proportion (51%) stated they were satisfied but to a lesser degree, indicating that the majority of U.S. employees are to some extent satisfied with their present job role.” SHRM, “2017 Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement,” accessed May 28, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/Documents

/2017-Employee-Job-Satisfaction-and-Engagement-Executive-Summary.pdf.

[6] John Maynard Keynes already dealt with problems within a future “age of leisure” in his “Economic possibilities for our grandchildren (1930),” in Essays in persuasion (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1932), 358–73.

[7] “We need to make the case that entitlement to an income and a dignified life should not be dependent on working for an employer, nor conditional on searching for employment. A basic income would free people from this compulsion, granting them much fuller freedom to direct their lives, engage in civic activity, or enjoy leisure time.” Avi Lewis and Katie McKenna, “A down payment on a new cooperative economy” in Downes and Lansley, Basic Income, 72.

[8] cf. GoDaddy Inc., “Top 20 crowdfunding platforms of 2018,” by Erick Deckers, last modified February 27, 2018, https://www.godaddy.com/garage/top-20-crowdfunding-platforms/.

[9] In 1969 Nixon administration already launched the “Family Assistance Program (FAP),” a welfare reform proposal whose unexpected results showed an increase of the time devoted to study or artistic activities by people involved in the experiment. cf. Jacobin, “Nixon’s Basic Income Plan,” by Rutger Bregman, accessed May 28, 2018, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/05

/richard-nixon-ubi-basic-income-welfare/.

[10] Paul Davids, YouTube channel, accessed May 28, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/user/Luapper/about.

[11] “Giving guitar lessons, especially private lessons, they are very time-consuming and with YouTube I get so many cool and awesome offer, all of the things I simply can’t do because I don’t have the time.” Paul Davids, “I’m Quitting,” February 20, 2018, YouTube video, 5:29, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nruh9SSXoQ.

[12] “For many musicians…teaching is a way to pay the rent, to pay for food and everything else. When you don’t have many gigs, you want to have a secure income…but nowadays YouTube and everything around…can provide for those things for me.” Davids, “I’m Quitting.”

[13] “I’m very relieved to quit teaching. From now on I can really focus on my channel, work harder for my videos, accept more cool side projects and hopefully play in more bands.” Davids, “I’m Quitting.”

[14] “In the past year the channel finally got to the point where I can afford to do it full-time…just making enough to live off of. So, there isn’t much money left to put into the budgets for the video themselves.” Patrick (H) Willems, “Upgrading Our Videos (Patreon Announcement),” May 7, 2018, YouTube video, 3:48, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6A57-1JteA&t=0s&index=2&list=WL.

[15] “We’ve got…a hundred and sixty-nine thousand subscribers. So, imagine if every one of them pledged $1 a month, it would be crazy!” Willems, “Patreon Announcement.”

Following the live streaming video platform Twitch, other companies such as YouTube and Facebook have recently launched the option of sponsoring videomakers. Artists make more money the more followers they have which is why many of them use one of the 22 Best Sites to Buy Twitch Followers to increase their profits. cf. Business Insider UK, “Twitch raises incentives for creators,” by Kevin Gallagher, accessed May 28, 2018, https://uk.businessinsider.com/twitch-raises-incentives-for-creators-2017-4?r=US&IR=T; CNBC, “Facebook is opening up ways for video creators to make money,” by Michelle Castillo, last modified March 21, 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/19/facebook-opening-up-ways-for-video-creators-to-make-money.html; Variety, “YouTube Kills Paid Channels, Expands $4.99 per Month SponsorshiModel,” by Janko Roettgers, accessed May 28, 2018, https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/youtube-kills-paid-channels-1202563599/.

[16] Roope Mokka and Katariina Rantanen, “Universal basic income for the post-industrial age” in Downes and Lansley, Basic Income, 65–6.

President Obama Receives BIEN Letter Through Senator Suplicy (from 2011)

by | May 2, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian

This essay was originally published on Basic Income News in May 2011.

