La cultura de las rentas básicas. Historia de un concepto
José Iglesias Fernández


Anexo I.- Textos en su idioma original

Platón ( nacido por el 427-347 a. c.). The Republic. Penguin Books. England 1968. Michael B. Foster. “Plato to Machiavelli”. Masters of Political Thought. Vol. I, Harrap & Co. Ltd. London 1963.

    Término: mechanical arts and fire as the means of life; justice and reverence to all

    Justificación. “Justice is, for Plato, at once a part of human virtue and the bond which joins men together in states. It is an identical quality which makes man good an which makes him social. This identification is the first  and fundamental principle of Plato’s political philosophy… (p.45)

    “This is illustrated by a myth which Plato puts in the mouth of Protagoras, the Sophist:

    Once upon a time there were gods only, and no mortal creatures. But when the time came that these also should be created, the gods fashioned them out of earth and fire and the various mixtures of both elements in the interior of the earth; and when they were about to bring them into the light of day, they ordered Prometheus and Epimetheus to equip them, and to distribute to them severally their proper abilities and powers.

    Epimetheus said to Prometheus: “Let me distribute and do you inspect”. This was agreed, and Epimetheus made the distribution. There were some to whom he gave strength without swiftness, while he equipped the weaker with swiftness; some he armed, and others he left unarmed; and devised for the latter some other means of preservation, making some large, and having their size as a protection, and others small, whose nature was to fly in the air or burrow in the ground; this was to be their way of escape. Thus did he compensate them with the view of preventing any race from becoming extinct. And when he had provided against their destruction by one another, he contrived also a means of protecting them against the seasons of heaven; clothing them with close hair and thick skins sufficient to defend them against the winter cold and able to resist the summer heat, so that they might have a natural bed of their own when they wanted to rest; also he furnished them with hoofs and hair and hard and callous skins under their feet. Then he gave them varieties of food –herb of the soil to some, to others fruits of trees, and to others roots, and to some again he gave other animals as food. And some he made to have few young ones, while those who were their prey were very prolific; and in this manner the race was preserved.

    Thus did Epimetheus, who, not being very wise, forgot that he had distributed among the brute animals all the qualities which he had to give, -and when he came to man, who was still unprovided, he was terribly perplexed. Now, while he was in this perplexity, Prometheus came to inspect  the distribution, and he found that the other animals were suitably furnished, but that man alone was naked and shoeless, and had neither bed nor arms of defence. The appointed hour was approaching when man in his turn was to go forth into the light of day; and Prometheus, not knowing how he could devise his salvation, stole the mechanical arts of Hephaestus and Athene, and fire with them (they could neither have been acquired nor used without fire), and gave them to man. Thus man had the wisdom necessary to the support of life, but political wisdom he has not; for that was in the keeping of Zeus, and the power of Prometheus did not extend to entering into the citadel of heaven, where Zeus dwelt, who moreover had terrible sentinels; but he did enter by stealth into the common workshop of Athene and Hephaestus, in which they used to practise their favourite arts, and carried off Hephaestus’ art of working fire, and also the art of Athene, and gave them to man. And in this way man was supplied with the means of life. But Prometheus is said to have been afterwards prosecuted for theft, owing to the blunder of Epimetheus.

    Now man, having a share of the divine attributes, was at first the only one of the animals who had any gods, because he alone was of their kindred; and ho would raise altars and images of them. He was not long in inventing articulate speech and names; and he also constructed houses and clothes and shoes and beds, and drew sustenance from the earth. Thus provided, mankind at first lived dispersed, and there were no cities.[1] But the consequence was that they were destroyed by the wild beasts, for they were utterly weak in comparison of them, and their art was only sufficient to provide them with the means of life, and did not enable them to carry on war against the animals: food they had, but not as yet the art of government, of which the art of war is a part. After a while the desire of self-preservation gathered them into cities; but when they were gathered together, having no art of government, they evil intreated one another, and were again in process of dispersion and destruction. Zeus feared that the entire race would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship and conciliation. Hermes asked Zeus how he should impart justice and reverence among men: -Should he distribute them as the arts are distributed; that is to say, each art to a few men only, one skilled individual having enough of medicine or of any other art for many unskilled ones? “Shall this be the manner in which I am to distribute justice and reverence among men, or shall I give them to all?” “To all”, said Zeus; “I should like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share these virtues, as in the arts. And further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he is a plague to the state”. (pp. 44-45)

Protágoras (nacido por el 490-480; muerto por el 420-411 a. c.). T.A. Sinclair. A History of Greek Political Thought. Routledge & Keegan London 1951.

