Abstract
This paper argues that Philippe Van Parijs’s original arguments for an unconditional basic income, while representing a distinctive proposal, rest on flawed assumptions. A contrast is drawn between Rawls’s anti-capitalism and Van Parijs’s defence of an optimised capitalism. His UBI proposal leaves in place the social power of the rentier-investor class and undermines effective political agency. This poses a problem for achieving a sufficient level of a UBI given its grounding on gifts and rents. The innovation of treating labour market rents as the source of a UBI involves a tension between full employment policy and that which a liberal state may promote. A UBI is also likely to be inflationary in a self-stultifying way. An alternative view, drawing on the work of Keynes, Kalecki and Minsky, is developed. Ultimately Van Parijs’s “Left Rawlsianism” collapses into Rawls’s anti-capitalist conception of a property-owning democracy.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 20190015 |
| Number of pages | 38 |
| Journal | Basic Income Studies |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 7 Jul 2020 |
Bibliographical note
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.Keywords
- Unconditional Basic Income
- Justice
- Equality
- John Rawls
- Hyman Minsky
