Sharing Job Resources: Ethical Reflections on the Justification of Basic Income

Jurgen De Wispelaere, Trinity College Dublin

Abstract

Philippe Van Parijs’s ethical justification of basic income is based on the argument that job resources must be shared equally. Underlying this idea are two important claims: (1) all individuals in society hold an ex ante entitlement in job resources and (2) job resources are tradable. First, I present the real-libertarian argument for sharing job resources. Next, I identify and critically review three different objections against this view: the liability objection, the cooperation objection and the parasitism objection. I believe the parasitism objection poses a serious challenge to basic income, and argue that Van Parijs’s most plausible response - based on the idea that job resources are socially owned - is flawed. I provide the outline of an alternative normative basis for grounding a person’s ex ante entitlement to job resources using an institutionalist approach.