    Términos: decency (regard for others) and right

    Justificación. “Protagoras has left behind no written discussion that has survived. Political goodness has its basis on moral goodness; and its discovery was one of the foundations upon which Plato built in his Republic. He had of course a number of guiding principles, some of which were in evidence in the working of the Athenian constitution in the time of Pericles. So that if he did set about constructing an ideal constitution we may be sure that he would bear in mind three things, the third being by far the most important:

    1.  All are equal before the law and all are responsible for their actions.
    2. The able and well-trained man is of more use than the others and deserves honour and promotion accordingly.
    3. That which is socially beneficial is ethically sound”. (p. 60 

    “But it is well to remember that its Plato’s work, a dramatic reconstruction, almost a historical play, so skilfully written that it is easy to delude ourselves into thinking that we are reading a verbatim account. Yet we need not on that account reject the evidence; we can at least be fairly confident that the myth which Protagoras tells was taken by Plato from the work of Protagoras on the original condition of mankind”.(p. 55)

    “Protagoras was not the first to make Man the centre of the cosmos,[2] but he opened up a new line of thought by seeking to solve some of the problems of political theory in the light of the origins of political living… [First, he said that] ‘About the gods I cannot know either that they exist or that they do not; for many are the hindrances to such knowledge, both the lack of certainty and the shortness of human life… [Second], Man is the measure of all things…[Third], every man has a share of justice and general citizen-skill…(pp. 56-57)

    “Taking as a basis the myth of Prometheus he adapts and expands it freely. He notes the miserable condition of primitive man and the successive marks of civilisation –religion, language, agriculture, weaving, building, and al the various means which helped to make life more tolerable. But the danger from wild animals continued and could not be overcome except by co-operation and mutual aid; and all the arts which man had hitherto acquired did not include the ‘political art’. Hence they did not ‘play fair’ and the first experiment in living in cities broke down. In order to save the human race from extermination Zeus sent Hermes to bring to men decency and right. From this we infer that training in the political art can only be given when the necessary moral qualities are present. And these two qualities, we next learn, make for peace in cities and unite the citizens in a bond of friendship, but they do not of themselves make a cure for decency and right. For this education and training are essential. The myth concludes as follows: ‘Hermes then asks Zeus in what manner he is to distribute right and decency to men, whether hi is to follow the same plan as in the distribution of skill, that is to say, one person skilled in medicine to serve a number of other non-medical persons, and so with other crafts. Is he to put right and decency into the world on that system or is he to bestow them on all men?’ ‘Upon all men’, replied Zeus, ‘they must all participate in these. If only a few were to possess these, as is the case with professional skills, there would be no cities. And lay it down as a law coming from me that anyone who is incapable of decency and right shall be put to death as a national pest’”. (pp. 58-59)

1698. John Locke (1632-1704). Two Treatises of Government. A Mentor Book. New York 1965.

    Fundamentos. “Tough the Earth, and all the inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that I his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, hath by his labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men. For this, Labour being the unquestionable Property of the Labourer, no Man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others”. (Versículo 27; 5, 10, 15)

    “If Man in the State of Nature be so free, as has been said: If he be the absolute Lord of his own Person and Possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no Body, why will he part with his Freedom? Why will he give up this Empire, and subject himself to the Dominion and Control of any other Power? To which ‘tis obvious to Answer, that though in the state of Nature he hath such a right, yet the Enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the Invasion of others. For all being Kings as much as he, every Man his Equal, and the greater part no strict Observers of Equity and Justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very insecure. This makes him willing to quit a Condition, which however free, is full of fears and continual dangers; And ‘tis not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in Society with others who are already united, or have a mind of unite for the mutual Preservation of their Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property”. (V. 123; 5,10,15)

    “The great and chief end therefore, of Men uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property. To which in the state of Nature there are many things wanting. First. There wants an establish’d, settled, known Law, received and allowed by common consent to be the Standard of Right and Wrong, and the common measure to decide all Controversies between them. For though the Law of Nature be plain an intelligible to all rational Creatures, yet Men, being biased by their Interest, as well as ignorant for want of study of it, are not apt to allow of it as a Law binding to them in the application of it to their particular Cases”. (V. 124; 5,10) 

1796.  Thomas Paine (1737-1809). Agrarian Justice. En Collected Writings, pp. 397-399.  The Library of America 1965.

    Término: ground-rent.

