by Yannick Vanderborght | Apr 5, 2012 | Research
In order to celebrate its 10th anniversary, Red Renta Básica (Spain’s basic income national network, officially recognized by BIEN) has coedited (with the publishing house Montesinos) a volume with chapters written by some of its members and friends:
Jordi Arcarons (“Financing Basic Income”), Borja Barragué (“Basic Income and the Bank of Justice”), Sara Berbel (“An Income for Gender Equality”), David Casassas and Jurgen De Wispelaere (“Basic Income and Social Emancipation: Principles, Designs, and Coalitions”), Mònica Clua-Losada (“Basic Income on the Political Agenda: The Catalan Experience”), Rubén Lo Vuolo, Pablo Yanes, and Daniel Raventós (“Economic Crisis, Targeted Schemes, and Basic Income”), Gorka Moreno (“What Does Basic Income Contribute to the Debate on Citizenship? A Synthesis Proposal”), Francisco Ramos (“Active Employment Policies and Basic Income: Substitutive or Complementary Solutions?”), Daniel Raventós (“What Do We Mean When We Say That Basic Income Is (or Is Not) Just? On Liberalisms and Republicanisms”), Sergi Raventós (“Crisis, Mental Health and Basic Income”), José Luis Rey (“Basic Income and 21st Century Democracy”), Luis Sanzo (“Basic Income and Social Protection in Spain”), and Camila Vollenweider (“Employee Domestic Labor and Gender Equity: An Inescapable Problem for the Feminist Discussion on Basic Income”).
Full references: CASASSAS, D. and RAVENTÓS, D. (eds.) (2011), La renta básica en la era de las grandes desigualdades [Basic income in the age of great inequalities], Barcelona: Montesinos, 343 pp, ISBN: 978-84-15216-27-8.
For further information: https://www.editorial-montesinos.com/detalleLibro.php?idLibro=284.
by Yannick Vanderborght | Apr 3, 2012 | Research
The idea of guaranteeing every member of society an unconditional basic income is one the most innovative and powerful proposals for countering our growing economic inequalities and to sustainably prevent poverty. But would this be a just thing to do? In the last few decades, debates on the ethics and economics of basic income have become increasingly sophisticated and diverse. Basic Income Reconsidered provides an up-to-date assessment of these arguments, and works out a novel contribution based on the justification of unconditional universalism. Simon Birnbaum (Stockholm University, Sweden) studies the basic income proposal, and its main rivals, through the lens of John Rawls’ theory of justice and defends a radical-liberal interpretation of Rawls’ conception. It is radical in the sense that it demands far-reaching equalization of opportunities. It is, at the same time, liberal by insisting that people must be left free to use their resource shares for a much wider range of purposes and life plans than those typically accessible through existing welfare states.
According to Philippe Van Parijs, Birnbaum’s new book is “one of the most insightful and comprehensive treatments so far of the ethical foundations of radical welfare reform”.
Full references: BIRNBAUM, Simon (2012), Basic Income Reconsidered. Social Justice, Liberalism, and the Demands of Equality, New York: Palgrave Macmillan (“Exploring the basic income guarantee” series).
For further information, see the publisher’s page at: https://us.macmillan.com/basicincomereconsidered/SimonBirnbaum
by Karl Widerquist | Mar 31, 2012 | Research, The Indepentarian
Palgrave Macmillan, part of the Macmillan Group of publishers, is a global academic publisher of textbooks, journals, monographs, professional, and reference works. For several years now, the publisher been putting together a book series on the basic income guarantee. The new series, “Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee,” has released its first two books, Basic Income Reconsidered: Social Justice, Liberalism, and the Demands of Equality by Simon Birnbaum and Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining its Suitability as a Model, edited By Karl Widerquist and Michael Howard (see the Recent Publications section below). Birnbaum’s book makes a social justice argument for basic income. Widerquist and Howard’s book considers the Alaska Dividend as model for basic income policies.
The series editors are Karl Widerquist, Associate Professor in philosophy at SFS-Qatar, Georgetown University; James Bryan, Professor of Economics, Manhattanville College; and Michael A. Lewis, Associate Professor, Hunter College School of Social Work. They aim to publish two-to-three books per year initially.
