scholarly journals Why a Uniform Basic Income Offends Justice

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-219
Author(s):  
Julia Maskivker
Keyword(s):  
Income Policy ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Policy Proposal ◽  
Normative Reasoning ◽  
Theoretical Apparatus

This article explains why the traditional defense of the Basic Income policy is flawed in its assumptions about allocative uniformity. The paper argues that treating everybody identically by way of a uniform grant is ultimately in tension with the  egalitarian rationale behind the Basic Income. Phillipe Van Parijs, the champion defender of the policy proposal, has fervently argued that unconditional receipt of a universal grant will render society more just by way of the egalitarian distribution of  “real freedom” that the policy would elicit. Although Van Parijs is right in supposing that Basic Income will enhance real freedom, his theoretical apparatus is not prepared to address questions of differences in the level of opportunity already enjoyed by the beneficiaries of the policy. This failure poses a problem for normative reasoning, namely, that morally relevant differences among individuals are ignored. This paper concentrates on the implications of this blindness and provides an equality metric that is better equipped to recognize disparity and its moral implications. 

scholarly journals Support for a universal basic income: A demand–capacity paradox?

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Parolin ◽  
Linus Siöland
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Policy Proposal ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Country Level

Debate around a universal basic income (UBI) tends to focus on the economic and social implications of the policy proposal. Less clear, however, are the factors influencing support for a UBI. Using the 2016 European Social Survey, we investigate how trade union membership and left political ideology (central to power resources theory) and attitudes towards immigrants’ access to welfare benefits (central to welfare state chauvinism) affect individual support for a UBI. We also investigate how country-level differences in levels of social spending moderate individual-level UBI support. Results from multi-level models suggest that a broader coalition of UBI supporters can generally be found in countries where social spending is low. Specifically, we find that welfare state chauvinism is more likely to be associated with negative attitudes towards a UBI in countries with high levels of spending, but has only a weak association with UBI support in low-spending countries. Similarly, political ideology is more consequential in explaining UBI support in countries with higher levels of spending. These tensions form a demand–capacity paradox: the countries which are presumably least equipped to implement a UBI see the most broad-based support for the policy.

Basic Income Policy of Korea

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Dawon Kim ◽  
Jai S. Mah
Keyword(s):  
Income Policy ◽  
Basic Income

scholarly journals Full Employment, Unconditional Basic Income and the Keynesian Critique of Rentier Capitalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Capitalist Class ◽  
Policy Proposal ◽  
Inflationary Pressure ◽  
Demand Pull ◽  
Employer Of Last Resort

AbstractThis paper compares and contrasts the basic income proposal with the alternative policy proposal of the state acting as employer of last resort. Two versions of the UBI proposal are distinguished: one is hard to differentiate from expanded welfare state provision. Van Parijs’s proposal is radical enough to qualify as major egalitarian revision to capitalism. However, while it removes from a capitalist class the power to determine the terms on which others labour, it leaves this class in place and able to exert other powers that distort the macro-economy. These include pecuniary emulation, demand pull inflation, and political resistance to full employment so that the rentier class does not have to contend with entrepreneurs *and* the working class over the distribution of the productive surplus. The state as employer of last resort proposal addresses these deeper issues while also claiming that inflationary pressure will undermine the UBI alternative.

scholarly journals Narratives of freedom reduce conservative opposition to a universal basic income policy and welfare-related stereotypes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Thomas ◽  
Gregory M Walton ◽  
Ellen Reinhart ◽  
Hazel Markus
Keyword(s):  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
Intergroup Attitudes ◽  
Income Policy ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Online Experiments ◽  
Total N ◽  
The Us

Inequality and deep poverty have risen sharply in the US since the 1990s. Simultaneously, support for cash-based welfare has fallen among conservatives, who hold more stigmatizing beliefs about welfare recipients. Universal Basic Income (UBI)—a policy that proposes to give cash to all citizens to meet basic needs—aims to combat both economic and social exclusion through its features of unconditionality and universality. Yet, across three online experiments with convenience samples of US adults (total N=1,895), we found that these unique policy details alone were not sufficient to garner bipartisan support. Extending the culture match and moral reframing literatures, we test the impacts of values-based narratives of UBI on policy support and intergroup attitudes. Only when UBI was communicated with a narrative emphasizing the bipartisan value of individual freedom did UBI mitigate opposition from conservatives and welfare-related stereotypes. Exploratory analyses suggest values alignment and values salience as drivers of these impacts.

scholarly journals Ingreso básico y pleno empleo: Lecciones de Polanyi, Keynes y Minsky

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (23) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Seccareccia
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Income Policy ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Great Transformation

<p>The purpose of this paper is to analyze some of the literature on guaranteed income policies as promoted by both mainstream and heterodox economists over the last half century and to offer a critique on the basis of what can be described as a Polanyian perspective going back to Karl Polanyi’s assessment of the Speenhamland system in his celebrated 1944 book, <em>The Great Transformation</em>. While supporting the principle of universal basic income as a means to re-embed the capitalistic labor market so as to better meet the needs of the whole community, it is argued that a guaranteed income policy without also a societal commitment to full employment may trigger labor-market mechanisms that could prevent the societal <strong>re-embeddedness</strong> from actually occurring.</p><p> </p><p> </p>

BASIC INCOME VERSUS WAGE SUBSIDIES: COMPETING INSTRUMENTS IN AN OPTIMAL TAX MODEL WITH A MAXIMIN OBJECTIVE

2004 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert van der Veen
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Wage Rate ◽  
Optimal Taxation ◽  
Income Policy ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Labor Input ◽  
General Thesis ◽  
Optimal Tax ◽  
Individual Productivity ◽  
Normative Criteria

This article challenges the general thesis that an unconditional basic income, set at the highest sustainable level, is required for maximizing the income-leisure opportunities of the least advantaged, when income varies according to the responsible factor of labor input. In a linear optimal taxation model (of a type suggested by Vandenbroucke 2001) in which opportunities depend only on individual productivity, adding the instrument of a uniform wage subsidy generates an array of undominated policies besides the basic income maximizing policy, including a “zero basic income” policy which equalizes the post-tax wage rate. The choice among such undominated policies may be guided by distinct normative criteria which supplement the maximin objective in various ways. It is shown that most of these criteria will be compatible with, or actually select, the zero basic income policy and reject the basic income maximizing one. In view of the model's limited realism, the force of this main conclusion is discussed both in relation to Van Parijs' argument for basic income in Real Freedom for All (1995) and to some key empirical conditions in the real world.

scholarly journals The Political Theory of Universal Basic Income

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 481-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Uhuru Bidadanure
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Economic Insecurity ◽  
Policy Proposal ◽  
The World ◽  
High Level ◽  
Cash Grant

Universal basic income (UBI) is a radical policy proposal of a monthly cash grant given to all members of a community without means test, regardless of personal desert, with no strings attached, and, under most proposals, at a sufficiently high level to enable a life free from economic insecurity. Once a utopian proposal, the policy is now widely discussed and piloted throughout the world. Among the various objections to the proposal, one concerns its moral adequacy: Isn't it fundamentally unjust to give cash to all indiscriminately rather than to those who need it and deserve it? This article reviews the variety of strategies deployed by political theorists to posit that the proposal is in fact justified, or even required, by social justice. The review focuses mainly on the contemporary normative debate on UBI—roughly dating back to Philippe Van Parijs's influential work in the 1990s—and is centered on the ideals of freedom and equality.

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