    Justificación. “The most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized... Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life”. (p. 397)

    “There could be no such a thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and though he had natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it: neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue. From whence then arose the idea of landed property?” (p. 399)

    “The thing therefore now to be done is, to remedy the evils, and preserve the benefits, that have arisen to society, by passing from the natural to that which is called the civilized state”. (p. 397)

    “It is a position not to be controverted, that the earth, in its natural uncultivated state, was, and ever would have continued to be, the COMMON PROPERTY OF THE HUMAN RACE. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life-proprietor with the rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal”. (p. 398)

    Financiación. “But the earth, in its natural state, as before said, is capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation, from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor therefore of cultivated land, owes to the community a ground-rent; for I know no better term to express the idea by, for the land which he holds: and it’s from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue”. (p. 398)

1819. Robert Owen (1771-1883). (i) Report to the Committee for the Relief of the Manufacturing Poor (1817); (ii) A Catechism of the New View of Society and Three Addresses (1817); (iii) An Address to the Working Classes (1819). En A New View of Society and Other Writings. Denton & Sons Ltd. London 1927.

    Fundamentos.

Por una sociedad capitalista sin pobres

    “Under the existing laws, the unemployed working classes are maintained by, and consume part of, the property and produce of the wealthy and industrious, while their powers of body and mind remain unproductive. They  frequently acquire the bad habits which ignorance and idleness never fail to produce; they amalgamate with the regular poor, and become a nuisance to society.

    Most of the poor have received bad an vicious habits from their parents; and so long as their present treatment  continues, those bad and vicious habits will be transmitted to their children and, through them, to succeeding generations. Any plan, then, to ameliorate their condition, must prevent bad and vicious habits from being taught to their children, and provide the means by which only good and useful ones may be given to them… to provide useful training and instruction for them, to provide proper labour for the adults, to direct their labour and the expenditure so as to produce the greatest benefit to themselves and to society; and to place them under such circumstances as shall remove them from unnecessary temptations, and closely unite their interest and duty.

    These advantages cannot be given either to individuals or to families separately, or to large congregated numbers. They can be effectually introduced into practice only under arrangements that would unite in one establishment a population of from 500 to 1.500 persons, averaging about 1.000”. (i; p. 159-161)

    “These Villages, Owen suggested, should be in the main self-supporting. They should be agricultural as well as industrial, and should raise the produce needed for their own consumption, exchanging their surplus products of different kinds one with another. As they would be based on rational principles of education, they would not compete but co-operate one with another, and their aim would be as much as to train good citizens as to relive the necessities of the poor. If this were done, Owen, argued, the need for poor rates would speedily disappear, and, by the same token, the foundations of a new and better social order for the whole community would speedily be laid.”(p. xiii)[3]

Por un capitalismo sin clases

    “From infancy you, like others, have been made to despise and to hate those who differ from you in manners, language, and sentiments. You have been filled with all uncharitableness, and in consequence cherish feelings of anger towards  your fellow-men who have been placed in opposition to your interest. Those feelings of anger must be withdrawn before any being who has your real  interest at heart can place power in your hands. You must be made to know yourselves, by which means alone you can discover what other men are. You will then distinctly perceive that no rational ground for anger exists, even against those who by errors of the present system have been made your greatest oppressors  and you most bitter enemies. An endless multiplicity of circumstances, over which you had not the smallest control, placed you where you are, and as you are. In the same manner, others of your fellow-men have been formed by circumstances, equally uncontrollable by them, to become your enemies and grievous oppressors. In strict justice they are no more to be blamed for these results than you are; nor you than they; and, splendid as their exterior may be, this state of matters often causes them to suffer even more poignantly than you. They have therefore an interest, strong as yours, in the change which is about to commence for the equal benefit of all, provide you do not create a more formidable counteracting interest on their parts; of which the result must be, to prolong the existing misery of both classes, ant to retard the public good”. (iii; p. 149)

    “Are you then prepared to look upon all your fellow-creatures, in power or out of power, rich and poor, learned and un learned, good and bad, as beings formed solely by the circumstances of their birth, and who have been made as they are, whatever they may be, from causes which exclude the possibility of the smallest control on their parts in the formation of those faculties and qualities they may happen to possess?” (iii; p. 150-151)

    Financiación. “There are several modes by which this plan may be effected. It may be accomplished by individuals, -by parishes, by counties, by districts, etc., comprising more counties than one, and by the nation at large, through its Government. (i; p. 164)

