Basic Income, Unemployment and Compensatory Justice

ISBN-13: 9781441952516 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 142 str.

Loek Groot

Opis

Basic income is a regularly debated topic in various scholarly disciplines (political philosophy, political theory, welfare economics, labour market economics and social policy) and in circles of policy makers, administrators and activists. Since the late 1970s, unemployment is the primary problem for social-economic policy in all welfare states. In Basic Income, Unemployment and Compensatory Justice it is argued that implementing a substantial basic income is the best policy response to deal with unemployment-induced problems such as job insecurity, social exclusion, poverty and lack of compensatory justice on the labour market and to improve labour market flexibility, boost low wage employment and part-time work. Basic Income, Unemployment and Compensatory Justice, with an introductory chapter by Philippe van Parijs, discusses the attractiveness of a substantial basic income to deal with the problem of unemployment, in combination with an ethical perspective of social justice. Loek Groot is a senior lecturer at the Utrecht School of Economics.

Spis treści

Chapter 1. Basic Income Confronted with Some Popular Ideas of Justice 1. Introduction 2. Self-reliance 3. Reciprocity: not only the truly lazy 4. Basic income and the work ethic Summary and conclusions Chapter 2. Compensatory Justice and Basic Income 1. Introduction 2. The economist’s view on compensatory justice 3. The objective approach to compensatory justice 4. The balancing approach to compensatory justice 5. The conditions of compensatory justice: the role of the social security system 5.1. Compensatory justice and conditional social security 5.2. Compensatory justice and basic income 6. Compensatory justice and parasitism Summary and conclusions Appendix Chapter 3. Basic Income, Un(der)employment and Jobs Shortage 1. Introduction 2. Hamminga’s thought experiment 3. The Labour Rights Scheme 3.1. Uniform productivity levels 3.2. Non-uniform productivity 4. The equivalent basic income scheme 4.1. Uniform productivity levels 4.2. Non-uniform productivity 5. Welfare policy and economic up- and downturns 6. Parasitism and exploitation 7. (Un)employment rents Summary and conclusions Appendix Chapter 4. Why Launch a Basic Income Experiment? 1. Introduction 2. The limitations of theoretical models and empirical research 3. Basic income versus negative income tax 4. The New Jersey income-maintenance experiment 4.1. The design of the New Jersey experiment4.2. The operations, surveys, and administration 5. Lessons drawn from the New Jersey experiments 6. Design of a new basic income experiment 6.1. Social assistance recipients 6.2. Workers 6.3. Prospective entrepreneurs 6.4. The cost of the experiment 6.5. Effects of a basic income to be researched Summary and conclusions Chapter 5. First Steps towards a Basic Income 1. Introduction 2. The impossibility theorem: A basic income is either too low to be socially acceptable or too high to be economically feasible 3. A partial basic income 4. An alternative route 5. Part-time workers 6. A differential basic income Summary and conclusions Conclusion References Author Index

O autorze

Loek Groot studied economics (University of Amsterdam) and philosophy (Catholic University of Leuven), received his Ph.D. (cum laude) in 1999, was Grotius Post-Doctorate Research fellow at the Department of Political Science (University of Amsterdam), is member of the Amsterdam School of Social Research (ASSR) and now working at SISWO/Netherlands Institute of the Social Sciences. He was (co)editor, together with Robert van der Veen, of the book Basic Income on the Agenda. Policy Objectives and Political Chances (2000).

Phillippe van Parijs is Professor of Economic and Social Ethics at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. His books include Marxism Recycled (1993) and Real Freedom for All. What (if anything) can justify capitalism (1995). In 2001 he received the Prix Francqui for his entire oeuvre.