Basic Income , livre ebook

BASIC INCOME
 
 
 
 
BASIC INCOME
The Material Conditions of Freedom
Daniel Raventós
Translated from the Spanish by Julie Wark
 
 
 
 
First published in an earlier version in Spanish, 1999, as El derecho a la existencia: La propuesta del Subsidio Universal Garantizado by Editorial Ariel, Barcelona.
English-language edition first published in 2007 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Daniel Raventós 2007. This translation © Julie Wark 2007
The right of Daniel Raventós to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback
ISBN-13   978 0 7453 2630 6
ISBN-10   0 7453 2630 7
Paperback
ISBN-13   978 0 7453 2629 0
ISBN-10   0 7453 2629 3
EPUB eBook
ISBN-13   978 1 7837 1642 5
Kindle eBook
ISBN-13   978 1 7837 1643 2
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Curran Publishing Services, Norwich
Printed and bound in the European Union by
Anthony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England
 
 
 
 
 
For Roger and Teia
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONTENTS
List of tables and figures
Introduction and acknowledgements
1.   
A provocative but possible proposal  
1.1   
The definition  
1.2   
What Basic Income is not  
1.3   
Is there a Basic Income anywhere in the world?  
1.4   
Historical precedents  
1.5   
The last 20 years  
1.6   
Basic Income in the twenty-first century  
1.7   
Strengths, questions, doubts
2.   
Normative liberal justifications  
2.1   
The libertarian justification: property first  
2.2   
The ‘possible’ justification of justice as fairness: self-respect to the fore  
2.3   
The real freedom justification: a real-libertarian society  
2.4   
Liberal theories and republican theories
3.   
The normative republican justification  
3.1   
Aristotle: material existence as a condition of freedom  
3.2   
Property in Cicero  
3.3   
The right of existence: Robespierre  
3.4   
Republican freedom  
3.5   
Republican virtue and neutrality  
3.6   
The republican justification of Basic Income
4.   
Remunerated work, domestic work and voluntary work  
4.1   
Three kinds of work  
4.2   
Basic Income and the job market  
4.3   
Basic Income and domestic work  
4.4   
Basic Income and voluntary work
5.   
Poverty  
5.1   
A typology of poverty  
5.2   
Measuring poverty  
5.3   
The poor cannot be free
6.   
The welfare state and Basic Income  
6.1   
What is the welfare state?  
6.2   
The crisis  
6.3   
Justifications of the welfare state and some criticisms  
6.4   
Minimum income support  
6.5   
Basic Income in contrast with means-tested subsidies
7.   
Basic Income in comparison with other proposals  
7.1   
Traditional measures against poverty and unemployment: a more flexible labour market and reduction of working hours  
7.2   
Not-so-traditional measures against poverty and unemployment  
7.3   
Proposals that are more or less akin to Basic Income
8.   
Financing  
8.1   
Aims and scope of the model  
8.2   
Data and sample  
8.3   
The micro-simulation model  
8.4   
An ambitious example  
8.5   
Two more modest examples
9.   
Basic Income and its critics  
9.1.   
Ethical criticisms  
9.2   
Technical criticisms  
Notes  
Bibliography  
Index
 
 
 
 
 
 
TABLES AND FIGURES
TABLES
7.1   
Comparison of Basic Income with other schemes
8.1   
Estimated saving in social spending with the introduction of a Basic Income (Catalonia, 2003)
8.2   
Estimated cost of Basic Income for the population not covered in the sample (Catalonia, 2003)
8.3   
Main magnitudes of the sample
8.4   
Main results of the three examples
8.5   
Tax rates on net income by deciles
8.6   
Distribution of winners and losers by deciles of net income
FIGURES
8.1   
Tax rates over net income by deciles
 