Upcoming books in the series include: The Political Feasibility of the Basic Income Guarnatee edited by Richard Caputo; Basic Income in Latin America, edited by Rubén Lo Vuolo; Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform Around the World, edited by Karl Widerquist and Michael Howard; Basic Income Guarantee: The Right to Economic Security, by Allan Sheahen; and Basic Income and the Free Market: Austrian Economics and the Potential for Efficient Redistribution, edited by Guinevere Nell.
For information about books available in the series go to: https://us.macmillan.com/series/ExploringtheBasicIncomeGuarantee
If you might be interested in writing or editing a book for the series, contact Karl Widerquist <Karl@Widerquist.com>.
by Yannick Vanderborght | Mar 26, 2012 | Opinion
Most readers here will agree, that Basic Income would be a good way to solve many problems which exist in our societies, but why is the idea not supported by the populace? Even worse! It seems there is a strong resistance against.
Isn’t it strange, that an idea, which suggest to benefit every individual, cannot find broad support? For instance: more than 311 million people in the United States live, but the USBIG-Network has only around 300 Facebook-fans and roughly 250 official members – and not all of them are from the States. In other countries the situation is similar. The portion of people who are active BI-supporters seems to be in the scope of one thousand or even less…
Of course, we could say, quantity does not equal quality – it is better to have some hundreds of high qualified scholars than millions of followers believing in their personal advantage. But this view misjudges the reality of our democratic systems with their majority voting.
At all times every great thought, every good idea which shook the world later, had to walk a hard and sometimes dangerous way against existing resistances. But the democratic system makes it even more difficult. While to contradict a monarch requires some courage, to disagree with a current opinion, the risk of being considered as insane or in the worst case, to be banned, extends the needed courage ad infinitum.
In the past, Basic Income had many more supporters – for instance in the time of Martin Luther King and the citizens’ movement of the 1960s. But we still have nowhere a country-wide Basic Income scheme and maybe hence only orthodox believers kept the idea alive.
Does it mean we who support Basic Income are all brave and open-minded heroes, because we fight the good fight? Or does it rather mean, we are only too dense to find a way of making people more interested in the idea?
I think, this does not reflect the truth. Of course, it would be great to have catalysts in terms of people like Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Lady Gaga or George Clooney who are publicly known for their social commitments and who represent a kind of authority for many youths.
But globally people are searching for alternatives to the current systems. And the number of BI-supporters grows slowly, but steadily. More and more supporters suggest how to bring the idea into the general public, out of the often so called “ivory tower of science.”
One of the main problems is that there is no specific target group which is essential for marketing strategies. Another problem is that those who are affected by poverty are too busy to survive. And other people can choose between countless leisure activities. Most of them do not want to think about social solutions in their rare spare-time. Much less if the idea sounds utopian and for the near future not practical. Furthermore they elected a government exactly for the reason that it would deal with such issues.
Now we could say, it is the fault of governments not implementing a Basic Income scheme. But frankly speaking, governments are not elected to make trials. And there should be no doubt that Basic Income for all would change a lot; it might even cause people to begin to rethink the purpose of their life.
Further I want to question the necessity for governments to promote Basic Income. They got the mandate to maintain their respective society and not to affect the life of millions of potential voters.
As long as their is no insight into the necessity of the end of Basic Income, there is no reason to support this idea. The strongest resistance against Basic Income is the current situation which is considered as unchangeable and while we are powerless it is not wanted, but accepted with all its injustice.
However, the more people get acquainted with alternatives, often caused by their own circumstances, the more they question the given condition.
Maybe we should take this quote from Chekov to heart:
It is unfortunate that we try to solve the simplest questions cleverly, and therefore make them unusually complicated. We should seek a simple solution.
by Karl Widerquist | Mar 24, 2012 | Research
Basic Income Studies is the only academic journal devoted entirely to examining basic income. In October 2011 it released a special issue, edited by Daniel Mosley, entitled, “Should Libertarians Endorse Basic Income?” The debate includes the following articles:
MOSELEY, DANIEL D., “Introduction: What is Libertarianism?”
Abstract – This article introduces the special Basic Income Studies journal’s debate issue on whether libertarians should endorse a universal basic income. The article clarifies some common uses of the term “libertarianism” as it is used by moral and political philosophers. It identifies some important common features of libertarian normative theories.
MOSELEY, DANIEL D. “A Lockean Argument for Basic Income”
Abstract – Libertarians should not reject the goal of establishing a global basic income program. There are strong Lockean considerations that favor such a program. This article explains a conception of equal share left-libertarianism that is supported by the rights of full self-ownership and world ownership. It argues that an appropriately constructed basic income program would be a key institution for promoting those rights.
