Basic Income What, Why, and How?: Aspects of the Global Basic Income Debate

The global Basic Income debate is now widespread, diverse, and relatively well resourced by academic and more popular literature: but that does not mean that there is universal agreement about every topic of discussion. In fact, there is still a quite heated debate about some of the most basic questions, such as ‘What is a Basic Income?’ ‘What’s the point?’, and ‘Is it feasible?’

This book is not yet another general introduction to Basic Income. There are already plenty of those. It is entirely about those aspects of the debate about which there is most discussion and sometimes the most conflict. It is based on conference papers, previously published chapters, and other previously published articles, working papers, and reports: material that has already benefited from consultation and debate, as is appropriate for a book about aspects of a debate that are the subject of frequent consultation and discussion.

Malcolm Torry is a visiting fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath and a trustee and treasurer of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). He was previously the director of the Citizen’s Basic Income Trust and a senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics.