En defensa de la renta básica

It has been years since the proposal for a basic income burst into public debate with force. The measure defends that every citizen receives an unconditional and universal public monetary allocation. Its detractors reject it, arguing that it is an immoral measure and an unsustainable utopia on an economic scale. However, there are more and more reasons that support the relevance of this redistributive measure. On the one hand, the worsening living conditions of a large part of the population since 2008, accelerated during the pandemic and the energy crisis, have shown the insufficiency of conditional subsidies. On the other hand, beyond its philosophical-political justifications as an instrument for reducing growing levels of inequality, basic income is also assisted by technical reasons. To demonstrate this, the authors of this book highlight, among other reasons, the empirical evidence of the good results of pilot plans carried out in different parts of the world. The novelty that this exhaustive study provides is related to financing. The authors, four renowned economists who are experts in the field, analyze in depth the various sources of information that exist today, and through which a very detailed vision of inequality, poverty, precariousness and the more than immoral concentration of wealth installed in our society. Such problems, along with increasing people's freedom - in the republican sense of the term - are the objectives of basic income. The financing model they propose, with its different variants, serves to demonstrate the viability of this ambitious economic policy. Even in the European Union as a whole.