Basic Income Studies Vol. 7 No. 2, Dec. 2012: special issue, "The Right to Work and Basic Income"

by Karl Widerquist | Apr 25, 2013 | Research

This special issue, guest-edited by Michael Lewis, features a debate on whether it would be better for government to guarantee a job or an income. It features articles by Philip Harvey, Guy Standing, Michael Lewis, Eri Noguchi, and Pavlina Tcherneva (see more information below).

The debate is online at:
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/issue-files/bis.2013.7.issue-2.xml

“Introduction to the Special Issue on the? Right to Work and Basic Income”

Lewis, Michael A. Page 1-2
Published Online: 12/31/2012
“As I write these lines, the US economy is about 4 years out of the Great Recession of 2008–2009. Yet, unemployment is estimated to be at a stubbornly high 7.8% and the poverty rate is around 15%. That is, an estimated 12.2 million people are currently unemployed and about 46.2 million are living in poverty. … The two economists whose articles are featured in this special issue take fundamentally different approaches to these problems…”
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0011/bis-2013-0011.xml?format=INT

“More for Less: The Job Guarantee Strategy”
Harvey, Philip. Page 3
Published Online: 12/31/2012
Abstract: The cost and effectiveness of a basic income guarantee and a job guarantee (combined with conventional transfer payments) are compared with respect to their ability to eliminate poverty and unemployment. It is argued that a BI guarantee provided in the form preferred by most advocates of the idea (a universal basic income grant or equivalent negative income tax) would be both more costly and less effective than a job guarantee—if the latter is properly designed to secure the right to work and income security recognized in in the Universal Declaration of Human Right. It is further argued that the job guarantee strategy configured in this way also would do more to promote the real freedom goals of the basic income advocacy movement.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0006/bis-2013-0006.xml?format=INT

“Why a Basic Income Is Necessary for a Right to Work”
Standing, Guy. Page 19
Published Online: 12/31/2012
Abstract: This article makes the proposition that a right to work can only exist if an individual has a prior right to a basic income. It criticizes the perspective that maximizing the number of jobs is a meaningful way of advancing the right to work, since activity in subordinated labour is scarcely consistent with a freedom-enhancing right to work. In recalling the historical right to practise an occupation, it rejects the notion of a “job guarantee”, as neither feasible nor desirable in a free society or as part of a progressive vision of a Good Society.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0007/bis-2013-0007.xml?format=INT

“Cost, Compensation, Freedom, and the Basic Income – Guaranteed Jobs Debate”
Lewis, Michael A. Page 41
Published Online: 12/31/2012
Abstract: In this volume Harvey argues that guaranteeing people the right to work would be a better policy approach than guaranteeing people an unconditional basic income. This is because a guaranteed job would provide many of the benefits that a basic income would but at far lower cost. I argue that Harvey’s analysis of the relative cost differences between guaranteeing one a job or an income is misleading if not flat out wrong in some places. I also argue that there is one benefit that BI could promote that his jobs strategy, at least as presented in the paper in this volume, could not – the right of an able-bodied person to lead the kind of life they desire even if they desire not to sell their labor.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0008/bis-2013-0008.xml?format=INT

“The Cost-Efficiency of a Guaranteed Jobs Program: Really? A Response to Harvey”

Noguchi, Eri. Page 52
Published Online: 12/31/2012
Abstract: Responding to Harvey’s argument that a Guaranteed Jobs program would be more cost-efficient than a Guaranteed Income program, this paper points out several costs related to the latter that are not included in Harvey’s cost comparisons, mostly related to the administrative costs of operating a Guaranteed Jobs Program, which tends to be much more complex and high maintenance. This paper also points out that the unemployment rate would shift in response to the program, and that some unnecessary jobs would most likely need to be created if the program is to guarantee a job for everyone. However, the paper concludes that the public projects imagined as part of a guaranteed jobs program have merit on their own grounds, and should not be dismissed.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0009/bis-2013-0009.xml?format=INT

“The Job Guarantee: Delivering the Benefits That Basic Income Only Promises – A Response to Guy Standing”
Tcherneva, Pavlina R. Page 66
Published Online: 12/31/2012
Abstract: The present article offers three critiques of the universal basic income guarantee (BIG) proposal discussed by Standing in this volume. First, there is a fundamental tension between the way income in a monetary production economy is generated, the manner in which BIG wishes to redistribute it, and the subsequent negative impact of this redistribution on the process of income generation itself. The BIG policy is dependent for its existence on the very system it wishes to undermine. Second, the macroeconomic effects of BIG on contemporary economies that use modern money are destabilizing. The job guarantee (JG), by contrast, stabilizes both the macro-economy and the currency while helping transform the nature of work itself. Finally, the employment safety-net in Standing’s piece is not an accurate representation of the modern JG proposals – a confusion which this paper aims to remedy.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0010/bis-2013-0010.xml?format=INT