Thomas, Alan Price orcid.org/0000-0002-8053-7195 (2020) Full Employment, Unconditional Basic Income, and the Keynesian Critique of Rentier Capitalism. Basic Income Studies. 20190015. ISSN 1932-0183
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 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 |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > Philosophy (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 30 Oct 2020 15:50 |
Last Modified: | 19 Oct 2024 23:56 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2019-0015 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1515/bis-2019-0015 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:167461 |
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