LAYMAN DANIEL “Locke on Basic Income.” This essay was runner-up for the 2011 BIS Essay Prize
Abstract – Perhaps the strongest attempts to derive support for basic income policy from John Locke’s political philosophy hinge on Locke’s view that the world and its resources were originally owned in common by all persons. This world ownership, many have supposed, gives all persons a natural right to equal shares of resources and thus a right to an equal basic income under conditions (like our own) in which nearly all resources have been appropriated. This reasoning betrays a misunderstanding of Locke’s conception of original world ownership and, once this understanding is corrected, it becomes clear that there is no natural right to equal shares of resources, although there is a natural right to sufficient shares. Consequently, although governments must guarantee sufficiency for their citizens, there is no Lockean reason why this guarantee must take the form of a basic income or a scheme of equal and unconditional payments.
BOETTKE, PETER J. AND ADAM MARTIN, “Taking the ‘G’ out of BIG: A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on Basic Income”
Abstract – Basic Income Guarantee proposals aim at, among other objectives, the salutary goal of providing a minimum income floor beneath which individuals cannot fall. We analyze this family of proposals through the lens of comparative political economy, arguing that politics is not an appropriate institutional environment for pursuing the end of an income floor. Once the notion of a guaranteed income is cast in realistic, probabilistic terms, it becomes a live question whether the market or the polity can better secure a Basic Income. Actual markets must be compared to real-world political processes rather than idealized policy proposals in order to ascertain their desirability. Drawing on the extant literature on the failure of political processes to realize the goals of other redistributive programs, we argue that Basic Income proposals likewise ignore politics as practiced and are thus equally subject to critiques both of their means-ends coherence and their vulnerability to political opportunism.
ZWOLINSKI, MATT, “Classical Liberalism and the Basic Income”
Abstract – This article provides a brief overview of the relationship between libertarian political theory and the Basic Income (BI). It distinguishes between different forms of libertarianism and argues that at least one form, classical liberalism, is compatible with and provides some grounds of support for BI. A classical liberal BI, however, is likely to be much smaller than the sort of BI defended by those on the political left. And there are both contingent-empirical and principled-moral reasons for doubting that the classical liberal case for BI will be ultimately successful.
MUNGER, MICHAEL C. “Basic Income Is Not an Obligation, But It Might Be a Legitimate Choice”
Abstract – A distinction is made between libertarian destinations and libertarian directions. Basic income cannot be part of a truly libertarian state unless it could be accomplished entirely through voluntary donations. But basic income is an important step in a libertarian direction because it improves core values such as self-ownership, liberty, and efficiency of transfers while reducing coercion and increasing procedural fairness. Practical approaches to achieving basic income are compared to proposals by Milton Friedman and Charles Murray.
POWELL, BRIAN K. “Two Libertarian Arguments for Basic Income Proposals”
Abstract – For those familiar only with libertarians on the economic right, it seems obvious that libertarians will oppose basic income proposals. However, there are a variety of ways to argue for basic income proposals from within a “left” or “egalitarian” libertarian framework. In this article I argue that such a framework ought to be preferred to the alternative right-libertarian framework. Then I look at a simple left-libertarian argument for basic income proposals that is inspired by Thomas Paine and Henry George, and at another, more complex, argument offered by Phillipe Van Parijs.
VALLENTYNE, PETER, “Libertarianism and the Justice of a Basic Income”
Abstract – Whether justice requires, or even permits, a basic income depends on two issues: 1. Does justice permit taxation to generate revenues for distribution to others? 2. If so, does justice require, or even permit, equal and unconditional distribution for some portion of the tax revenues? I claim the following: 1. although all forms of libertarianism reject the nonconsensual taxation of labor and the products of labor, all but radical right-libertarianism allow a kind of wealth taxation for rights over natural resources, and 2. some versions of libertarianism allow the equal and unconditional distribution of such revenues and some do not.
The October issue also includes the following book reviews:
Pérez, Jose Luis Rey, “Review of Gijs van Donselaar, The Right to Exploit: Parasitism, Scarcity, Basic Income
Vick, Andrea,, “Review of Doris Schroeder, Work Incentives and Welfare Provision: The ‘Pathological’ Theory of Unemployment”
Online at: https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2011.6.issue-2/issue-files/bis.2011.6.issue-2.xml
