Today in one the richest countries in the world, 60% of households in poverty have people in jobs, inequality is the highest it has been for 100 years, climate change threatens our extinction and automation means millions are forced into a life of precarity.
The solution? Basic Income. Here, Guy Standing, the leading expert on the concept, explains how to solve the new eight evils of modern life, and all for almost zero net cost. There is a better future, one that makes certain all citizens can share in the wealth of the modern economy.
Far from being a new idea, Standing shows how the roots of basic income go back to the Charter of the Forest, one of two foundational documents of the state – the other, sealed on the same day, being the Magna Carta.
All citizens have a right to the wealth created by capitalism, and all – left or right, rich or poor – can benefit from a dynamic and ecologically grounded economy created by the guarantee of subsistence to all.
Author(s): Guy Standing
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Year: 2020
Language: English
Tags: Inequality, Precarity, Basic Income, Poverty, Capitalism, Socialism, Money, Subsistence, Economy
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Slaying giants with basic income
Defining basic income
Why is basic income needed?
Slaying the eight modern giants
Chapter 2: The immorality of Universal Credit
Reviving and enhancing disability benefits
Chapter 3: Why basic income beats the alternatives
Answering the objections
Chapter 4: Piloting basic income in Britain
What should be piloted?
How should basic income pilots be designed?
Where should pilots be conducted?
Chapter 5: Taking the first steps
Appendix A: Experience with pilots
Appendix B: Why a job guarantee would be no alternative
Appendix C: Why ‘universal basic services’ would be no alternative
Notes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Index
