Production is not possible without re-production, we all agree on this obvious truth. The emerging commons movement however has been focusing largely on production, whether it be material or immaterial, on the one hand, and on “care” on the other hand. In a commons approach, this production is looked at from the vantage point of capital control/ownership and self-determination/autonomy of workers. These two points automatically lead to the question that is linked to but goes far beyond “care”: the question of re-production. What about the status of workers and their labour rights in P2P, cooperatives or social and solidarity economy contexts? How to avoid exploitation and self-exploitation of workers? How to protect the health and safety of workers and their families? Or simply put, how to preserve and promote the re-production of workers and protect people’s livelihoods? And how to make a solid link between production and re-production? Continue…

‘An unconditional payment to everyone at meaningfull but fiscally realistic levels would require tax rises as well as reductions in existing benefits, and would often not be an effective tool for reducing income poverty’

‘Basic income as a policy option’ and ‘Technical Background Note Illustrating Costs and Distributional Implications for Selected Countries’

Campaigners for a Universal Basic Income or Citizen’s Basic Income are calling for the state to give everyone, including rich and poor, earners and non-earners, adults and children, a uniform sum of money each week.  It is a simple idea that has wide appeal, not least to those concerned about the impact of automation on jobs and the misery caused to people who must prove their incapacity to work to qualify for income support.

Like most ‘silver bullet’ solutions, its apparent simplicity belies its many contradictions and dangers.  Here are some reasons why it is not a good idea. Continue…

New report of the New Economics Foundation (Anna Coote) on social commons!http://neweconomics.org/2017/05/building-new-social-commons/

La pauvreté est une réalité. Des centaines de millions de personnes dans le monde souffrent d’un manque de revenu, de la faim, de maladies parfaitement curables, de manque de logement décent, de systèmes d’éducation défaillants… Au début du XXIème siècle, nos richesses abondantes et nos capacités technologiques sophistiquées sont en mesure d’éradiquer la pauvreté d’un coup. Pourtant, nous ne le faisons pas. Pourquoi ? Continue…

BIEN, the basic income network, creates some badly needed clarity about the basic income proposals in France: an interesting article:

FRANCE: Piketty’s comments on basic income cause confusion

A couple of days ago, I received the most recent newsletter of BIEN (Basic Income Earth Network). As always, this is very interesting literature, though one must read it with one major fact in mind: the network does not necessarily communicate about basic income … it talks about ‘basic income’ (for all, rich and poor) but almost all the items concern guaranteed minimum incomes (for those who need it). Continue…

(VI Congreso de la Red Española de Políticas sociales, Sevilla 16-17 February 2017)

In the current period of uncertainty and anxiety for the future, it gives confidence to look back at the not so far away past, in order to see what was possible then and what has been real only fifty years ago: national social pacts within developing welfare states in the North and global agreements on the need for social progress in the South. It is also good to remember that it is not the recent crisis of 2008 that has put an end to these pacts and agreements. Indeed, the real turn came with the crisis of the 1970s and the ‘structural adjustment’ programmes in the South from the 1980s onward. More recently and everywhere, social protection acquired a new meaning, aimed at ‘human capital’, protecting the most vulnerable while promoting markets and growth. What is new today, is that we are also faced with fundamental changes in modes of production and consequently changes on the labour markets. While several innovative proposals for social protection are being made, the need for a new and global social pact in order to promote the sustainability of life, for humans and for nature, is particularly urgent.

Continue…

On the problems of debating with advocates of basic income

Discussing the question of basic income (BI) and social protection (SP) is a very delicate exercise. In the many debates I was involved in these past years, it was very rare to see  any convergence of ideas. Even if it should be clear for everyone who knows the social problems, that there are many points in both positions – in favour of BI or in favour of SP – that are perfectly compatible. It also happened many times that debates I myself tried to organise, could not take place because the people invited – advocates of BI – resigned at the last moment.

In this article, I will only speak about my own experience and I will try to look for explanations for the non-debates. There surely is a lot of semantic confusion, there clearly is a lot of ignorance about social protection and its mechanisms, there may also be some ‘post-truth’ elements, by which I mean that people state something they should know can never be true, and yes, I think that some people do not want to put their own beliefs into question. They are afraid of a confrontation with other beliefs. Continue…

Introduction to the workshop on Commons and Public Services at the AlterSummit on Social Rights (26-27 November 2016, Brussels)

Our world to-day is faced with two major challenges: ecological destruction and the social question. Both problems are closely linked to democracy, that is the way citizens can govern and shape their world and can give direction to the policies that are needed to preserve our planet and sustain the livelihoods of people.

But as we know, democracy is threatened and we run the risk that both our natural environment and the necessary social protection people need are irremediably destroyed. Urgent action is needed.

Let me say some words on the social question. We know that the post-war social pacts are on the brink of being abandoned, faced as they are with fundamental changes in our economies and our societies, but also with ideological offensive policies that slowly but surely destroy our collective solidarity mechanisms. Public services are being privatised, marketised or commodified, whatever word we may use: in almost all cases it means that people lose their universal right to these services and have to buy on the market what they badly need. Continue…