Battling Eight Giants

Today in the richest countries in the world, 60% of those in poverty work full-time, inequality is the highest it has been for 100 years, climate change threatens our extinction and automation means millions are forced into a life of precarity.

The solution? Basic Income. Here, Guy Standing, the leading expert on the concept, explains how to solve the new eight evils of modern life, and all for almost zero cost. There is a better future, one that makes certain all citizens can share in the wealth of the modern economy.

Far from being a new idea, Standing shows how the roots of basic income go back to the Charter of the Forest, one of two foundational documents of the state – the other, sealed on the same day, being the Magna Carta. All citizens have a right to the wealth created by capitalism, and all – left or right, rich or poor – can benefit from a dynamic and creative economy created by the guarantee of subsistence to all.

About the Author

Guy Standing is Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London, a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences, and co-founder and now honorary co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), an international NGO that promotes basic income.

He was previously Professor of Development Studies in SOAS, Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath (UK), Professor of Labour Economics at Monash University (Australia), and Director of the International Labour Organisation's Socio-Economic Security Programme. He has also been a consultant for many governments and international bodies, including the United Nations and its agencies, the European Commission, the OECD, and the World Bank.