Category: Capitalism

The Politics of Universal Basic Income

The Universal Basic Income (UBI) has a long history. The idea to provide all citizens with an unconditional and regular income cash benefit without means-test or requirement[1] has been discussed as far back as the 18th century[2].

Thinkers on the right are attracted to its simplicity, which contrasts with the current complex welfare state arrangements in most advanced economies, its minimalism and its low adverse effects on work incentives, since it is paid irrespective of labour market participation.

On the left, people emphasise its universalism and unconditionality which would reduce the gaps in coverage of current benefits and ensure labour is decommodified, thereby increasing the power of workers to bargain for better working conditions and wages.

Its detractors are similarly located across the ideological spectrum. Many liberal economists see UBI as prohibitively expensive and inefficient insofar as it directs resources to those who may not need them.

Others on the left see UBI as a dangerous legitimisation of capitalism and an implicit acceptance that not everyone will be provided a job. They also emphasise UBI’s limited ability to address all the social risks that individuals face in a market economy.

Finally, some trade unions, particularly in Bismarckian welfare regimes, oppose what they see as releasing employers of their social responsibility. Trade unions also voice concerns that this will reduce their institutional power which lies in their key role in managing the administration of social insurance benefits.

Continue reading “The Politics of Universal Basic Income” →

New paper on link between labour, central banks and EMU crisis

Transfer (2013), 19(1): 89–101.
Bob Hancke
Summary
This article examines the problems of the single currency in light of the organization of labour relations in the Member States and their interaction with monetary policies. Continental (western) Europe consists of two very different systems of employment and labour relations, roughly coinciding with ‘coordinated market economies’ in the north-west of the continent, and ‘Mixed Market Economies’ in the south. These differences in employment relations and wage-setting systems implied that, against the background of a relatively restrictive one-size-fits-all monetary policy in place since 1999, the north-west of the continent systematically improved its competitiveness, while the south lost competitiveness in parallel. Small differences between the two groups of countries at the start of EMU thus were accentuated and, against the background of low growth and an almost closed E(M)U economy, the northern coordinated market economies accumulated current account surpluses while the GIIPS (Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain) ran into severe balance of payments problems in 2010 and 2011.

Reactions to the economic crisis

New paper by Jonas Pontusson and Damian Raess: “How (and Why) Is This Time Different? The Politics of Economic Crisis in Western Europe and the United States“

Abstract 

This article compares government responses to the Great Recession of 2008–2009 with government responses to recessions and other economic challenges in the period 1974–1982. We focus on five countries: France, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Across these countries, we observe two broad shifts in crisis responses. First, governments have in the recent period eschewed heterodox crisis policies and relied more exclusively on fiscal stimulus. Second, tax cuts have become a more important component of fiscal stimulus while spending cuts have featured more prominently in governments’ efforts to consolidate their fiscal position. We argue that crisis responses reflect the interests and power of domestic actors as well as external constraints and the nature of the economic problems at hand.

How to Study Contemporary Capitalism?

Wolfgang Streeck (2012).

Abstract

The paper argues that contemporary capitalism must be studied as a society rather than an economy, and contemporary society as capitalist society. Capitalism is defined as a specific institutionalization of economic action in the form of a specifically dynamic system of social action, with a tendency to expand into, impose itself on and consume its non-economic and non-capitalist social and institutional context, unless contained by political resistance and regulation. The paper illustrates its perspective by four brief sketches, depicting contemporary capitalism as a historically dynamic social order, a culture, a polity, and a way of life. All four examples, it is claimed, demonstrate the superiority of a longitudinal-historical approach over static cross-sectional comparisons, and of focusing on the commonalities of national versions of capitalisms rather than their “varieties”

European Journal of Sociology, Volume 53, Issue 01, April 2012 pp 1-28
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=8582710