The Predistribution Agenda

The concept of predistribution is increasingly setting the agenda in progressive politics. But what does it mean? The predistributive agenda is concerned with how states can alter the underlying distribution of market outcomes so they no longer rely solely on post hoc redistribution to achieve economic efficiency and social justice. It therefore offers an effective means of tackling economic and social inequality alongside traditional welfare policies, emphasising employability, human capital, and skills, as well as structuring markets to promote greater equity. This book examines the key debates surrounding the emergence and development of predistributive thought with contributions from leading international scholars and policy-makers.

The idea of a guaranteed minimum income has been central to British social policy debates for more than a century. Since the First World War, a variety of market economists, radical activists, and social reformers have emphasized the possibility of tackling poverty through direct cash transfers between the state and its citizens. As manufacturing employment has declined and wage inequality has grown since the 1970s, cash benefits and tax credits have become an important source of income for millions of working-age households, including many low-paid workers with children. The nature and purpose of these transfer payments, however, remain highly contested. Conservative and New Labour governments have used in-work benefits and conditionality requirements to 'activate' the unemployed and reinforce the incentives to take low-paid work - an approach which has reached its apogee in Universal Credit. By contrast, a growing number of campaigners have argued that the challenge of providing economic security in an age of automation would be better met by paying a Universal Basic Income to all citizens. Transfer State provides the first detailed history of guaranteed income proposals in modern Britain, which brings together intellectual history and archival research to show how the pursuit of an integrated tax and benefit system has shaped UK public policy since 1918. The result is a major new analysis of the role of cash transfers in the British welfare state which sets Universal Credit in a historical perspective and examines the cultural and political barriers to a Universal Basic Income.

In recent years, the effects of economic openness and technological change have fuelled dissatisfaction with established political systems and led to new forms of political populism that exploit the economic and political resentment created by globalization. This shift in politics was evident in the decision by UK voters to leave the European Union in June 2016, the November 2016 election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, as well as the rise of populist movements on left and right throughout much of Europe. To many voters, the economy appears to be broken. Conventional politics is failing. Parties of the left and centre-left have struggled to forge a convincing response to this new phase of globalization in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. This book examines the challenges that the new era of globalization poses for progressive parties and movements across the world. It brings together leading thinkers and experts including Andrew Gamble, Jeffry Frieden and Vivien Schmidt to debate the structural causes and political consequences of this new wave of globalization.

This book is a Festschrift to Annamaria Simonazzi and embraces the themes that she has contributed to over the years through her insightful and inspiring works. It brings together contributions from a number of distinguished European economists, which pay tribute to her by engaging in a dialogue with her research, simultaneously reflecting on the process of growing economic disintegration in the European Union, its causes and its possible remedies. The book shows the deep interrelations between macroeconomic issues and the social sphere, and points to the need to rethink the very foundations of European economic policies as an effective antidote to growing imbalances and disintegration. In particular, the effects of austerity are assessed alongside the dimensions of inequality, gender discrimination, poverty, and unemployment, broadening the perspective also beyond the Eurozone. The authors envision a progressive society, in which investments in research and intelligent industrial policies govern the processes of technological change and drive the economy towards a more efficient and more equal model of development characterized by high productivity and high wages. While some chapters deal directly with policy issues, policy suggestions and proposals are scattered throughout the whole book. This volume will appeal to academics, economists, and policy-makers interested in understanding the policy response of European institutions to the challenges posed by both the Great Recession and subsequent developments in the European economies. The book is written in an engaging and accessible way, and the themes are broad enough to generate interest from the international public.

One of the world's leading scholars of EU employment law proposes alternatives to the Union's current social and labour policies.

Since 1946, Henry Hazlitt's bestselling Economics in One Lesson has popularized the belief that economics can be boiled down to one simple lesson: market prices represent the true cost of everything. But one-lesson economics tells only half the story. It can explain why markets often work so well, but it can't explain why they often fail so badly--or what we should do when they stumble. Quiggin teaches both lessons, offering an introduction to the key ideas behind the successes--and failures--of free markets. He explains why market prices often fail to reflect the full cost of our choices to society as a whole. Two-lesson economics means giving up the dogmatism of laissez-faire as well as the reflexive assumption that any economic problem can be solved by government action, since the right answer often involves a mixture of market forces and government policy. But the payoff is huge: understanding how markets actually work--and what to do when they don't. This book unlocks the essential issues at the heart of any economic question. --From publisher description.

There is one serious missing link at the center of today’s capitalism. It is a disequilibrium between increased economic interconnectedness and increased isolation/exclusion. This unique challenge in the 21st century calls for a unique solution: Ubuntu. Africa might be the last place where experts would look for an economic solution, but it ironically holds the secret to restoring the right equilibrium in the economy. Ubuntu’s ability to reconnect the marginalised with the mainstream by putting emphasis on our humanness, connectedness, collective growth through expansion and improved efficiency creates new capacity for the economy to rebalance itself towards genuine and sustainable progress. Ubuntu encapsulates that which is the opposite of economic exclusion (i.e. inequality, poverty, unsustainable growth, limited profits, etc.), namely economic inclusion. However, only a small window of opportunity exists – in and after the COVID-19 pandemic – to implement Ubuntu as a fundamental economic principle in order for it to be an effective remedy. The global economy and most local economies have entered the phase of rebuilding with a serious drawback: after the previous global financial crisis, both the economy and government’s capacity to recover are severely limited as unemployment levels, debt levels and natural resource depletion levels keep soaring, resulting in dangerous levels of economic exclusion and social instability. To this and more, the inclusive economy presents tangible solutions.