Basic Income Studies最新文献

{"title":"Exploring the Health Case for Universal Basic Income: Evidence from GPs Working with Precarious Groups","authors":"M. Johnson, Dan Degerman, R. Geyer","doi":"10.1515/bis-2019-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2019-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article draws upon clinical experience of GPs working in a deprived area of the North East of England to examine the potential contribution of Universal Basic Income to health by mitigating ‘patient-side barriers’ among three cohorts experiencing distinct forms of ‘precariousness’: 1) long-term unemployed welfare recipients with low levels of education (lumpenprecariat); 2) workers on short-term/zero-hours contracts with low levels of education (‘lower’ precariat); 3) workers on short-term/zero-hours contracts with relatively high levels of education (‘upper’ precariat). We argue that any benefits must be accompanied by robust institutions capable of promoting health.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2019-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83209735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Basic Income, Wages, and Productivity: A Laboratory Experiment","authors":"V. Jokipalo","doi":"10.1515/bis-2019-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2019-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper reports the results of an economic lab experiment designed to test the impact of Basic Income (BI) on wages and productivity. The experimental design is based on the classic gift exchange game. Participants assigned the role of employer were tasked with making wage offers, and those assigned as employees chose how hard they would work in return. In addition to a control without any social security net, BI was compared to unemployment benefits, and both types of cash transfers were tested at two levels. The results are that wage offers were increased in both the BI and unemployment benefit treatments compared to the control. The higher-level BI treatment also significantly increased effort. Further experimentation could shed more light on how the potential extra value created in the labor market through increased productivity would be divided between employers and employees.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2019-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87761085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Just End Poverty Now: The Case for a Global Minimum Income","authors":"Thomas R. Wells","doi":"10.1515/bis-2019-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2019-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Global GDP is more than 100 trillion dollars, yet 10 % of the world’s population still live in extreme poverty on less than $1.90 per day. No one should have to live like that: alleviating poverty is a minimal moral obligation implied by nearly every secular and religious moral system. Unfortunately, neither economic growth nor conventional international aid can be relied upon to fulfil this obligation. A global basic income programme that transferred $1 per day from the rich world to each poor person would eliminate extreme poverty directly and at negligible cost. It is the least we should do.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2019-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138508506","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Annie Miller: A Basic Income Handbook","authors":"J. B. Murphy","doi":"10.1515/BIS-2019-0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/BIS-2019-0023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88255483","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Peter Barnes: With Liberty and Dividends for All. How to Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don’t Pay Enough","authors":"Brent Ranalli","doi":"10.1515/BIS-2019-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/BIS-2019-0018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74447310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evelyn Forget: Basic Income for Canadians: The key to a healthier, happier, more secure life for all","authors":"E. Power","doi":"10.1515/BIS-2019-0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/BIS-2019-0022","url":null,"abstract":"As the idea of basic income gains momentum around the world, governments and interested citizens have turned to the lessons of one of Canada’s first minimum income experiments. Mincome ran for three years in the 1970s in the province of Manitoba. In the town of Dauphin, the saturation site, all qualifying families received amodestmonthly stipend that theywere able to spend as theywished. Aswe nowknow,Mincome had significant positive effects on high school graduation rates, hospitalizations, mental health, and visits to family physicians. The results of Mincome provide powerful evidence to support the widespread implementation of a basic income social policy in rich industrialized countries. But the effects of Mincome are only known to us because of the foresight, dedication, and perseverance of Dr Evelyn Forget, professor of economics at the University of Manitoba. As she explains in her new book, Basic Income for Canadians, Dr Forget was a first-year university student in 1974, the year Mincome began, when she found herself in an economics class “almost by accident.” Mincome had captured the imagination of her professor, Dr Ian McDonald, who explained the problems with existing forms of income security and how Mincomewould be a game changer. Having grown up in a family with a widowedmother whowas sometimes on social assistance and sometimes employed in low-waged jobs, Forget easily grasped the significance of what Dr McDonald was teaching. As a result of his influence, she changed her major from psychology to economics and eventually earned a Ph.D. in economics. More than 20 years after Mincome ended, and was mostly forgotten, Dr Forget explains that she was an economist in a medical school, involved in research that was demonstrating over and over again the links between income and health. She decided to go looking for the Mincome data that had been collected but never analyzed—1800 boxes of data, as it turned out. The rest, as they say, is history. It is hard to imagine