Basic Income Guarantee and Politics: International Experiences and Perspectives on the Viability of Income Guarantee PDF
Preview Basic Income Guarantee and Politics: International Experiences and Perspectives on the Viability of Income Guarantee
Basic Income Guarantee and Politics Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee Basic income is one of the most innovative, powerful, straightforward, and controversial proposals for addressing poverty and growing i nequalities. A Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is designed to be an unconditional, government-ensured guarantee that all citizens will have enough income to meet their basic needs. The concept of basic, or guaranteed, income is a form of social provision and this series examines the arguments for and against it from an interdisciplinary perspective with a special focus on the economic and social factors. By systematically connecting abstract philosophical debates over competing principles of BIG to the empirical analysis of concrete policy proposals, this series contributes to the fields of economics, politics, social policy, and philosophy and establishes a theoretical framework for interdis- ciplinary research. It will bring together international and national scholars and activists to provide a comparative look at the main efforts to date to pass unconditional BIG legislation across regions of the globe and will identify commonalities and differences across countries drawing lessons for advanc- ing social policies in general and BIG policies in particular. Series Editors: Karl Widerquist is a visiting associate professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University-Qatar. James Bryan is an associate professor of Economics at Manhattanville College. Michael A. Lewis is an associate professor at Hunter College School of Social Work. Basic Income Reconsidered Simon Birnbaum Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend Edited by Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard Basic Income Guarantee Allan Sheahen Basic Income Guarantee and Politics Edited by Richard K. Caputo Basic Income Guarantee and Politics International Experiences and Perspectives on the Viability of Income Guarantee Edited by Richard K. Caputo BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE AND POLITICS Copyright © Richard K. Caputo, 2012. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-11691-7 All rights reserved. First published in 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-29762-7 ISBN 978-1-137-04530-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137045300 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Basic income guarantee and politics : international experiences and perspectives on the viability of income guarantee / [edited by] Richard K. Caputo. p. cm.—(Basic income guarantee) Includes bibliographical references. 1. Guaranteed annual income. 2. Income maintenance programs. I. Caputo, Richard K. HC79.I5B342 2012 331.2(cid:2)36—dc23 2011050320 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: August 2012 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To My Dearest Friend and Lovely Wife Mary In Memory Emily and Salvatore Caputo, My Parents Philip Caputo, My Uncle and Social Policy Sparring Partner Previous Publications U.S. Social Welfare Reform: Policy Transitions from 1981 to the Present (2011). Advantage White and Male, Disadvantage Black and Female: Income Inequality, Economic Well-Being and Economic Mobility among Families in a Youth Cohort, 1979–1993 (1999). Welfare and Freedom American Style II: The Role of the Federal Government, 1941–1980 (1994). Welfare and Freedom American Style: The Role of the Federal Government, 1900–1940 (1991). Management and Information Systems in Human Services (1988). Challenges of Aging on U.S. Families: Policy and Practice Implications (2005, Editor). Contents Acknowledgments ix Part 1 Introduction 1 H opes and Realities of Adopting Unconditional Basic Income Guarantee Schemes 3 Richard K. Caputo 2 O n the Political Feasibility of Universal Basic Income: An Analytic Framework 1 7 Jurgen De Wispelaere and José Antonio Noguera Part 2 Hopes 3 T he Best Income Transfer Program for Modern Economies 4 1 Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy 4 A n Anniversary Note—BIEN’s Twenty-fifth 5 5 Guy Standing Part 3 Realities European Union Countries 5 F inland: Institutional Resistance of the Welfare State against a Basic Income 63 Markku Ikkala 6 G ermany: Far, though Close—Problems and Prospects of BI in Germany 83 Sascha Liebermann 7 I reland: Pathways to a Basic Income in Ireland 107 Seán Healy and Brigid Reynolds 8 T he Netherlands: Final Piece of the Welfare State Is Still to Come 125 Michiel van Hasslet viii CONTENTS 9 K ingdom of Spain: Basic Income from Social Movements to Parliament and Back Again 135 Daniel Raventós, Julie Wark, and David Casassas Other OECD Countries 10 A ustralia: Will Basic Income Have a Second Coming? 153 John Tomlinson 11 C anada: A Guaranteed Income Framework to Address Poverty and Inequality? 177 James P. Mulvale and Yannick Vanderborght 12 Japan: Political Change after the Economic Crisis Introduces Universalist Benefit 2 03 Toru Yamamori 13 Mexico: The First Steps toward Basic Income 217 Pablo Yanes 14 The United Kingdom: Only for Children? 235 Malcolm Torry 15 U nited States of America: GAI Almost in the 1970s but Downhill Thereafter 265 Richard K. Caputo Other Countries 16 Iran: A Bumpy Road toward Basic Income 2 85 Hamid Tabatabai Notes on Contributors 3 01 Index 307 Acknowledgments I wish to thank the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Center for International Affairs at Yeshiva University whose Faculty Summer Research Fellowship award program made it possible for me to extend and sustain my schol- arly interests in the ethics and economics of basic income as an aspect of social welfare provisioning. Michael Howard, Michael Lewis, Steve Pressman, and Karl Widerquist also get thanks for inviting me to brain- storm with them about the prospect of approaching Palgrave Macmillan with the idea of a book series about basic income and for encouraging me to undertake this book as a contribution to that series. I am thankful to each of the contributing authors for their thoughtful chapters and reflec- tive responses to editorial comments and to the Palgrave Macmillan staff (Tiffany Hufford, Lauri Harting, Samantha Hasey, Leila Campoli, and Joel Breuklander) and Newgen Knowledge Works staff (Deepa John), who oversaw and helped me negotiate the production and copyedit- ing process. Thanks also go to Sheldon Gelman, Carmen Hendricks, Jade Docherty, and Ann Persaud who afforded me sufficient “space” given my responsibilities for administering the doctoral program at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work (WSSW). Their commitment to cre- ating and maintaining an environment conducive to faculty scholarship within WSSW as a whole enabled me to worry less about day-to-day pro- grammatic needs of the doctoral program and to do what was necessary for the successful completion of this book. Finally, I thank my wife Mary who enhances all the good things in my life, of which this book is one, and to whom the book is dedicated.
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