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40 Comp. Lab. L. & Pol'y J. 239 (2018-2019)
Basic Income as Common Dividends: A Rejoinder

handle is hein.journals/cllpj40 and id is 263 raw text is: BASIC INCOME AS COMMON DIVIDENDS: A REJOINDER Guy Standingt The critiques by Brishen Rogers and Jose Noguera stem from premises very different from those that have motivated my work and advocacy of basic income over the years. I began by using the term social dividend and now find myself preferring common dividend (or commons dividend), for reasons explained later.' Both Noguera and Rogers seem to base their critiques on a defence of social democracy, and both suggest I support basic income as a mechanism for poverty alleviation and as a more equitable policy for doing so than other forms of welfare, notably means-tested social assistance. However, the main reasons I support a basic income system are social justice, freedom, and basic security, which is why the first three substantive chapters are on those rationales. Noguera does not mention anything from those chapters but concentrates solely on instrumental aspects covered in chapters 5 to 8. He concludes by saying that poverty alleviation seems to be the ultimate value to justify UBI.''2 I respectfully disagree. Suppose, for the sake of illustration, you could show that a targeted, workfare-oriented system could eradicate income poverty at lower cost than a basic income. I would still not support it. This is partly because income deprivation is a structural issue that should be addressed by economic reforms. But more relevantly, my opposition would come from the rejection of freedom in such a system, as well as the sexual bias and the fact that it would strengthen five of the eight modem giants that I see as blocking the pursuit of a Good Society for the twenty-first century-inequality, insecurity, debt, stress, and precarity.3 t Professorial Research Associate, SOAS University of London. Email: guystanding@standingnet.com 1. There is an incidental point. Although the critics describe me as a UBI advocate and, in Noguera's case, as liking a partial basic income as a second-best option, I explicitly reject both terms UBI and partial basic income, for reasons given in the book. 2. Jos6 A. Noguera, The Second-Best Road Ahead for Basic Income, 40 COMP. LABL. L. & POL'Y J. 223-238 (2019). 3. The eight giants (recalling Beveridge's five giants in his 1942 report) are identified as providing the core justification for basic income in the UK in a report commissioned for the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. GUY STANDING, BASIC INCOME AS COMMON DIVIDENDS: PILOTING A TRANSFORMATIVE POLICY (2019). See also Guy Standing, Battling eight giants with basic income, PROJECT SYNDICATE (Jan. 14, 2019).

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