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
by Karl Widerquist | Mar 21, 2012 | News
The Basic Income Canada Network has released the tentative schedule for the Eleventh Annual North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress: “Putting Equality Back on The Agenda:
Basic Income and Other Approaches to Economic Security for All.” The conference will take place at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, May 3-5, 2012.
While Canada, the United States, and many other OECD countries have grown increasingly unequal in recent years, equality has not been on the political agenda. Yet evidence shows that income inequality is accompanied by a range of significant negative consequences. Putting Equality Back on the Agenda will examine this growing trend of inequality and consider the option of a basic income to reduce economic disparity.
More than 50 researchers, activists, and political practitioners will present research on the economic, political, sociological, and philosophical issues of poverty, inequality, and basic income.
Featured speakers include:
- Richard Wilkinson, Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham Medical School and co-author of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better;
- Charles Karelis, Research Professor of Philosophy at The George Washington University and Author of The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-Off Can’t Help the Poor;
- Erik Olin Wright, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin – Madison, author of Envisioning Real Utopias, and American Society: How it Actually Works;
- Armine Yalnizyan, Senior Economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives;
- John Rook, Chair of the National Council of Welfare and CEO of Potential Place Society;
- Evelyn Forget, Professor, University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine, author of a major forthcoming study on Mincome (the Manitoba minimum income experiment);
- Simon Lewchuk, Centre for Public Justice;
- Senator Art Eggleton, Former Mayor of Toronto;
- Trish Hennessey, Director of Strategic Issues for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives; and
- Dan Meades, Director, Vibrant Communities Calgary.
The North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress is a joint Conference of the U.S. and Canadian Basic Income Guarantee Networks. It takes place in Canada and the United States on alternating years.
The registration deadline is April 15, 2012. The registration fee is: $150 for Private, Corporate, University, and Government Registration, $90 for Not-for-Profit Registration, $40 for Low income, students, and seniors.
The entire schedule is online at:
https://biencanada.ca/content/11th-north-american-basic-income-guarantee-congress-schedule.
Registration, hotel, and venue information and an overview of the Congress are online at:
https://biencanada.ca/content/11th-north-american-basic-income-guarantee-congress-registration-now-open
by Yannick Vanderborght | Feb 25, 2012 | News
At the initiative of several green movements, this event will (among other things) include a projection of “Basic Income”, the documentary by Daniel Häni et Enno Schmidt, and a debate between basic income supporter Philippe Defeyt (former leader of the green party Ecolo) and basic income critic Bernard Friot (French sociologist and expert in issues of social protection).
This event takes place in Namur, Belgium on March 17, 2012 between 2:30PM and 10PM. Location: Faculté de médecine, Place du Palais de Justice, 5000 Namur.
Further information: https://objecteursdecroissance.be/IMG/pdf/revenu_de_base_mpoc_leger_2_.pdf
Or contact: Michèle Gilkinet <michele.gilkinet@base.be>
by Citizens' Income Trust | Jan 29, 2012 | Opinion
Tony Fitzpatrick (ed.), Understanding the Environment and Social Policy, Policy Press, 2011, xviii + 366 pp, hbk, 1 847 42380 1, £65, pbk, 1 847 42379 5, £21.99
This is an exploration of the complex relationship between social policy and the environmental challenges which we all face, with social policy here defined as ‘systematic public interventions relating to social needs, well-being and problems’ (p.2) – and the relationship really is complex because, whereas in the short term there might be a trade-off between money spent on protecting the environment and money spent on health, housing and education, in the longer term money not spent on protecting the environment will impact on health, housing and education. In the other direction, social policies in areas such as fuel poverty will have an impact positively or negatively on the environment; social policies have often been designed to promote economic growth, and this has an impact on the environment; and to redirect the aims of social policy will have an impact, too, and preferably one which will steer us away from the worst of the possible climate change outcomes.
In the first chapter Hodgson and Phillips describe the causes and implications of climate change and the depletion of non-renewable resources, and they discuss the different solutions available: mitigation, adaptation, geoengineering, and conservation. In chapter 2 Hannigan asks how ecologically valid solutions can be politically feasible when economic growth appears to be the political imperative. Any useful solution will therefore need to moderate consumption by the wealthy and provide a basic level of security for the poor so that they don’t need to destroy the forests. In chapter 3 Fitzpatrick discusses environmentalists’ criticisms of social policy’s current presuppositions, and outlines a ‘green economy’ and the social policy agenda to which it would give rise (for instance: ‘How can social insurance systems be adapted to cope with collective uncertainties?’ (p.84))
Chapters follow on the state’s (historically understood) role in environmental protection, environmental (consequentialist) ethics, philosophies (of environmental justice), and environmental policy (markets, regulation, and education); and then chapters on particular social policy fields: health, urban planning, transport, employment, citizenship and care, and international development and global poverty.
