The Right To Work Versus the Right to Income

By Sally Cowling, William Mitchell and Martin Watts

The failure to provide productive employment for all those willing and able to work is one of the major weaknesses of capitalism

Alan Blinder made this statement and issued it as a challenge in 1987 and sadly it remains an unanswered one. Policy failure is pervasive. Casual employment and part-time employment when workers want more paid work is increasing and insecurity and inequality are on the rise. This paper compares and contrasts proposals to introduce a universal Basic Income and a proposal for a Job Guarantee and looks at them in terms of their place in developing sustainable full employment.

(Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE) Working Paper no. 03-08. University of Newcastle)