Basic Income

As part of the Party's blogging team, i surf the web and, in particular, the "left progressive" news-sites so i generally get a feel of what is being discussed and now become part of the political discourse…Last few months the Basic Income has featured in a number of stories.

The last time we really went into it on any depth was when Stuart made it a proposal for it to Left Unity policy and got shot down by the LU economic sub-committee or what ever it is labelled and so their conference dismissed the idea 

But it has not gone away on the wider political arena…if anything i have noticed it being raised even more.

From Basic Income to Social Dividends

Free Money for Everyone! What’s the World Coming To?

I know it has been dealt with in the Socialist Standard (what hasn't featured in its columns over the years) but i think it is always useful that we widen our education section to include whats become popular as supposed alternatives or improvements to capitalism. 

Our website is valuable and valued resource for knowledge but its education section seems to be static, archive material from the past, and not an ongoing project. For someone like myself without the degree of understanding about many topics that other mebers possess, knowing where to go to learn is vital for me, and even better if it is all summed up in one location that can be linked to during online discussions. 

I'd like to see an analysis of the Universal Basic Income and a critique of it posted. Ideally i would like to see ourselves to argue that free access is more a social imperative than "free money" and that Basic Income proponents are short on both ambition and imagination and the sensible, logical and rational reasoning that follows their well-intentioned objectives must be "from each according to ability, to each according to need", not a half measure.