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The “UBI” ideas being thrown around as a response to the coronavirus are, in many cases, neither universal, basic, nor an income. But they do show how much the Left has shifted what’s considered possible over the past decade.
In Canada, the results of pandemic income support seem to confirm the claims of universal basic income advocates. But to make UBI work, we need to ensure it's coupled with a massive expansion of welfare state policies.
In Welfare for Markets, Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora show that cash transfers emerged as an alternative to the welfare state favored by a left that had abandoned hope in socialism and a right hostile to democratic management of the economy.
Universal cash assistance programs have provided an indispensable financial lifeline for households and the economy as a whole during the pandemic. But contrary to many advocates of a universal basic income, the past year's experience offers no model for a left policy agenda in normal times.
Without the right design, a universal basic income would do little to advance radical change.
A Universal Basic Income may not be much of a utopia in itself, but it points in surprisingly radical directions.
The Labour Party announced today that in the next election, it will fight for Universal Basic Services, making public services free at the point of use and universally accessible. It’s a landmark in the fight to curb the influence of the market over our lives.
Even if we were to free ourselves from the capitalist work ethic and provide everyone with a universal basic income, our society would still require some amount of socially necessary labor. Socialists should strive to reimagine work, not eliminate it.
Political maneuvers and bureaucratic resistance helped sink Finland’s widely watched basic income experiment. But the most important factor behind the policy’s demise was its uneasy relationship with widespread social norms about work and fairness.
Imagine a different inauguration. If we had a working-class party, what would it fight for?
A universal basic income would shore up the market. We need ideas that shrink it.
There’s no way toward a sustainable future without tackling environmentalism’s old stumbling blocks: consumption and jobs. And the way to do that is through a universal basic income.
A new book on universal basic income argues for us to "give people money." Sounds good. But a lot of old questions about how to do it are still left unanswered.
People across the political spectrum support a universal basic income. Socialists must make the anticapitalist case for it.
10 percent of all national income is paid out to the 1 percent as capital income. Why not give it to all as a universal basic income?
The failings of the Affordable Care Act are rooted in a long shift away from the idea of a truly universal health care.
Concern trolls often ask how we can "afford" socialist policies. Once we're in power, we'll have options. For now, just ignore them.
Trumpcare is barbaric. Now is the time to redouble the fight for truly universal health care.
