{"title":"The Individual Social Account as a Platform for Citizen Interaction with Government","authors":"E. Swanson","doi":"10.1515/bis-2022-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2022-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this brief paper, offered as a policy viewpoint, I introduce what I believe to be a novel concept for supporting individual citizen interaction with the U.S. Federal government, termed the individual social account. I explore whether and how the concept might be implemented so as to strengthen the U.S. social safety net and further citizen trust and responsibility in e-government interactions. I illustrate and develop the concept as a platform for reform and suggest and discuss design criteria, surfacing various issues. I conclude with additional thoughts with which to stimulate further research and discussion of the concept and its practicalities.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"8 1","pages":"31 - 46"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83813134","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":"An Ecological Basic Income? Examining the Ecological Credentials of Basic Income Through a Review of Selected Pilot Interventions","authors":"Nicholas Langridge, Milena Buchs, N. Howard","doi":"10.1515/bis-2021-0044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2021-0044","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract While basic income (BI) has long been advocated for its social benefits, some scholars also propose it in response to the ecological crises. However, the empirical evidence to support this position is currently lacking and the concept of an ecological BI (EBI) is underdeveloped. Part one of this paper attempts to develop such a concept, arguing that an EBI should seek to reduce aggregate material throughput, improve human needs satisfaction, reduce inequalities, rebalance productive activity towards social activities in the autonomous sphere, and promote societal values of cooperation and sufficiency. Part two examines how BI interventions consider the principles of an EBI in their designs and discusses what their findings infer about BI’s ecological credentials. The results find that while ecological considerations are largely absent from BI intervention designs, their findings suggest that interventions aligned with the principles of an EBI could play a role in addressing the ecological crises.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"47 - 87"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81152761","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":"Envy and Blame in the UBI Discussion","authors":"Marcel Franke","doi":"10.1515/bis-2021-0035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2021-0035","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Envy and blame are two concepts that add social preferences to the economic behavior model of homo economicus. These have already been studied in general distributional issues as well as in the Edgeworth box. Building on this, these social preferences are examined specifically in the work-leisure model and applied to the example of a UBI. Here it is shown that envy is rather triggered by different endowments of individuals and blame only by different preferences. In the discussion about a UBI, this insight provides clarity about the normative basis of arguments against “free riders”. In terms of constitutional economics, envy can be combated through equality of opportunity, while blame can be contained through paternalism, at the expense of freedom of action.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"16 1","pages":"89 - 121"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75442890","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":"Geoff Crocker: Basic Income and Sovereign Money. The Alternative to Economic Crisis and Austerity Policy","authors":"L. Delsen","doi":"10.1515/bis-2022-0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2022-0020","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"137 - 140"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75654293","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 and Anishinaabe Worldview: Exploring Tensions and Compatibilities","authors":"Sarah Nixon","doi":"10.1515/bis-2021-0042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2021-0042","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Jurgen De Wispelaere and Lindsay Stirton point out that basic income must be designed in light of the features of the society in which the policy is to be implemented. Yet, in Canada, scholars and politicians have neglected one crucial aspect of the context in which basic income stands to be implemented – namely, a settler-colonial one. In a settler-colonial context, we must consider the compatibility of such a policy proposal with the worldviews of Indigenous peoples who continue to assert, apply, and revitalize their laws on this land. As such, in this paper, I consider the compatibility of a basic income with Anishinaabe worldview and legality. Ultimately, I find that while dominant justifications for basic income are not compatible with Anishinaabe worldview, the implementation of the policy may nonetheless support the urgent imperative of Indigenous law revitalization.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"44 1","pages":"123 - 136"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88374775","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}
J. Betkó, N. Spierings, Maurice Gesthuizen, P. Scheepers
