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" The claim that if people had a basic income they would become lazy is prejudiced and has been refuted many times in many places. "

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" We are in an era of chronic insecurity and growing inequalities. In that context, we need to have new mechanisms for income distribution which give people a sense of security. "

" The precariat is today's mass class, which is both dangerous, in rejecting old political party agendas, and transformative, in wanting to become strong enough to be able to abolish itself, to abolish the conditions of insecurity and inequality that define it. "

" Using political power, the elite can induce local authorities to facilitate enclosure and privatisation of land, water, and other hitherto public amenities. And they can pressurise public administrations to cut taxes, reducing financial resources for maintaining the remaining commons. "

" People in the precariat rely very heavily on money wages. "

" Growth in village economies is often ignored. It should not be. "

" Globalisation began what should be called the Great Convergence, creating a globalising labour market in which wages in emerging market economies slowly converge with wages in rich economies, generating a steady drop in real wages across Europe. "

" Millions of people in many so-called democratic countries have lost the right to vote, or never obtain it. And millions clearly feel that the political mainstream is not articulating a vocabulary or policies oriented to their needs and aspirations. "

" Public social services, infrastructural policies, and so on are vital. But a basic income should be part of a package of reforms. "

" The World Bank and others have been converted to conditional cash transfers (CCT). These provide poor people with cash on condition they send their children to school and for medical treatment. "

" Nobody should be allowed to fund political parties unless they pay at least 30% tax on all income above the median wage. If that rule applied, the Tory party would be bankrupted overnight. "

" We need a new model of social protection. Let us accept that jobs are not the magic solution - and that in a globalised market, job guarantees are a false promise. Let us accept flexible labour, too. But in return, let us have a society in which everybody has a right to basic security and a more equal access to other insurance-based schemes. "

" Think of how much time is spent looking and applying for jobs. Some of those who have read my book on the precariat have told me they have applied for thousands of jobs. This is scarcely leisure; it is work. "

" Twentieth-century welfare state capitalism was historically unique in that national income was split between wages and profits, labour and capital. "

" Across Europe, not just in the U.K., the old Beveridge and Bismarckian variants of the welfare state have been dismantled. In their place has been erected a mish-mash of means-tested, behaviour-tested social assistance, with a growing tendency to force young unemployed into workfare schemes, which are helping to depress real wages. "

" Many low-income people in the U.S.A. charged with a crime opt to plead guilty to a lesser offence because they cannot afford to go to trial. "

" The Magna Carta was the first class-based charter, enforced on the monarchy by the rising class. "

" A democratically governed national fracking fund should be set up, perhaps similar to what Norway and Alaska have. Areas of drilling should be rented to companies through public tender, with or without subsidies, and a rising share of profits beyond a negotiated upper limit should be deposited in the national capital fund. "

" I don't see basic income as a panacea, but we must have a new income distribution system. The old one has broken down irretrievably. "

" A rich and diverse commons lowers the cost of living for those who use it. And throughout history, it has been those on low incomes who gain most from the commons. "

" Many in the precariat know they have to spend considerable time just waiting for opportunities to arise. "

" A multi-tier social protection system must be based on a modest basic income so as to enable the precariat to build lives involving a balance of different types of work, not just labour in jobs. "

" Chronic insecurity will not be overcome by minimum wage laws, tax credits, means-tested benefits, or workfare. "

" The precariatised mind is one without anchors, flitting from subject to subject, in the extreme suffering from attention deficit disorder. But it is also nomadic in its dealings with other people. "

" Think of a public library, worth more for those who cannot afford numerous books. Think of a public waterway or fishing ground. All types of commons have imputed monetary value that together comprise a source of social income. As such, the commons reduces economic inequality and insecurity in society. "

" The primary value of a basic income would be its emancipatory effect. "

" In financial affairs and dealings with the state, those in the precariat are disadvantaged since they are usually less well-informed and have to do much more to satisfy demands made on them if they want to gain meagre state benefits. "

" Successive governments in the U.K. have worked to create a more flexible labour market, which also meant labour insecurity. They allowed wages to drop and non-wage benefits to shrivel, creating worse inequality than statistics reveal. "

" Sanctions and workfare make it easier for employers to impose insecure practices on desperate people. "

" If schooling becomes little more than preparation for the job market and consumption, it cannot produce socially responsible and altruistic citizens. "

" If the scale of gas is anything like the claims made by its advocates, it has major implications for the economy and British society. Besides its worrying environmental aspects, it could have adverse effects on income distribution. "