Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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Universal Basic Income: a balanced view
What to make of the concept loved and loathed in equal measure by left and right? After the coronavirus it is time to take a less ideological and more realistic approach to UBI, argues BERT SCHOUWENBURG
Universal Basic Income — not the answer, but a step in the right direction?
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
THE economic shutdown occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing job losses have rekindled enthusiasm for the introduction of a universal basic income (UBI), a concept that manages to divide opinion not only between left and right, but within left and right circles too. Some of the reasons given for opposing UBI can actually be deployed in its favour, such is the range of positions adopted by its supporters and detractors.
In order to properly analyse UBI, it is important to define exactly what it is and in doing so dispel some of the myths surrounding it. Sometimes referred to as a “citizen’s income,” UBI is a flat-rate benefit paid to all, ideally at an amount equivalent to or greater than the prevailing poverty line, sufficient for one person to live on.
It would replace all means-tested benefits such as the hated universal credit but would leave in situ other material benefits related to housing, education and health. It is not, as one Morning Star correspondent erroneously claimed, the neoliberal scheme supported by Milton Friedman who posited the idea of negative income tax as a means of abolishing all welfare payments.
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