Situating a Basic Income Alongside Paid Work Policies

Basic Income and Time Use Democratization

Basic Income Studies ◽

10.1515/bis-2016-0012 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Corina Rodríguez Enríquez

Keyword(s):

Time Use ◽

Time Allocation ◽

Direct Consequence ◽

Unpaid Work ◽

Income Generation ◽

Paid Work ◽

Basic Income ◽

Unequal Distribution ◽

Main Obstacle ◽

Paid And Unpaid Work

AbstractTime has become a valuable asset within capitalism. “Time is money” is a well known and usually shared principle. As in regard to many other type of assets, the distribution of time is pretty unfair, as well as it is the value consideration of the time allocated for different people to different activities. The distribution of time, as well as what people can or cannot do with their time, is a key issue among feminist debates. The main argument is that time allocation to paid and unpaid work is very different and unfair between genders. Women allocate much more time to unpaid work, and men, on the contrary allocate much more time to paid work. This has a reasonable and direct consequence in terms of income generation. This unequal distribution of time (and work) represents the main obstacle to women’s economic autonomy and to overcome gender income gaps.

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Undoing Work, Rethinking Community

10.7591/cornell/9781501714863.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

James A. Chamberlain

Keyword(s):

Social Structure ◽

Alternative View ◽

Contemporary Society ◽

Paid Work ◽

Basic Income ◽

Workplace Flexibility ◽

Relational Ontology ◽

Civic Duty ◽

Inoperative Community

This book argues that the civic duty to perform paid work in contemporary society undermines freedom and justice. While workplace flexibility and the unconditional basic income (UBI) both offer prospects for greater freedom and justice, they also harbor the risk of shoring up the work society. To avert this danger, we must therefore reconfigure the value and place of paid work in our lives. Moreover, we need to rethink the meaning of community at a deeper level, and in particular, abandon the view that community is constructed by work, whether paid or not. This task raises significant challenges, but Jean-Luc Nancy’s work on the “inoperative community” provides key philosophical guidance. Since the relational ontology of this alternative view of community stands in stark tension with capitalism, a liberal-reformist approach to lessening the burden of paid work that fails to tackle the underlying economic and social structure offers only limited gains in terms of freedom and justice. Moving beyond the work society and more fully realizing freedom and justice therefore entails nothing short of a new conception of community and the struggle against capitalism.

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Living differently? A feminist-Bourdieusian analysis of the transformative power of basic income

The Sociological Review ◽

10.1177/00380261211034674 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 003802612110346

Author(s):

Hanna Ketterer

Keyword(s):

Labour Market ◽

Social Structures ◽

Paid Work ◽

Basic Income ◽

Direct Link ◽

Transformative Power ◽

Work And Employment

This article examines the idea that basic income has transformative power. It does so by scrutinising Erik O. Wright’s theory of transformation from a feminist-Bourdieusian perspective. Rather than assuming a direct link between basic income and actors’ turning away from the capitalist labour market, this is a perspective that emphasises conditions of possibilities for practices beyond paid work and employment. To explore actors’ practices, I analyse how basic income would interact with both the objectified social structures and incorporated dispositions – above all, with actors’ dominant disposition to paid work. I argue that for basic income to transform capitalism, a transformation of the habitus is needed.

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Unconditional Basic Income

Undoing Work, Rethinking Community ◽

10.7591/cornell/9781501714863.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

James A. Chamberlain

Keyword(s):

Distributive Justice ◽

Social Recognition ◽

Paid Work ◽

Basic Income ◽

The Social

This chapter shows that many arguments for the UBI extol its capacity to boost employment. A UBI motivated by this goal would enhance distributive justice, but would fail to tackle three problems with work: the mismatch between the social recognition and the contribution that a job makes to society; the marginalization of those who cannot or will not perform paid work, even though many contribute to society through unpaid activities; and the pressure that paid work puts on the non-paid activities that make up a rich and rewarding life. To counter these risks, we need to argue for the UBI in conjunction with a critique of the work society, and as a measure that can take us beyond it.

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