that any other Canadian has thought asmuch or as deeply about basic income as Evelyn Forget. As she explains, her support for basic income is not ideological but grounded in research evidence. She is convinced that “a basic income of a very particular form is both necessary and affordable in Canada” (p. 10). The purpose of her book is to lay out the evidence for readers, counter the mistaken arguments of critics and proponents, and consider the remaining questions. Fortunately—and surprisingly, given the depth of her knowledge, and contra her disciplinary tradition of dry, inaccessible writing—Forget writes plainly and accessibly. Basic Income for Canadians is the perfect primer for anyone new to basic income, with no economics or social policy background required. Basic Income for Canadians lays out a number of different lines of evidence that support basic income as a sensible policy solution for “healthier, happier, more secure” lives for all Canadians. First, Forget examine","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88730140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen, Guy Standing (Pelican, London 2017)","authors":"J. Swift","doi":"10.1515/BIS-2019-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/BIS-2019-0013","url":null,"abstract":"In 2011, before the rise of recent populist politicians, the former International Labour Organization economist Guy Standing wrote a book in which he warned of the rise of a growing class “prone to listen to ugly voices.” Those strident voices could well erect an influential political platform. Standing argued that the neo-liberal project had contrived an “incipient political monster” and that urgent action was needed before that creature came to life.1 A co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network, Standing called that book The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. His 2017 book on basic income offers an incisive, well-informed – and sometimes impassioned – probe of an idea with an old political pedigree that has been attracting increasing interest since his look at the precariat. For Standing, basic income is at once a policy and an urgent social movement, an essential part of the action required to stem the tides of right wing populism. This volume owes an intellectual debt to Tom Paine’s Agrarian Justice and the idea of a social dividend that is “not charity but a right.” Using this principle, Standing cuts his way through the brittle thickets of social policy that so often entangle discussions of basic income. Along the way, he puts forward a wide-ranging definition of basic income as much more than an anti-poverty measure. Standing defines basic income as “ ... a social dividend paid from the collective wealth of society created and maintained by our ancestors and as a shared return on the commons and natural resources that belong to all” (page 27). He goes on to describe this rationale for understanding basic income as a social justice imperative rather than as a response to poverty. Such an approach situates basic income within the left libertarian tradition. Other leading basic income supporters share this perspective, notably Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, whose 2017 book’s opening chapter is devoted to basic income as “an instrument of freedom.”2 Standing provides a comprehensive outline of the freedom-enhancing character of what he calls “republican freedom.” Freedom to refuse a bad job or leave an abusive relationship. Freedom to undertake care work and creative work. Standing contrasts this libertarian position to neo-liberal notions of freedom and basic income, providing a useful counterpoint to left critics whose rejection of basic income automatically equates it with neoliberalism. “Support for or opposition to a policy should not be based on whether someone one does not like supports or opposes it,” notes Standing (page 114). Yet Standing sometimes succumbs to the hegemony of neo-liberal libertarianism, arguing that “a crude Darwinian ethos ... underpins all forms of libertarianism” (page 57). It is testimony to the power of neo-liberal hegemony that even as sophisticated a thinker as Standing slips into this assumption. That aside, Standing offers a sharp distinction between work and labour, one that would surely ","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"2017 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2019-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86712168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Review of Malcolm Torry’s Why We Need A Citizen’s Basic Income","authors":"Alexis Cooke","doi":"10.1515/BIS-2019-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/BIS-2019-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Malcolm Torry’sWhy We Need A Citizen’s Basic Income is a comprehensive and pragmatic examination of how an unconditional citizen’s basic income could be implemented and would function. As conversations and interest in a basic income expand, both opponents and supporters have used same words to mean different things. A lack of common vocabulary obfuscates basic income as a concept and policy. Torry begins his book with clearly defined and explained terminology. This vocabulary helps to ground Torry’s chapters and arguments. While much of the book focuses on issues of feasibility and implementation, the first chapters outline the benefits of a basic income. One such benefit is the flexibility that a basic income would allow individuals and families to better copewith the precarity of the current economic system. Torrywrites that the current system of means-tested benefits often leaves individuals in a poverty trap because, “means-tested benefits are withdrawn as earned income rises” (p. 42). Torry also posits a basic income as a sort of Occam’s Razor, both in terms of its administration and flexibility. Means-tested benefits are difficult to administer and require extensive bureaucracy. The time and costs of this administration is not insignificant, and Torry points out that a basic income “would be radically simple to administer” (p. 79). Changes in the economy, society and employment are and will be constant, but are not wholly predictable, which begs the question of how to create a system can address ever changing