Book Review: Basic Income: A History, 2021 by Malcolm Torry

Abstract

After a long time searching, I have managed to find a comprehensive book written by a single author. He is, moreover, a very erudite and at the same time courageous author. A year before Torry brought out his book ‘Basic Income: A History’, the same publisher produced a multidisciplinary study by a collective of authors, entitled ‘AModern Guide to Citizen’s Basic Income’. Torry refers to this study, even recommending some passages to his readers. However, he himself provides a clear and comprehensive review of the history of basic income that is unparalleled in the book market. Torry’s book takes no position on the policy, treating it as a given fact, and merely provides a precise and careful analysis of the development of basic income ideas. In the first two chapters he examines such ideas in the writings of philosophers, later in social debates (Chapter 3), and then in the legal arrangements of those countries that have, in one way or another, incorporated basic income into the functioning of their social systems (Chapters 4–8). In Chapter 5, Torry discusses the development of the idea of basic income in the United Kingdom, in great detail. This and the previous chapter make it clear to the reader that the idea of basic income is very closely related to social policy, the fight against poverty and therefore the quest for social cohesion. Thus, basic income can also take the form, for example, of family benefits, which are not subject to any income or asset tests. In contrast, the following chapter focuses on basic income and how it is perceived in the US and Canada. In the context of the USA, the author distinguishes between Negative Income Tax and Minimum Income Guarantee and points out that most people, even experts, do not understand the difference between the two. Torry describes the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend as the culmination of efforts to establish an appropriate basic income. In Chapter 7, Torry returns to the UK, albeit from a different angle. He uses examples of misinterpretations and fake news to show the extreme importance of basic income, and the concept of social policy in general, for cohesion in society and to help it resist disinformation campaigns that aim to divide it. I would have placed this chapter after Chapter 5, even though this might have disturbed the chronological line used by the author to structure the whole monograph. Chapter 8, ‘Multiple Approaches to Basic Income in Continental Europe’, traces the debates on basic income in selected European countries. In my view, the choice of countries in this chapter is Book Reviews