 
 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In 1999, a first version of this book, El derecho a la existencia (The Right to Existence), was published in Spain by Ariel. At the end of 2005 Pluto Press gave me the opportunity to publish it in English. Although much of the original book is still pertinent today, research in the field of Basic Income has greatly benefited from many contributions over these six years and, what with all the political and social changes that have occurred as well, some parts clearly needed to be updated or completely rewritten. Pluto Press has now provided the perfect incentive for revising my original book, which, in its thoroughly reworked version, will be published in Spanish by El Viejo Topo.
Chapter 1 introduces the concept of Basic Income, identifies a number of common confusions, offers a brief account of its history and indicates the very interesting political role it could play at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Chapter 2 discusses some of the best-known academic theories of justice and reviews the work of such authors as John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Hillel Steiner and Philippe Van Parijs in outlining a number of philosophical justifications of Basic Income.
Chapter 3 will, I hope, offer ground-breaking material for English readers. My description of republicanism and theoretical justification of Basic Income in republican terms is based on ongoing original research (insofar as we can say anything is ‘original’, of course) I have been engaged in, along with several Catalan and Spanish-speaking colleagues who uphold the idea of republican freedom that is presented here. Republicanism in this book is rather different from the standard fare one finds in academic circles although, of course, our position is closer to the views of some than of others. Within this framework I shall establish a number of connections between the republican defence of Basic Income and some socialist and feminist concerns.
Chapter 4 distinguishes between three kinds of work (remunerated, domestic and voluntary), while pointing out some of the absurdities that can arise when they are confused and when remunerated work is identified as the only kind worthy of the name. A detailed analysis of the relationship between Basic Income and each of the three types of work is also offered.
Chapter 5 looks at different aspects of poverty: how it is measured, the relatively new phenomenon of the working poor, and how poverty affects men and women in different ways. Special attention is given here to the republican idea that the person who is poor is not (cannot be) free.
Chapter 6 presents a view of the welfare state that is rather different from what is found in the conventional literature. There is no getting away from the fact that some of the issues that I raise here will be contentious for those people who favour traditional welfare-state approaches. I also consider how Basic Income compares and contrasts with these ideas.
Chapter 7 constitutes an exhaustive overview of the differences (and similarities, where they exist) between Basic Income and other measures that have either been applied at different times and in different places during the last decade, or that are still on the drawing board as proposals whose supporters are trying to win over citizens and policy makers alike. I believe that this chapter is particularly necessary at a time when a good number of these proposals have been confused with Basic Income because of their supposed similarities.
Chapter 8 deals with the matter of financing Basic Income. This is perhaps one of the areas of Basic Income research where most advances have occurred in the last nine or ten years. Besides some general reflections on financing, I shall discuss in detail one particular proposal with which I am very familiar because I have been part of the research team involved and, more importantly, because it is a financing system that, with due database changes and adjustments appropriate to the fiscal reality of each situation, can be applied in many countries.
Finally, Chapter 9 considers eleven criticisms of Basic Income, offering a detailed response to each of them. Some of these criticisms have already been touched upon in different parts of the book. Others appear here for the first time. I believe this is a good way to reinforce and highlight some aspects of Basic Income that have perhaps not been given enough attention, while also summarising some of the points that are exclusive to this proposal.
Chapters 1 , 3 , 4 , 6 and 8 have been completely rewritten. Chapters 5 , 7 and 9 have been considerably modified. Chapter 2 , although it has also been subjected to cuts, extensions and, in particular, updating is probably the one that is least changed.
* * *
It is not an easy task to express my gratitude in individual terms to all the people who have inspired ideas, suggested new or further areas of reflection or helped in many other ways in the writing of this book. Any attempt to be exhaustive involves the risk of committing some injustice in the form of omission, yet it would not be very gracious on my part to offer my thanks in general terms alone because there are a lot of people whose contributions must be individually acknowledged for various reasons.
The project of publishing El derecho a la existencia in English all began in Valencia in October 2005, thanks to Jurgen de Wispelaere, for whose help I am very grateful. David Castle of Pluto Press worked with me in the early months of 2006, giving shape to the more technical aspects of the book, while Miguel Riera of the Spanish-language publishing house El