Fitzpatrick’s concluding chapter is an eloquent description of the options facing us: a sustainable global society, the human race clinging to survival at the Earth’s poles, and something between the two.
In Fitzpatrick’s chapter on environmental justice there is a discussion of a Citizen’s Income’s complex relationship to environmentally sustainable social policy, and at various points social insurance and taxation are discussed, but there is no chapter on income maintenance. This policy area is discussed in his Freedom and Security (Macmillan 1999) and in his Environment and Welfare (Palgrave 2002), but a chapter here would have aided our ‘understanding [of] the environment and social policy’.
The proof reading is poor in places. A particularly nice error is Fitzpatrick’s ‘I promised to void complexities’ (p.77).
This book does exactly what it sets out to do. It offers us understanding of the environment and social policy, and it does it well.
by Citizens' Income Trust | Jan 28, 2012 | Opinion
Policy and Politics, volume 39, number 1, January 2011, Special issue: Basic Income, Policy Press, 2011, 144 pp, pbk, ISSN 0305 5736, online ISSN 1470 8442
This substantial collection of articles rehearses a plethora of arguments for a Citizen’s income (here termed a Basic Income), arguments both pragmatic and visionary; and an important byproduct for the reader is a distinct sense that the pragmatic and the visionary are related in a way more complex than we might at first have thought.
Guy Standing calls a Citizen’s Income an ‘economic stabilisation grant’ because it would boost aggregate demand, more efficiently allocate resources, and tackle uncertainty and rising inequality. As he suggests, times of crisis can lead to major change, and a failing paradigm can find itself displaced – but only if a new paradigm is ready to take its place (p.21):
One modest recommendation is that the emerging generation of economists and social policy students should urge their peers, and particularly the new political leaders, to match their rhetoric about being ‘radical’ by assessing genuinely radical ideas. Economics is a constantly unfolding body of thought, and those charged with implementing economic and social policy should face demands to think afresh and evaluate alternatives with open minds. (p.22)
Almaz Zelleke suggests that a feminist theory of justice requires a Citizen’s Income, and that such a universal unconditional income would promote a more gender-inclusive citizenship. ‘Most importantly, basic income indirectly compensates care and society’s other unpaid work without reinforcing the existing gendered distribution of labour or the primacy of the public sphere by equating care with work’ (p.38). Louise Haagh’s following article notes the correlation between a country’s level of equality and its citizens’ control over their time, and seeks a balance between employment and non-employment which she believes would be best served by a Citizen’s Income in a social insurance context.
Stuart White discusses two different ‘citizen’s endowments’: a Citizen’s Income, and universal capital grant. ‘Freedom’ and ‘entitlement’ arguments fail to separate the two options, and the way in which different ‘freedom’ arguments lead in different directions suggests that a combination of a Citizen’s Income and a universal capital grant might be the best option. Leading to the same conclusion, Tony Fitzpatrick discusses the concept of paternalism, distinguishes between a variety of types, recommends a ‘social paternalism’ that prioritises autonomy but doesn’t exclude other values, and suggests that a Citizen’s Income and a universal grant together will best promote such a social paternalism.
Bill Jordan recognises that the UK Government’s current benefit reforms as a useful step along the way to a Citizen’s Income, and raises the question: Will a small Citizen’s Income, established to make labour markets more flexible, then be increased in order to create a new basis for citizenship, or will it remain small and fulfil only its initial purpose? ‘The first steps towards basic income may become politically feasible for a variety of reasons, at a number of different developmental stages, all of which will also be perilous for the principle in various ways’ (p.112) – but those steps should not for that reason be rejected: ‘Social policy can seldom deal in pure principles or utopian solutions, and basic income is no exception. It cannot resolve all the challenges of globalisation … in a single reform, but these measures may be a step in the right direction’ (p.112).
Finally, Jürgen De Wispelaere and Lindsay Stirton study ‘the administrative efficiency of basic income’. Identifying those people entitled to a Citizen’s Income would be a necessary administrative task, and a variety of payment methods might be needed in order to reach the maximum number of payees, so administration of a Citizen’s Income would not be as simple as some might think. The authors discuss a dilemma: ‘Proponents can claim important administrative savings for basic income, provided they restrict those arguments to the most radical paradigmatic form, while simultaneously having to face up to the reality that this radical version of basic income may face insurmountable political obstacles’ (p.121: their italics). De Wispelaere and Stirton also quite properly suggest that a Citizen’s Income isn’t the only way to make administrative savings: other forms of administrative simplification are possible, such as the sharing of information between tax and benefits authorities and aligning tax and benefits rules with each other.
To round off the substantive articles section of this focused and comprehensive edition of Policy and Politics with De Wispelaere’s and Stirton’s article, which concludes that ‘administrative efficiency … is … political’ (p.128), seems really quite appropriate.
