Here's one from the Washington Post's Wonkblog:
In light of the recent Oregon Medicaid study, several people have discussed the idea of taking parts of the social insurance system and replacing them with cash benefits. This naturally brings up the debate about whether it should be a policy goal for the United States to adopt a universal basic income (UBI). These poverty-level targeted incomes are universal and unconditional, so everyone would get them regardless of their income, status or work participation. Wonkblog’s Dylan Matthews wrote an overview of universal basic incomes and some proposals for such a system last year.HT: Clusterstock
Though establishing a basic income was once at the forefront of politics, it has since become more of a Utopian, abstract project. But sometimes it is helpful to step back from the day-to-day wonk work and think Utopian.
First, what are some advantages of providing a universal basic income? To those on the left, a UBI would create greater equality by ending poverty and providing a minimum living standard. It would also increase bargaining power for workers, who could demand better working conditions with a safety cushion. As Erik Olin Wright argues in Envisioning Real Utopias, such bargaining power “will generate an incentive structure for employers to seek technical and organizational innovations that eliminate unpleasant work,” which would “have not just a labor-saving bias, but a labor-humanizing bias.”
The fact that it is universal is crucial. This eliminates income traps that can cause severe work disincentives. A UBI answers the Foucauldian critique about the welfare state being a way for the state to stigmatize and control marginalized populations. There are no state officials determining whether or not a single mom “deserves” help or drug tests and other invasive, humiliating requirements. Others see UBI as a way of recognizing the value of decommodified caregiving and other cooperative, non-labor activities, by making sure there is space in the economy to both reward and carry them out.
Meanwhile, a few conservatives have advocated a form of basic income for a different set of reasons. The right likes basic income because it would allow for the removal of many overlapping and piecemeal government programs, such as food stamps and unemployment insurance, as well as programs the government directly runs....MORE
See also a whole bunch of Izabella Kaminska's posts at FT Alphaville which have been poking at this stuff for the last year-and-a-half.
Also:
Zeitgeist: The Economics of Overripe Capitalism
Labor and Capital: Welcome to Peak Capitalism
Marginal Revolution: "What are the policy implications of capital-biased technological change?"
