Abstract
This chapter is made up of three articles. The first two respond to the ‘We can’t afford it’ objection, the first in general terms, and the second by being clear about the difference between ‘Basic Income’ and ‘Basic Income scheme’, which objectors to Basic Income rather too often confuse with each other. A Basic Income is always an unconditional income paid regularly to every individual; a Basic Income scheme is a Basic Income, with the levels for different age groups specified, the funding method specified, and any changes to existing taxes and benefits fully specified. Showing that a particular Basic Income scheme would be unaffordable does not prove that Basic Income is unaffordable. It only requires one Basic Income scheme to be affordable for Basic Income to be affordable. The third article is a response to authors who called something a Basic Income when it was not one. Their criticisms of an income-tested benefit were entirely reasonable. What was not reasonable was to say that the same criticisms could therefore be made in relation to Basic Income, which they cannot. The global Basic Income debate is important, so it needs the best available evidence and the best possible logic.
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References
Basic Income Earth Network. (2022). Basic Income. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://basicincome.org/
Citizen’s Basic Income Trust. (2022). Citizen’s Basic Income. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://citizensincome.org/
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Torry, M. (2017). A variety of indicators evaluated for two implementation methods for a Citizen’s Basic Income (Euromod working paper EM12/17). Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.euromod.ac.uk/sites/default/files/working-papers/em12-17.pdf
Torry, M. (2018a). Citizen’s income: Both feasible and useful. In P. Van Parijs (Ed.), Basic Income and the left: A European debate (pp. 97–102). Social Europe Ltd.
Torry, M. (2018b). What is an unconditional Basic Income? A response to Rothstein. In P. Van Parijs (Ed.), Basic Income and the left: A European debate (pp. 110–115). Social Europe Ltd.
Torry, M. (2018c). Speenhamland, automation, and Basic Income: A response. Renewal, 26(1), 32–35.
Torry, M. (2019). Static microsimulation research on Citizen’s Basic Income for the UK: A personal summary and further reflections (EUROMOD Working Paper EM13/19). Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.euromod.ac.uk/sites/default/files/working-papers/em13-19.pdf
Torry, M. (2020). Evaluation of a Recovery Basic Income, and of a sustainable revenue neutral Citizen’s Basic Income, with an appendix relating to different Universal credit roll-out scenarios (Institute for Social and Economic Research Working Paper EM7/20). Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/research/publications/working-papers/euromod/em7-20.pdf
Torry, M. (2021). Three income maintenance options for 2021. Centre for Microsimulation and Policy Analysis report. Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.microsimulation.ac.uk/publications/publication-526555/
Acknowledgements
The first part of this chapter was first published as a post on the ‘Social Europe’ website, https://socialeurope.eu/, on 10 April 2017, and subsequently as Malcolm Torry (2018), ‘Citizen’s Income: Both feasible and useful’, in Philippe Van Parijs (ed.), Basic Income and the Left: A European debate, London: Social Europe Ltd., pp. 97–102. Social Europe’s permission to republish the article is gratefully acknowledged.
The second part of the chapter was first published as a post on the ‘Social Europe’ website, https://socialeurope.eu/, on 11 December 2017, and subsequently as Malcolm Torry (2018), ‘What is an Unconditional Basic Income? A response to Rothstein’, in Philippe Van Parijs (ed.), Basic Income and the Left: A European debate, London: Social Europe Ltd., pp. 110–115. Social Europe’s permission to republish the article is gratefully acknowledged.
The third part of this chapter was first published as Malcolm Torry (2018), ‘Speenhamland, automation, and Basic Income: A response’, in Renewal, volume 26, no. 1, pp. 32–35. The editor’s permission to republish the article is gratefully acknowledged.
Much of the material in the articles were presented at the BIEN Congress in Tampere in 2018. The congress paper is published as Chapter 4 in this volume.
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Torry, M. (2022). Objections and Responses. In: Basic Income—What, Why, and How?. Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14248-2_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14248-2_9
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