by Andre Coelho | Jun 8, 2019 | News
Louise Haagh, presently Reader at the University of York, and Chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), just released a new book, through Polity: The case for Universal Basic Income. A summary is featured on the editor’s page:
Advocated (and attacked) by commentators across the political spectrum, paying every citizen a basic income regardless of their circumstances sounds utopian. However, as our economies are transformed and welfare states feel the strain, it has become a hotly debated issue.
In this compelling book, Louise Haagh, one of the world’s leading experts on basic income, argues that Universal Basic Income is essential to freedom, human development and democracy in the twenty-first century. She shows that, far from being a silver bullet that will transform or replace capitalism, or a sticking plaster that will extend it, it is a crucial element in a much broader task of constructing a democratic society that will promote social equality and humanist justice. She uses her unrivalled knowledge of the existing research to unearth key issues in design and implementation in a range of different contexts across the globe, highlighting the potential and pitfalls at a time of crisis in governing and public austerity.
This book will be essential reading for anyone who wants to get beyond the hype and properly understand one of the most important issues facing politics, economics and social policy today.
Louise Haagh will be featured in several events and talks in the next few months, given this recent publication. These include Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Institute for Public Policy Research, University of Bath, BIEN Ireland, BIEN Congress in India, BIEN-RSA Civic Forum in Scotland, and at a range of local venues in the United Kingdom, for instance the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, Café Economique, and North Yorkshire Humanists, as well as internationally at the World Health Organisation‘s (WHO) High-level Conference on Health Equity in the WHO European Region, to be held in Slovenia.
More details can be found in an online Appendix.
by Sandro Gobetti | Mar 17, 2018 | News
Basic income, the whole world talks about it. Experiences, proposals and experiments this is the title of a new book by Sandro Gobetti and Luca Santini, with a preface by Andrea Fumagalli, published by GoWare Edizioni (March 2018).
Description
At the dawn of a new great transformation with the advent of the technological revolution, robotics and artificial intelligence, and in the age of major crises (economic, financial, political and ecologic), comes the echo of a proposal that opens unpublished scenarios: a basic income for all. In the era of the capitalism as a unique economic model, the idea of a guaranteed income rises up as one of the main human rights.
From experiences of minimum income inEuropean countries to the experimentation of an unconditional basic income around the planet, the right to a guaranteed income becomes key to fully enter, with confidence, in the third millennium. A book of agile and quick reading, written by two major Italian experts, helps to understand where we are and what we can expect.
Summary
Preface by Andrea Fumagalli
Introduction
Guaranteed minimum income and basic income
universal
Protection against social risks and minimum income: from welfare state to guarantee income
Unemployment insurance and minimum income in Europe
Systems and models of protection in European countries
What this means in practice: some examples
The universal and unconditional basic income
People talk about it everywhere. The state of the art of experimentation in the world
Africa at the forefront
What happens in Latin America
Back in the “first world”: North America
Asia, a crossroads of experimentation
The old continent that wants to reinvent itself
The debate and the proposals in Italy
Without income, without a network
A categorial and fragmented welfare
Moving situation
Essential principles for a possible proposal
Relations with unemployment benefits
Beneficiaries’ platform
The question of accessibility
Basic Income amount
Connection with the service system
Individuality
Basic Income duration
The principle of congruence
To find out more: bibliographic references for topics
European models of guaranteed minimum income
Social and labor transformations and basic income
The fourth industrial revolution, artificial intelligence, robotics and basic income
Authors
Sandro Gobetti, independent researcher and author of articles with a particular enphasis on guaranteed income. He collaborated on the 4/2009 law definition about minimum guaranteed income in the Lazio Region, and the national proposal law for guaranteed income. He is a founding member and coordinator of the Basic Income Network-Italy.
Luca Santini, lawyer, expert on migration law and social security law and has signed several articles. Has collaborated on the proposed law for guaranteed minimum income in Italy. He is the president and founder of the Basic Income Network-Italy.
This article has been reviewed by André Coelho
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