social and economic needs. Torry advocates for a basic income as a tool that is “[suitable] to a wide variety of employment and market patterns” and “incentivizes economic activity and provides as many choices as possible” (p. 47). Chapter seven importantly focuses on issues of feasibility across dimensions of financial, psychological, administrative, behavioral, political and policy processes. Torry discusses the conjunctive nature of these feasibilities, which is of practical importance to any basic income advocate. As Torry writes, the order in which feasibilities are addressed will be hugely impactful to if and how a basic income policy is implemented. In creating policy to address these feasibilities, those in favor cannot compromise on the fundamental aspects of a basic income. Torry importantly reminds that “commitment to unconditionality and nonwithdrawability ... will be essential” (p. 107). In chapter eight, Torry lays out several options for implementation of a basic income. Torrywrites, “while all that we require for a debate about a Citizen’s Basic Income to be realistic is one viable route from the current situation to the payment of a Citizen’s Basic Income” (p. 122) and he presents uswith five implementation options. A basic income could (1) be implemented all in one go, abolishing means-tested benefits, (2) be implemented all in one go, retaining means-tested benefits, (3) gradually rolled out, (4) start with volunteer","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2019-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90729068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rowland Atkinson, Lisa Mckenzie and Simon Winlow: Building Better Societies: Promoting Social Justice in a World Falling Apart","authors":"Jenna van Draanen","doi":"10.1515/BIS-2018-0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/BIS-2018-0025","url":null,"abstract":"In their new book, Building Better Societies: Promoting Social Justice in a World Falling Apart (Policy Press, 2017), Rowland Atkinson, Lisa Mckenzie and Simon Winlow (eds.) make a strong case for the ‘prosocial’ approach to societal transformation. The entire book critiques neoliberalism and the ensuing individualism that has resulted from operating society as though it were a business. Building Better Societies advances an alternative way forward: valuing communal approaches to social betterment. The book is segmented into chapters that cover first the problems (chapters 2–4), then the ideas (chapters 5– 9) and finally the future (chapters 10–14) of what building better societies through a prosocial approach would entail. This is not a novel argument, and the authors find themselves in good company with similar arguments for social justice that have been made by their contemporaries. What is novel, perhaps, is the framing of their critique as not merely an anti-capitalist approach but also a parallel advancement of a pro-social approach and the articulation of ideas supporting the advancement of that agenda. Yet advancing the agenda is also where Atkinson, Mckenzie, and Winlow could have further elaborated; not just creating the language and frame for future progress but spending more time fleshing out specific and viable alternatives. Readers of this book might be left wondering what concrete steps would be involved in moving to a prosocial society. To begin the book, the editors discuss rising inequality, name the benefactors of neoliberalist ideology (those already in positions of privilege) and problematize the sustained attack on “the social”. The editors label modern society as anti-social and call for big ideas from social scientists to break the chains collectively binding us. The contributors to the book dutifully oblige and present bold framings of a society gone awry. Throughout the book, attention is drawn to the gradual but consistent destruction of the social safety net and the erosion of social protections in favour of policies purporting enhanced individual freedom and choice. Paradoxically, these moralizing techniques for social control have come at the cost of true freedom and liberty for the many who are unable to get ahead under market-based models of social protection. In the Valuing and Strengthening Community chapter (4), that is likely of interest to most readers of this journal, Mckenzie artfully tells a story of the changing rhetoric about economic value that has come with neoliberalism in the UK. She identifies the increasing stigma directed toward working-class families, and the growing paternalism in the welfare system. She illustrates these changes through a story about Sharon (p 45), a friendly and well-connected mother of two from Nottingham, who goes from volunteering at a community kitchen 16 hours/week while also receiving income and housing support from the government, to being forced by her benefits adviser ","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2019-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81977008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Universal Basic Income and the Natural Environment: Theory and Policy","authors":"Timothy MacNeill, Amber Vibert","doi":"10.1515/bis-2018-0026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2018-0026","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We analyze the environmental implications of basic income programs through literature review, government documents, pilot studies, and interviews eliciting expert knowledge. We consider existing knowledge and then use a grounded approach to produce theory on the relationship between a basic income guarantee and environmental protection/damage. We find that very little empirical or theoretical work has been done on this relationship and that theoretical arguments can be made for both positive and negative environmental impacts. Ultimately, this implies, the environmental impact of a basic income program will be dependent on program design. These insights allow us to generate a toolkit of policy proposals to assist in the development of green basic income programs via either conditions, additions, or complements.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2019-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73138296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}