{"title":"How Welfare Policies Can Change Trust – A Social Experiment Assessing the Impact of Social Assistance Policy on Political and Social Trust","authors":"J. Betkó, N. Spierings, Maurice Gesthuizen, P. Scheepers","doi":"10.1515/bis-2021-0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2021-0029","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract While there is a substantive literature on the link between welfare states and individuals’ trust, little is known about the micro-linkage of the conditionality of welfare as a driver of trust. This study presents a unique randomized social experiment investigating this link. Recipients of the regular Dutch social assistance policy are compared to recipients of two alternative schemes inspired by the basic income and based on a more trusting and unconditional approach, testing the main reciprocity argument in the literature: a trusting government will harvest trust from welfare recipients in return. Particularly trust in local government – the level at which the experiment was implemented – increases among recipients of the alternative treatments. Subsequently, we innovatively theorize and test rigorously which mediating mechanisms might explain this increase. Policy evaluation, social integration, and psychological well-being are studied in this respect. Of these, the only underlying mechanism proven to mediate the treatment effect in local political trust, is citizens’ satisfaction with policy.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"155 - 187"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84946362","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":"Thomas Piketty: A Brief History of Equality","authors":"Otto Lehto","doi":"10.1515/bis-2022-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2022-0009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"59 1","pages":"239 - 242"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78958235","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":"Suspicious Minds in Basic Income and Conditional Cash Transfers","authors":"Facundo García Valverde","doi":"10.1515/bis-2021-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2021-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Anti-poverty policies and attitudes of distrust toward the needy share a long history. From the narratives of de Quevedo’s El Buscón, in which beggars are presented as able-bodied individuals making a concerted effort to take advantage of others, to the invasive physical tests and “workhouses” that were part of the English Poor Laws, the poor have long been regarded as deserving careful oversight. Although in increasingly subtle ways, this history continues as part of a popular set of policies in Latin America called “Conditional Cash Transfers,” which make income support conditional on certain behavioral changes. This paper argues that this resumption in recent times is normatively problematic because it harms the beneficiaries’ self-esteem, leading to stereotypes and sociological errors that reproduce social hierarchies. Alternatively, the paper advances a comparative defense of Basic Income on the basis of its lesser-known affinity with non-discriminatory attitudes.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"189 - 212"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84536406","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}
Dominic Afscharian, Viktoriia Muliavka, Marius S. Ostrowski, L. Siegel
{"title":"The State of the UBI Debate: Mapping the Arguments for and against UBI","authors":"Dominic Afscharian, Viktoriia Muliavka, Marius S. Ostrowski, L. Siegel","doi":"10.1515/bis-2021-0030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2021-0030","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article provides a map of the UBI debate, structured into the main themes that guide and group the arguments on both sides. It finds that UBI’s supporters and opponents both draw on core principles of justice and freedom, focusing on need and poverty, discrimination and inequality, growth, social opportunity, individuality, and self-development. From an economic perspective, they both appeal to business concerns about efficiency, risk, flexibility, and consumption, as well as labour interests on work fulfilment, working conditions, remuneration, and bargaining. Likewise, they focus on political questions around welfare state reforms, redistribution, taxation and funding sources, democratic citizenship, and the prospects for cross-party policy coalitions. By providing an overview of the thematic pillars of the UBI debate, this article helps researchers and activists locate and orient themselves within the wider spectrum of opinion on UBI.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"58 1","pages":"213 - 237"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84612508","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":"Is a Penny a Month a Basic Income? A Historiography of the Concept of a Threshold in Basic Income","authors":"Toru Yamamori","doi":"10.1515/bis-2021-0037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2021-0037","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Does a penny per month constitute a Basic Income? Were that penny to be paid individually, universally, and unconditionally, the answer would be ‘yes’, following the definition of Basic Income given by some of its leading advocates, be it organisations like the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) or prominent scholars such as Philippe Van Parijs. Some might be puzzled as to how this could be ‘a capitalist road to communism’, or give us ‘freedom as the power to say no’, both of which have been advocated by prominent researchers. The purpose of this paper is not to argue for or against their definition, but rather to situate it historiographically, enabling fruitful discussion. The paper will show how there was a widely shared assumption in the 1970s and 80s, at the early stages of both academic articulations and public discussion, that Basic Income comes with some notion of a threshold or level to be taken as a minimum or as adequate. The paper goes on to outline three issues that arise once the concept of a threshold is dropped from the definition. Examined in addition are five justifications for doing so. Much like any other idea, the concept of Basic Income is a social construct. By situating it here within a historical perspective, we wish to facilitate academic discussion regarding both the achievements and erasures that have occurred as a consequence of the concept’s academic refinement—refinement that is in itself majorly indebted to BIEN and Van Parijs.","PeriodicalId":43898,"journal":{"name":"Basic Income Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":"29 - 51"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87053725","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}