Articles
Why Basic Income can Never be a Progressive Solution: an answer to Philippe Van Parijs
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Most advocates of basic income only answer the arguments of the right – mainly concerning the willingness to work – and never imagine there can be valid arguments for the left to resist their proposals.
In that sense we have to be grateful to Philippe van Parijs that he addresses social democracy specifically in his defence of basic income. However, his answers are not very satisfactory.
Let me start with the easy point on which we fully agree: social assistance needs fundamental changes.
Read the article on Social Europe
An inconvenient affinity
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In spite of all the horrible news we are daily faced with, from climate change to Panama papers and terrorism, there is also some hope that, yes, indeed, another world is made possible.
The neoliberal consensus is slowly fading away, people start to realize there are many alternatives that would allow for better lives on a sustainable planet.
An important role in the emergence of new perspectives is being played by the young generations, all over the world. Their protests have taken on new forms, they got rid of the paralyzing ideological and often sectarian conflicts of their parents and grand-parents, they tackle problems immediately themselves, they experiment with new ways of living, working and … of doing politics.
Africa: PPPs as a model for development?
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Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are generally defined as a marriage between the public and private sector to deliver specific functions, and end users often pay for the services. For a private company to sign up, a PPP has to be commercially profitable. It is therefore important for governments to fully understand the risks and costs associated with entering into PPP arrangements.
There is no share economy. Let us stop pretending it exists
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Three big reasons why we need to think differently about online platform jobs.
On the same day last week that Ottawa became the latest Canadian city to recommend ‘legalizing’ Uber, the MaRS Solutions Lab released its “Sharing Economy Public Design Report”, the goal of which was to outline considerations for how municipalities might “help build a sharing economy that benefits the city”. For those unfamiliar with the term, the report offered a definition: “The ‘sharing economy’ is a paradigm of peer-to-peer lending that enables the sharing, borrowing or bartering of underutilized assets in exchange for goods, services or money… It is a fundamentally community-driven approach.”
There’s just one problem: this is hogwash.
Read more: There is no share economy. Let us stop pretending it exists
What is left of the rise of the South?
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The prominence of emerging market economies (EMEs) during the 2008 financial crisis improved prospects for more multipolar global financial governance. The recent setbacks experienced by EMEs, however, raise the question as to whether global financial governance is still becoming more multipolar.
