For Work / Against Work
Debates on the centrality of work

"The job guarantee: delivering the benefits that basic income only promises–a response to Guy Standing"

by Tcherneva, Pavlina R (2012)

Abstract

The present article offers three critiques of the universal basic income guarantee (BIG) proposal discussed by Standing in this volume. First, there is a fundamental tension between the way income in a monetary production economy is generated, the manner in which BIG wishes to redistribute it, and the subsequent negative impact of this redistribution on the process of income generation itself. The BIG policy is dependent for its existence on the very system it wishes to undermine. Second, the macroeconomic effects of BIG on contemporary economies that use modern money are destabilizing. The job guarantee (JG), by contrast, stabilizes both the macro-economy and the currency while helping transform the nature of work itself. Finally, the employment safety-net in Standing’s piece is not an accurate representation of the modern JG proposals – a confusion which this paper aims to remedy.

Keywords

Basic Income, Job Guarantee, Economic Security

Themes

Universal Basic Income, Job Guarantee, Economics

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