Basic Income News

The thesis of this book is that there is a ‘good life’ which can be defined independently of our subjective desires, and that it is possible to determine the elements of that good life and some of the means for attaining it. The first chapter sets out from Keynes’ prediction that increasing automation would enable [...]

‘Radical liberalism … holds a substantial universal and unconditional tier of social rights to be one of the ideal requirements of liberal-egalitarian justice.’ (p.8) Equality and freedom can and should be pursued at the same time, a universalist welfare state is the means to this combination, and an important element of such a welfare state [...]

Since the 1990s, on average the Indian economy has been growing at over 6% a year. Yet hundreds of millions remain mired in poverty, and inequality has grown steadily. For decades, although there are 1,200 centrally-funded social policies on the statute books and hundreds more at state level, successive governments have relied largely on the Public Distribution System (PDS) to redress poverty.

This article demonstrates how a BI scheme can be designed to fulfill a set of stated objectives according to given priorities, such as redistribution, poverty prevention, work incentives, and so on. It provides a simple, illustrative model, with partial and full BIs set at proportions 25 percent and 50 percent respectively of mean income. It [...]

At the Great Lakes Commons Gathering at Notre Dame University in the United States last October James Quilligan, who has recently spoken at a series of seminars in London, proposed a Great Lakes Commons Trust and Community Bank. ‘Bioregional trusts are an emerging horizon in environmental sustainability and financial stability for the people of a [...]

BIEN now stands for ‘Basic Income Earth Network’. Once every two years BIEN holds a congress, and this year’s showed just how appropriate the name now is and how inappropriate it would be to still call it the ‘Basic Income European Network’. There were participants from South Africa, Namibia, India, Japan, South Korea, the United [...]

Karl Hinrichs and Matteo Jessoula (eds), Labour Market Flexibility and Pension Reforms: Flexible Today, Secure Tomorrow? Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, xviii + 262 pp, hbk, 0 230 29006 8, £55 Time was when a lifetime of full-time employment would be followed by retirement on a contributory state pension supplemented, for the fortunate, by an occupational pension, [...]

It is always interesting to read detailed arguments for a Citizen’s Income, but might I invite your readers to consider a broader reform programme which would entail a long-term foundation for the Citizen’s Income we all want to see? A reform programme which would reconcile socialism and capitalism? Of course a claim such as this cannot be fully argued in the space of a letter, but the principles can be simply stated.

The latest edition of the Citizens Income Newsletter contains an editorial, the research note: “A Citizen’s Income scheme’s winners and losers” by Malcolm Torry, a review essay: “The message of James Robertson’s Future Money” by Conall Boyle,” book reviews, a viewpoint: “Why Austerity is the Wrong Answer to Debt” by Geoff Crocker, and more.

Hartley Dean, Social Policy, 2nd edition, Polity, 2012, xi + 157 pp, pbk, 0 7456 5178 1, £12.99 Hartley Dean’s passion for social policy is rooted in twelve years spent working for an advice centre in Brixton. This reviewer’s passion for the subject stems from just two years working in Brixton’s Supplementary Benefit Office around [...]