 

In March 2011, Brazilian Senator (and tireless campaigner for BIG), Eduardo Suplicy told me and other members of the USBIG and BIEN Committees that he would soon be meeting with President Barak Obama at a dinner during the President’s visit to Brazil. Suplicy asked me to draft a letter to President Obama on behalf of the two organizations. With a lot of help from the committee members and from Alfredo de Romaña and other volunteers, we completed the following letter (see below). Suplicy delivered it on March 19, 2011. According to Suplicy, “[Obama] said that I could be sure that he would read it.”

The full text of the letter to President Obama

Karl Widerquist, Georgetown University-Qatar
Co-Chair (along with Ingrid Van Niekerk), the Basic Income Earth Network
Newsletter editor, the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network

March 18, 2011

Barack Obama
President of the United States of America

Dear Mr. President,

I am writing you on the occasion of your visit to Brazil—the first country in the world to approve a law authorizing the phase-in of a full Unconditional Basic Income to the whole population. The law (n. 10,835/2004) was passed by consensus of all parties in the National Congress and sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on January 8, 2004. According to the law, Basic Income will be introduced step-by-step, starting with those most in need, through the Bolsa Família Program.

Basic Income is the simple idea of a small, government-ensured income for all citizens. It exists today only in one place: the State of Alaska. For the last 28 years Alaska has distributed a dividend, financed out of oil revenues, to every man, woman, and child in the state. Alaska’s “Permanent Fund Dividend” usually varies between $1000 and $2000 per person per year. It has become one of the most popular state government programs in the United States. It has helped to give Alaska the highest economic equality and the lowest poverty rate of any state in the United States.

Many opportunities exist to introduce a similar program at the federal level. The Cap-and-Dividend and Tax-and-Dividend approaches to global warming include a small Basic Income. The inclusion of this dividend can help counter the argument (used against the Cap-and-Trade approach) that taxes on carbon emissions will hurt average American families.

While in Brazil, you will have the opportunity to exchange ideas about Basic Income with President Dilma Rousseff and the author of the law that created the Citizen’s Basic Income, Senator Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy. He can discuss how the Bolsa Família might be expanded into a true Basic Income and how it might help to attain the main aim of President Rousseff to eradicate absolute poverty and to promote more equality and justice.

I believe that you can improve on the success of the Bolsa Família and the Alaska Dividend by moving toward a Basic Income in the United States. The University of Alaska-Anchorage will hold a workshop entitled “Exporting the Alaska Model” on April 22, 2011. Several researchers will discuss how programs of this type can be introduced and improved. I invite you to send a member of your team to participate in that workshop.

Sincerely,

Karl Widerquist

The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network Committee:

Michael Howard (chair), University of Maine; Eri Noguchi, Columbia University; Michael Lewis, Hunter College; Almaz Zelleke, New School; Steven Shafarman, Income Security Institute; Al Sheahen, Author; Fred Block, University of California-Davis; Dan O’Sullivan, RiseUpEconomics.org; Karl Widerquist, Georgetown University-Qatar; Jason Burke Murphy, Elms College.

The Basic Income Earth Network Executive Committee:

Ingrid Van Niekerk (co-chair), Economic Policy Research Institute, South Africa; Karl Widerquist (co-chair) Georgetown University-Qatar; David Casassas, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain; Almaz Zelleke; The New School, USA; Yannick Vanderborght, Facultés universitaires Saint Louis in Brussels, Belgium; Louise Haagh, University of York, United Kingdom; James Mulvale, University of Regina, Canada; Dorothee Schulte-Basta, BIEN-Germany; Pablo Yanes, Secretary of Social Development, Mexico City, Mexico; Andrea Fumagalli, University of Pavia, BIN-Italia, Italy. Honorary co-presidents: Eduardo Suplicy, the Brazilian Senate; Guy Standing, the University of Bath; Claus Offe, Hertie School of Governance, Germany. Chair of the International Advisory Board: Philippe Van Parijs, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

CANADA: Quebec is implementing a means-tested benefit, not a basic income

CANADA: Quebec is implementing a means-tested benefit, not a basic income

by | Jan 24, 2018 | News

The province of Quebec, in Canada, has been fostering conversations around basic income and even, at a certain point in 2016, has appointed a long-time supporter of basic income, François Blais, as Minister of Employment and Social Solidarity. Although the term “guaranteed minimum income” has been used in an indiscriminate fashion ever since 2014, there has never been an actual mandate for Blais to implement basic income in Quebec.

