In Company of the Funny Sunny Surfer off Malibu: A Response to Michael Howard (and Some Others)
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Gijs van Donselaar
Abstract
In ‘Exploitation, Labor, and Basic Income’ Michael Howard undertakes to defend an Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) as non-exploitative, and on a revised conception of what Marx called ‘exploitation’. Without taking issue with the revision itself, I point out that Howard, like many others, fails to defend UBI as non-exploitative. All his arguments fail to establish that the so-called ‘Surfer off Malibu’, a figure who is full-time dedicated to leisure, is not an exploiter in receiving UBI. The strategies to include him as a rightful recipient of a labor-free income rely on the (sometimes far-fetched) attribution of certain contingent features to him that would entitle him to compensation or reward, but that he might also not have. I argue that the best strategy for UBI-advocates is to admit that ‘slackers’ should be merely tolerated as non-deserving recipients, because the UBI-policy will otherwise have good effects. Finally, I raise some questions about these good effects, as they are conceived by UBI-advocates such as Howard.
© 2015 by Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Contents
- Editorial: The Normative Turn from Marxism
- I. Marx and Ethics: Coherent Company?
- Marx and Mendacity: Can There Be a Politics without Hypocrisy?
- Why Marxism Still Does Not Need Normative Theory
- The Moral Legacy of Marxism
- II. G. A. Cohen’s Development
- G. A. Cohen and Marxism
- Thoughts on G. A. Cohen’s Final Testament
- Equality, Community, and Diversity in Cohen’s Socialist Ideal
- G. A. Cohen, Constructivism, and the Fact of Reasonable Pluralism
- III. Marx and Liberalism
- The Theory of Marxian Liberalism
- Freedom in Times of Struggle: Positive Liberty, Again
- Libertarianism on the Brink
- Sterba on Liberty and Welfarism
- A Response to Jan Narveson: Why Libertarians Are and Are Not Like Turnips
- IV. Repercussions
- Myths about the State of Nature and the Reality of Stateless Societies
- Horkheimer, Religion, and the Normative Grounds of Critical Theology
- Exploitation, Labor, and Basic Income
- In Company of the Funny Sunny Surfer off Malibu: A Response to Michael Howard (and Some Others)
- Authors
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Contents
- Editorial: The Normative Turn from Marxism
- I. Marx and Ethics: Coherent Company?
- Marx and Mendacity: Can There Be a Politics without Hypocrisy?
- Why Marxism Still Does Not Need Normative Theory
- The Moral Legacy of Marxism
- II. G. A. Cohen’s Development
- G. A. Cohen and Marxism
- Thoughts on G. A. Cohen’s Final Testament
- Equality, Community, and Diversity in Cohen’s Socialist Ideal
- G. A. Cohen, Constructivism, and the Fact of Reasonable Pluralism
- III. Marx and Liberalism
- The Theory of Marxian Liberalism
- Freedom in Times of Struggle: Positive Liberty, Again
- Libertarianism on the Brink
- Sterba on Liberty and Welfarism
- A Response to Jan Narveson: Why Libertarians Are and Are Not Like Turnips
- IV. Repercussions
- Myths about the State of Nature and the Reality of Stateless Societies
- Horkheimer, Religion, and the Normative Grounds of Critical Theology
- Exploitation, Labor, and Basic Income
- In Company of the Funny Sunny Surfer off Malibu: A Response to Michael Howard (and Some Others)
- Authors
