Basic income and distributive justive

Question 1

Unemployment benefits

Answer 1

whereby a jobseeker can claim regular cash payments from the state to assist them in hard times.

Question 2

Two parameters of unemployment benefits

Answer 2

1. Means-tested: only those whose income or wealth is below some threshold may receive the payments. In most systems, the level of benefit varies in accordance with how far below the threshold and individual falls.
2. Conditional: the receipt of these benefits is conditional on the claimant of exhibiting a willingness to find employment. States often deny unemployment benefits to individuals who’re unable to prove that they’re seeking employment, those who decline job offers, and those who’ve voluntarily resigned from a previous post.

Question 3

Basic income

Answer 3

There is growing support for the idea that each individual should enjoy a basic income. In contrast to unemployment benefits, this policy has two distinguishing features.

1. Basic income is universal: as opposed to means-tested, these benefits don’t vary in accordance with the level of income and wealth that they receive from other sources.
2. Unconditional: they’re granted independently of whether the claimant exhibits any willingness to find employment.

Question 4

Three effects of basic income

Answer 4

1. The income effect: Now someone isn’t merely formally free, but also has the means to do so **
2. The exit option effect: Basic income enhances the bargaining power of disadvantaged employees, so too it improves the circumstances of mostly women who’d be financially dependent on their partners otherwise
3. The unemployment trap effect: Basic income will greatly reduce the obstacle to finding employment. If an individual’s entitlements are universal, rather than means-tested, then they will not diminish when they find work. Any earnings that they receive will only increase their income.

• basic income should be:
  1. Progressive: meaning that it benefits the poor more than the rich, and;
  2. Redistributive: meaning that it takes resources from the rich and gives them to the poor.

Question 5

Justice as fairness (Rawls)

Significance of income and exit

Answer 5

A conception of social justice, concerned with the basic structure of society, its constitution, legal and economic system, various policies and regulations.
1. The orginial position: principles of social justice should be developed by imagining representatives selecting them in the original position, a hypothetical scenario where they lack specific information about their clients’ characteristic. These representatives must choose principles behind a veil of ignorance -> ensuring fairness regardless of individual traits.
2. Social primary goods: refer to all-purpose means that each individual wants or needs in order to participate freely and equally in social cooperation, whatever their characteristics or interests are.

Question 6

Five social primary goods (Rawls)

(Rawls’s currency of distributive justice)

Answer 6

1. Certain basic rights and liberties (such as, freedom of thought and conscience)
2. Freedom of movement and of occupational choice
3. Positions of power and responsibility in society
4. Income and wealth
5. Social bases of self-respect

Armed with this currency, Rawls argues that the representatives in the original position would settle on the following principles, which constitute justice as fairness:
- Principle of basic liberties: each individual is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar liberty for all, including freedom of expression, freedom of association, the right to vote etc.

• Principle of fair equality of opportunity: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.
• Difference principle: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to be the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.

Question 7

Democratic equality (Anderson)

Significance of income and exit

Answer 7

he conviction that we should be concerned with ‘equality as a social relationship’. We should oppose several types of unequal social relations. To appreciate what this means, it’s useful to reflect on historical societies in which individuals occupied distinct ranks in a social hierarchy, such as when individuals were designated as masters or servants
- capabilities: that are especially important are those that are necessary for an individual to participate in social, economic, and political life as an equal member of a democratic society

Question 8

Distributive justice argument

Answer 8

• M: the state should improve the circumstances of the least advantaged and work to ensure that no one suffers oppressive social relations
• E: via its income effect and exit option effect, basic income improves the circumstances of the least advantaged and works to ensure that no one suffers oppressive social relations.
• C: the state should introduce basic income.

Revised moral claim: the state should improve the circumstances of the least advantaged and work to ensure that no one suffers oppressive social relations, on the condition that these individuals contribute to their society.