"Leaving Work Behind" is the title of a 2/8/2014 NYT essay by the conservative columnist Ross Douthat. The URL for the column is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/douthat-leaving-work-behind.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss Douthat uses the flap about Obamacare's supposed work disincentive as a departure point. The thrust of the column is to open a discussion of providing a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) or Negative Income Tax to replace other parts of the welfare state. This emerging advocacy of a BIG on the right is troubling. You'll find this paragraph in the Douthat piece: > But it’s also possible to argue that as a rich, post-scarcity society, we > shouldn’t really care that much about whether the poor choose to work. The > important thing is just making sure they have a decent standard of living, > full stop, and if they choose Keynesian leisure over a low-paying job, that’s > their business. In a book I am reviewing, THE TROUBLE WITH WORK (a terrific book) the author, Kathi Weeks of Duke, proposes a work week of 30 hours, with NO cut in pay AND a Basic Income Guarantee --- based on a 1998 manifesto by Stanley Aronowitz and others. That's a proposal from the Left, obviously, and in Weeks case you can infer the income level would be significantly higher than what a conservative might deem appropriate. Perhaps you've noticed that on the Right there are today noticable supporters of a BIG. Douthat mentions them but is himself unsold. He thinks work is essential to dignity, mobility and social equality. (Of course WAGED work is not essential to all that but Douthat overlooks that.) My point in calling this Douthat essay to your attention is to spur a discussion of the BIG as opposed to alternatives. Weeks points out that a dominant strain of Marxist/socialist ideas is to promote more work -- better work but work nevertheless. Kathi Weeks supports less work or no work. When Occupy or its lineal offspring once more takes the stage, the discussion we might now have could be useful. Gene _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