 

In fact, what is being implemented in Quebec at the moment differs considerably from a basic income, as defined by the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). According to Dorothée Boccanfuso, Chair of Quebec’s Expert Committee on Guaranteed Minimum Income, the new plan’s definition is presented as “any system that offers a guarantee of monetary resources for all, with the amount of those resources being related to a minimum threshold”. This expert committee has been tasked to make recommendations to François Blais, on income support, having produced a report. The proposed scheme has, therefore, kept existing social security system’s properties of means-testing and incentives to work, the latter strengthened through “a greater reward be provided for work efforts, through a major increase to the work premium”.

 

The enhanced economic support scheme is intended to widen its coverage, aiming at defining a “benchmark threshold”, a means-tested minimum guaranteed income to support “persons with no employment restrictions, for persons 65 and over and for people with disabilities”. There has been, clearly, an effort to cover more people with social support, trying to fill in the gaps and effectively reduce poverty levels, but still not embracing unconditionality. As the Expert Committee on Guaranteed Minimum Income puts it:

 

“The Committee wants a society that is free of poverty, but this wish can only be achieved by helping persons who are able to re-enter the labour market, pursue education and training or, more generally, better integrate into society. In the Committee’s view, poverty is not a status, but rather a situation and those who are in it must be helped to get out. The income support system must guarantee the minimum resources required for vulnerable persons to meet their immediate needs. Above all, it must eliminate barriers preventing these persons from escaping poverty.”

 

So, the social security program sought is not an unconditional basic income. However, some media sources are portraying it in misleading headlines such as “Quebec to offer basic income for 84000 people unable to work” and “Basic income to be given to 84000 people in Canada”. One the other hand, a few anti-poverty groups have clearly criticised the support scheme, calling out for a true unconditional support system. According to Serge Petitclerc, representing the group Collectif pour un Quebec sans pauvreté, the “guaranteed minimum income (…) should be unconditional and it should apply to the entire population”.

 

More information at:

Kate McFarland, “Quebec, Canada: Liberal Party’s Ideas Forum to address Minimum Income”, Basic Income News, September 18th 2016

Stanislas Jourdan, “Québec, Canada: Minister of Employment appointed to work on basic income”, Basic Income News, February 4th 2016

Yannick Vanderborght, “Québec, Canada: Minister of Employment for the provincial government reiterates his support for basic income”, Basic Income News, July 17th 2014

Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, “Basic income to be given to 84000 people in Canada”, Independent, 11th December 2017

Karina Laframboise, “Quebec to offer basic income for 84000 people unable to work”, CBCNews, 10th December 2017

Malcolm Torry, “What’s a definition? And how should we define Basic Income?”, BIEN Congress in Lisbon, 2017

ITALY: Philippe van Parijs delivers annual Il Mulino lecture

ITALY: Philippe van Parijs delivers annual Il Mulino lecture

by | Nov 15, 2017 | News

Phillipe van Parijs (at the Lisbon BIEN 2017 Conference). Credit to: Enno Schmidt.

 

Phillipe van Parijs has delivered the 2017 annual Il Mulino lecture, which happened on Saturday, the 28th of October, at the Bologna University’s Aula Magna. This major event, attended by around 900 people, had the presence of former Prime Minister and European Commission president Romano Prodi, ex-minister Vincenzo Visco, the president of the Italian Central Bank and the Archbishop of Bologna, among other Italian political public figures.

 

The lecture was titled “Il reddito di base: tramonto della società del lavoro?” [“Basic income: sunset of the work society?”], and coincided with the publication of van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght latest book “Basic Income: a radical proposal”, published in Italian under the title “Il reddito di base: una proposta radicale” (an edition by Il Mulino).

 

The event got massive coverage by the Italian media, including Corriere di Bologna, La Republica Bologna, La Nazione, the LEFT magazine, plus several radio stations and the national Italian TV (RAI). However, according to Sandro Gobetti, from BIN Italia (Basic Income Network Italy), Italian media tended not to grasp the main news message in this event. Gobetti argued in his article that it was not so much that political figures Visco and Prodi met and hugged, but that they had, in fact, attended a lesson on basic income by a prominent thinker in the field, Phillipe van Parijs. The relevance then, is not so much in knowing if these politicians agree or not with the basic income concept (they expressed many reservations), but recognizing this as a real issue, growing everyday as an international debate.

 

More information at:

Kate McFarland, “Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy, by Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght”, Basic Income News, March 25th 2017

[In Italian]

Leonardi Filippi, “Come rivalutare il lavoro? Dando un reddito a tutti [How to revalue work? By giving a basic income to everyone]”, LEFT, November 10th 2017

“Visco, lungo abbracio com Prodi a Bologna [Visco, long hug with Prodi at Bologna]”, Corriere di Bologna, October 28th 2017

Ilaria Venturi, “Van Parijs oggi al Mulino Reddito garantito a tutti l’idea che divide il mondo [Today, Van Parijs presented at Mulino basic income, the idea which divides the world]”, La Repubblica, October 28th 2017

Sandro Gobetti, “Prodi e Visco a lezione di reddito di base da van Parijs [Prodi and Visco go to basic income lesson from van Parijs]”, BIN Italia, October 30th 2017

FRANCE: “Monthly Dossiers” debuts with issue on UBI

FRANCE: “Monthly Dossiers” debuts with issue on UBI

by | Sep 25, 2017 | Research

Cairn’s Monthly Dossiers is a free online publication designed to highlight the work of francophone scholars in the social sciences and humanities. Each month, the publication focuses on a topic of current social or political relevance.

Universal Basic Income (UBI) was the topic selected for the debut issue, released on June 15, 2017. As the introduction to the dossier notes, the issue came to prominence in France earlier in the year due the campaign of presidential candidate Benoît Hamon, who won the Socialist Party primary after making a UBI proposal a cornerstone of his campaign.

The dossier features the work of Stéphan Lipiansky, Jean-Éric Hyafil, Denis Clerc and François Meunier.

Lipiansky, an associate professor of economics and management, examines the rise of interest in UBI in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s, linking it to the decay of a “social consensus” around the goal of full employment. He emphasizes UBI’s potential role in a cultural shift in which occupational identity is no longer the key defining attribute of an individual’s social role.  

Hyafil, a leader of the French BIEN affiliate Mouvement Français pour un Revenu de Base, presents UBI as a means to emancipate individuals from the need to work (in view of the fact that, in present society, the pressure to work leads to the creation of and participation in “bullshit jobs” of little or no social utility). In his article, he delineates a UBI proposal for France, and describes a path to introducing the policy through a series of reforms to the revenu de solidarité active (RSA), the country’s existing minimum income scheme for the poor and unemployed (currently €460 per month).

Clerc, the founder of Alternatives Économiques, considers UBI proposals of three different monthly amounts–€100, €460 (equivalent to the RSA), and €800 (equivalent to the minimum pension)–and argues that any potential benefits are too uncertain to merit the risks and certain costs of implementing the policy. As an alternative social policy, he proposes lifelong training to increase individuals’ employability.

Meunier, an economist and consultant, takes on two arguments commonly given for UBI: that it is more respectful to recipients due to its lack of surveillance and paternalism, and that it is easier to administer due to its simplicity. Meunier contends that conditional welfare is not objectionable in its level of oversight–which might be construed as the expression of care for beneficiaries–and that the simplicity is illusory.

The dossier also includes links to supplemental material (in French) by Anton Monti (on the Finnish experiment), Philippe Warin (on the phenomenon of non-usage of the RSA and its implications for UBI), and Yannick Vanderborght and Philippe Van Parijs (on the history of the idea of UBI and its differences from programs like the RSA).

The second issue of Cairn’s Monthly Dossiers was on the topic of Populism.

Parisian café photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Jeff Dzadon