Suchergebnisse

AbstractWe execute an original survey experiment to examine the extent and determinants of support for a nascent policy issue, universal basic income (UBI), in the American public. We explore the effects of how UBI is framed (either in the context of values or the context of policy), finding three key results. First, UBI is primarily a Democratic and liberal policy. Second, negative arguments against UBI move support for UBI more than positive arguments. Third, and surprisingly, respondents are equally affected by both policy‐driven and value‐driven arguments about UBI. In conclusion, an increase in messaging about UBI is likely to widen existing partisan differences in UBI support. These differences are unlikely to be won over by policy or values arguments.

Debate around a universal basic income (UBI) tends to focus on the economic and social implications of the policy proposal. Less clear, however, are the factors influencing support for a UBI. Using the 2016 European Social Survey, we investigate how trade union membership and left political ideology (central to power resources theory) and attitudes towards immigrants' access to welfare benefits (central to welfare state chauvinism) affect individual support for a UBI. We also investigate how country-level differences in levels of social spending moderate individual-level UBI support. Results from multi-level models suggest that a broader coalition of UBI supporters can generally be found in countries where social spending is low. Specifically, we find that welfare state chauvinism is more likely to be associated with negative attitudes towards a UBI in countries with high levels of spending, but has only a weak association with UBI support in low-spending countries. Similarly, political ideology is more consequential in explaining UBI support in countries with higher levels of spending. These tensions form a demand–capacity paradox: the countries which are presumably least equipped to implement a UBI see the most broad-based support for the policy.

El presente trabajo analiza la propuesta de la renta básica universal partiendo de sus orígenes hasta el debate que se produce en la actualidad, donde la cuestión no se centra tanto en la fundamentación normativa de la misma, como en su viabilidad política y económica. Además, se analizan las diferencias con las rentas mínimas o el ingreso mínimo vital que fue aprobado por el Gobierno español en junio de 2020. Por último, se plantea que la renta básica universal puede jugar un papel relevante en el contexto actual de las relaciones laborales caracterizadas por su precarización, jugando como un contrapeso a la misma. ; The present paper analyzes the proposal of the universal basic income starting from its origins until the debate that takes place at present, where the question does not focus so much on the normative foundation of it, as on its political and economic viability. In addition, the differences with the minimum incomes or the minimum vital income that was approved by the Spanish Government in June 2020 are analyzed. Finally, it is proposed that universal basic income may play a relevant role in the current context of labor relations characterized by their precariousness, playing as a counterweight to it.

Cover -- Contents -- Abstract -- I. Introduction -- II. Definition and Debate -- III. Weaknesses and Limitations of Existing Safety Nets -- IV. An Analytical Approach for Assessing Ubi -- V. Bringing the Analytical Approach to the Data -- A. Country Selection and Assumptions -- B. Gross Fiscal Cost and Redistributive Impacts -- C. Three Financing Scenarios -- VI. Conclusions and Policy Discussion -- References -- Tables -- 1. Gross Fiscal Cost and Redistributive Impacts of a UBI -- 2. Calibration of a UBI on Current Non-Contributory Transfers and Coverage and Progressivity of Existing Programs -- Figures -- 1. UBI Key Features and Scholar Position Examples -- 2. Social Assistance Spending - Middle and Low-Income Countries -- 3. Social Assistance Spending - European Countries -- 4. Coverage of Social Assistance Programs by Income Level -- 5. Incidence of Means-Tested Social Benefits (excluding pensions) - Average EU 28 -- 6. Analytical Framework -- 7. Generosity, Progressivity and Coverage of Non-Contributory Transfers -- 8. Low Generosity-Progressivity-Coverage of Existing Transfers vs. UBI: Country B -- 9. High Generosity-Progressivity-Coverage of Existing Transfers vs. UBI: Country G -- 10. Trading Off Coverage and Progressivity of Existing Transfers: Country C -- 11. Trading Off Coverage and Generosity of Existing Transfers: Country D

The idea of universal basic income (UBI) has taken on new life as people experience greater inequality and greater exploitation than ever before—combined with the recurrence of the historically-cyclical fear of mass unemployment driven by rapid advancements in automation technologies. But the idea of providing every person with a certain amount of money, regardless of their socioeconomic status or (in)ability to or (dis)interest in working, is far from universally-accepted by socialists. This essay offers replies to three common socialist criticisms of various basic income proposals, in an effort to defend the radical potential of UBI; a potential that is consonant with the fundamental goal of the socialist project—achieving a democratic, non-exploitative world beyond capitalism.

Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has revived discussions about universal basic income (UBI) as a potential crisis response. Yet despite favorable circumstances, little actual policy change in this area was observed. This article seeks to explain this absence of policy change and to reflect on the prospects for introducing UBI schemes after the pandemic in European democracies. I argue that public opinion on UBI provides few electoral incentives to push for social policy change. Using prepandemic data from 21 European democracies and pandemic data from the UK, I show that political support for UBI has been divided between different groups who advocate conflicting policy goals and who hold divergent views about existing welfare state arrangements. While support for UBI might have increased during the pandemic, the underlying political dividing lines are likely to have remained intact. Due to these enduring divisions and the stable support for existing social policy arrangements over an untested policy, the prospects for introducing UBI schemes in the post-pandemic world remain uncertain.

Few studies to date have analysed individual support for universal basic income (UBI). This article theorizes and explores empirically the relationship between different strands of left ideology and support for UBI across European countries. We delineate three types of concerns about capitalism: "Labourist Left" worry about exploitation; "Libertarian Left" about repression and "Social Investment Left" about inefficiencies. Contrary to expectations we derive from political theory and welfare state literature, our results based on data from the European Social Survey suggest that having high concerns about exploitation is positively correlated with support for UBI, whereas repression concerns are negatively correlated with support. In line with our hypothesis about social investment ideology, left-leaning individuals with efficiency concerns are more likely to support UBI. Our findings call for more detailed surveys as well as further research on the different ideologies within the Left and how these relate to variation in support for UBI, which crucially shapes the potential political coalition behind the introduction of UBI.

This new edited collection brings together historians and social scientists to engage with the global history of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and offer historically-rich perspectives on contemporary debates about the future of work. In particular, the book goes beyond a genealogy of a seemingly utopian idea to explore how the meaning and reception of basic income proposals has changed over time. The study of UBI provides a prism through which we can understand how different intellectual traditions, political agents, and policy problems have opened up space for new thinking about work and welfare at critical moments. Contributions range broadly across time and space, from Milton Friedman and the debate over guaranteed income in the post-war United States to the emergence of the European basic income movement in the 1980s and the politics of cash transfers in contemporary South Africa. Taken together, these chapters address comparative questions: why do proposals for a guaranteed minimum income emerge at some times and recede into the background in others? What kinds of problems is basic income designed to solve, and how have policy proposals been shaped by changing attitudes to gender roles and the boundaries of social citizenship? What role have transnational networks played in carrying UBI proposals between the global north and the global south, and how does the politics of basic income vary between these contexts? In short, the book builds on a growing body of scholarship on UBI and lays the groundwork for a much richer understanding of the history of this radical proposal.