Looking the Basic Income Gift Horse in the Mouth

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin No. 1241, by John Clarke, April 1, 2016.

… Looking Deeper Into the Gift Horse:

As soon as you start to look into the question of Basic Income or, as it was often called in the past, Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI), you are immediately struck by the ease and enthusiasm with which free market thinkers and warriors of the neoliberal order have embraced the concept. From Milton Friedman to Charles Murray, the idea has found warm support on the political right. There are some clear and obvious reasons why this is so. Firstly, the very idea of a basic level of income is about establishing a floor and right wing proponents are confident they can locate it in the basement. A low and inadequate social minimum seems to them a great way of folding in existing, relatively adequate programs so as to, precisely, drive people into deeper poverty.   Continuer la lecture de « Looking the Basic Income Gift Horse in the Mouth »

Natural Capital: What Is the True Cost of Food?

Published on Spiegel Online International, by Anna Behrend, April 2, 2016.

A kilogram of new potatoes this week costs just €1.29 in some German supermarkets. But is that the whole story? Not by a long shot. Environmental costs are almost always completely ignored. Some, though, are trying to change that … // Continuer la lecture de « Natural Capital: What Is the True Cost of Food? »

The Rebellion Will Not Go Away

Published on Down with Tyranny *, by Gaius Publius, March 29, 2016.

… The Sanders- and Trump-led (for now) political rebellion is not going to go away. There are only two questions going forward:

  • Will it remain a political rebellion, one that expresses itself through the electoral process, or will it abandon the electoral process as useless after 2016?
  • Will it be led by humanitarian populism from the left, or authoritarian populism from the right?
  • Continuer la lecture de « The Rebellion Will Not Go Away »