Tony Fitzpatrick

Freedom and Security: An Introduction to the Basic Income Debate

Figures and Tables List of Abbreviations Preface and Acknowledgements Foreword Christopher Pierson PART 1: PERIPHERAL VISIONS Forward to Basics The Benefits and Burdens of Social Security The Basics of Basic Income The Defence Versus the Prosecution PART 2: WHOSE FREEDOM? WHOSE SECURITY? The Radical Right: Universal Means-Testing Welfare Collectivism: Beyond Selective Insurance Socialism and Social Dividend Feminism and Basic Income Ecologism and Basic Income Afterword Endnotes Bibliography Index

Social Policy and Time

Time is crucial to the implementation, operation and effectiveness of social policies, yet the subject has often treated the meaning of time as theoretically unproblematic. It focuses more upon what policies do and less upon the contexts within which the practices and assumptions of social actors are embedded. The article offers a more sophisticated theoretical account of time upon which is based an exploration of the main temporal features of welfare capitalism. It then goes on to examine three recent and prominent research projects in order to show how and why they fail to incorporate a convincing social theory of time.

The implications of ecological thought for social welfare

Relatively little attention has been given by the discipline of social policy to ecological critiques. Yet if those critiques are even marginally accu rate, in terms of the explanations which they offer and the assessments which they make, then this is a neglect which cannot continue indefi nitely. The aim of this article is to help rectify such neglect. The article begins by reviewing the principal approaches which ecological thought takes to social welfare, noting various similarities and dissimilarities to other ideologies. It then contrasts a productivist with a non-productivist, or ecological, model which the author believes could assist in the redesign, and Greening, of social welfare.

Critical cyberpolicy: network technologies, massless citizens, virtual rights

This article suggests that those interested in both welfare theory and welfare policy cannot afford to overlook the emerging interactions between online and offline environments. It explores the main parameters of the debate relating to cyberspace, in particular, and Information and Communication Technologies more generally. It argues that the pervasiveness of free market capitalism means that the negative consequences of the Internet for society and social welfare reform are those most likely to prevail at present. The task of the social policy community, then, is to contribute to a ‘cybercriticalism’. The article outlines a concept of ‘virtual rights’, the purpose of which is to reinvigorate the traditional categories of rights in an information society to which they often appear unsuited.

The Fourth Attempt to Construct a Politics of Welfare Obligations

Since the 1980s there have been three main attempts to ground citizenship upon the principles of duty, obligation and responsibility: conservative, communitarian and Third Way. Each of these are reviewed below. The principal task of this article, though, is to examine the emergence of a fourth attempt which, by relating duty to equality through the principle of reciprocity, represents a synthesis of traditional social democracy with the new politics of obligation. Our focus will be upon The Civic Minimum by Stuart White since this is arguably the most cogent expression of duty-based egalitarianism to have emerged in recent years. Key words: citizenship, equality, reciprocity, Basic Income

A Post-Productivist Future for Social Democracy?

The purpose of this article is to contrast productivism with post-productivism and raise a question mark over the extent to which social democrats should support the former rather than the latter. It offers a definition of post-productivism, explaining this in terms of the ‘reproductive value’ of care and sustainability. The paper then sketches the limits to social democracy and indicates why post-productivist solutions might therefore be appropriate. It concludes by speculating on some implications for social policy.

Social Policy for Cyborgs

Although the body has become of increasing importance throughout the social sciences, it has been neglected by the discipline of social policy. The aim of this article is to rectify that neglect. It argues that the connections which some have begun to make between social welfare and the body can be strengthened by reference to the figure of the cyborg. The article develops a model that can be used to explain the cyborgization of social identity. This process of cyborgization is then related to contemporary trends in social welfare: the individualization of rights and the collectivization of duties which is occurring via the prevalence of surveillance technologies and the ideology of productivism. These trends signify a drift towards what can be called post-social security.

Postmodernism, Welfare and Radical Politics

This article argues that postmodernist theory is something which students of social policy should neither accept uncritically nor dismiss out of hand. Firstly, the article takes issue with the responses made to postmodernist theory by Ramesh Mishra and Peter Taylor-Gooby. Secondly, it argues that the ideas loosely known as ‘reflexive modernisation’ constitute a more measured and critical response, though such ideas are likely to be of little use to social policy research in the absence of any reference to a left-right spectrum. Thirdly, it argues that by combining reflexive modernisation with a left-right spectrum, a decentred conception of welfare emerges which could be of value to a radical left politics. Finally, it argues for a Citizens Income as a reform proposal which has the potential to establish such a system of decentred welfare.

The two paradoxes of welfare democracy

This article has three objectives. First, to apply the debate concerning deliberative or discursive democracy to the subject of social policy in order to renew and update the long-standing attempt to go beyond the paradigm of welfare-state capitalism. The ‘crisis of universalism’ is outlined and this is then explained in terms of the traditional welfare state’s ‘democratic deficit’. Second, to suggest that applying these debates reveals two paradoxes that bear implications not only for social policy but also for the entire project of discursive democracy. The first paradox refers to the need to combine proceduralist and pluralist theories of deliberative democracy, despite the ultimate irreconcilability of these philosophies. The second refers to the problem of social transition and the fact that democratisation and social equalisation require one other. The third objective is therefore to suggest that welfare traditionalists have nothing to fear from what are here called ‘post-universalist’ critiques.

Time, social justice and UK welfare reform

While analyses of time have never strayed too far away from those of social justice, and vice versa, this articles premise is that they have so far failed to converge as directly and coherently as they might. The aim of this article is to facilitate a greater degree of convergence by working within a framework of liberal equality and establishing similarities in the work of the two theorists who have gone furthest in bringing the various debates together. These are Robert Goodin and André Gorz, and the article explores the respective strengths and weaknesses of their ideas. A liberal theory of socio-temporal justice is derived from their work and is then used to critique some recent developments in UK welfare reform.