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 [...]

Book review of Irrweg Grundeinkommen: Die große Umverteilung von unten nach oben muss beendet werden [The Basic Income Aberration: The Great Redistribution from Bottom to Top Must be Ended] by Heiner Flassbeck, Friederike Spiecker, Volker Meinhardt and Dieter Vesper (2012), Frankfurt, Westend Heiner Flassbeck, Friederike Spiecker, Volker Meinhardt and Dieter Vesper wrote a book with [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

Barry Knight (editor), A Minority View: What Beatrice Webb would say now, Beatrice Webb Memorial Series on Poverty, vol.1, Alliance Publishing Trust, 2011, 128pp, pbk, 1 907376 11 5, available from the Webb Memorial Trust, webb@cranehouse.eu Beatrice Webb’s contribution to a Royal Commission on the Poor Law just over a hundred years ago was a [...]

Matthew C. Murray and Carole Pateman (eds), Basic Income Worldwide: Horizons of Reform, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, xv + 271 pp, hbk, 0 230 28542 2, £57.50 This book is a most useful survey of international experience of Basic or Citizen’s Income, of benefits sufficiently similar to enable them to be regarded as on the way [...]

Neil Fraser, Rodolfo Gutiérrez and Ramón Peña-Casas, Working Poverty in Europe: A Comparative Approach, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, xx + 342 pp, hbk, 0 230 29010 5, £60 This data-packed book is one of a series of publications to emerge from the EU-funded Programme on Reconciling Work and Welfare in Europe (RECWOWE). The programme’s context is [...]

Marion Ellison (ed.), Reinventing Social Solidarity across Europe, Policy Press, 2011, xv + 270 pp, hbk, 1 847 42727 4, £70 Social solidarity is ‘a contested, fluid, multilevel and multifaceted concept within the European polity, civil society and the public realm.’ This volume treats this solidarity as ‘a lived experience, a shared learning experience and [...]

Emma Carmel, Alfio Cerami and Theodoros Papadopoulos (eds), Migration and Welfare in the New Europe: Social protection and the challenges of integration, Policy Press, 2011, xiv + 261 pp, hbk, 1 847 42644 4, £70 The introductory chapter of this timely edited collection outlines the issues to be discussed throughout: policy combinations, institutions and political [...]