    “It appears to me that the country posses the most ample means to attain this object, if they were called into action. Those means consist of land unemployed; land imperfectly cultivated; money employed unprofitably; manual powers of labour idle, demoralizing, and consequently generating every kind of evil in society; artificial or mechanical agency almost unlimited, and which might be made available for the most important purposes. These are the means which, if properly combined and put into action, would soon relieve the country from poverty and its attendants evils”. (ii; p. 175)

    “The first thing that it is necessary is, to raise a sum of money adequate to purchase the land (or it may be rented) to build the square manufactories, farm-houses, and their appendages – to stock the farm- and to provide everything to put the whole in motion…

    The money necessary  for founding establishments on the principle of the plan now proposed, may be obtained by consolidating the funds of some of the public charities; by equalizing the poor rates and borrowing on their security. The poor, including those belonging to public charities, should be made national… The funds may be raised by borrowing of individuals who have now a surplus capital unemployed; by borrowing from any other financial arrangement that may be deemed preferable. The establishments rapidly increasing in value by the labour of the individuals on the land, will soon become a sufficient security for a large proportion of the money that may be expended in this purchase.

    Hence will arise a superabundance of funds and labour. The country should be surveyed, and the best situations for these agricultural and manufacturing establishments be ascertained”. (i; pp. 164-167)

1917.  Bertrand Russell (1872-19  ). Political Ideals. Unwin Books. London 1963. Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism and Syndicalism. Allen & Unwin. London 1966. 

    Término: free sharing  

    Justificación. “Economic systems are concerned essentially with the production and distribution of material goods. Our present system is wasteful on the production side, and unjust on the side of distribution. It involves a life of slavery to economic force for the great majority of the community, and for the minority a degree of power over the lives of others which no man ought to have”. (1963, 40-41)

    “In the choice of a means of livelihood all [persons] ought, as far as possible, to be able to choose what is attractive to them; if no money-making occupation is attractive , they ought to be free to do little work for little pay, and spend their leisure as they choose”. (1966, 73)

    “The idea of purchase and payment is so familiar that the proposal to do away with it must be thought fantastic. Yet I do not believe it is nearly so fantastic as it seems. Even if we could all have bread for nothing, we should not want more than a quite limited amount. As things are, the cost of bread to the rich is so small a proportion of their income as to afford practically no check upon their consumption; yet the amount of bread that they consume could easily be supplied to the whole population by improved methods of agriculture. The amount of food that people desire has natural limits, and the waste that would be incurred would probably not be very great. As the Anarchists[4] point out, people at present enjoy an unlimited water-supply, but very few leave the taps running when they are not using them. And one may assume that public opinion would be opposed to excessive waste. I think that the principle of unlimited supply could be adopted in regard to all commodities of which the demand limits that fall short of what can be easily produced. And this would be the case, if production were efficiently organized, with the necessaries of life, including not only commodities, but all such things as education. Even if all education were free up to the highest, young people, unless they were radically transformed by the Anarchist régime, would not want more than a certain amount of it. And the same applies to plain foods, plain clothes, and the rest of the things that supply our elementary needs”. (1966, 74-75)

    Viabilidad. “I think we may conclude that there is no technical impossibility in the Anarchist plan of free sharing. But, would the necessary work be done, if the individual were assured of the general standard of comfort even though he did no work?

    “Most people will answer this question unhesitatingly in the negative. In particular, those employers who are in the habit of denouncing their employees as a set of lazy, drunken louts will feel quite certain that no work could be got out of them except under threat of dismal and consequently starvation… There would, of course, be a certain proportion of population who would prefer idleness. Provided the proportion is very small, this need not matter. And among those who would be classed as idlers might be include artists, writers of books, men devoted to abstract intellectual pursuits, in short, all those whom society despises while they are alive and honours when they are dead. To such men, the possibility of pursuing their own work regardless of any public recognition of its utility would be invaluable. Whoever will observe how many of our pots have been men of private means will realize how much poetic capacity must have remained undeveloped through poverty; for it would be absurd to suppose that the rich are better endowed by nature with the capacity for poetry. Freedom for such men, few as they are, must be against the waste of the mere idlers. (1966, 75-77)

1919. Nicolai Ivanovich Bukharin (1888-1938) y Evgenii Alexeievic Preobrazhensky (1886-1937). The ABC of Communism. Pelican Classics. Penguin Books. England 1969.

    Expresión de referencia. de cada uno según su capacidad; a cada uno según se necesidad

    Justificación. “Capitalism is based upon the exploitation of labour. A small minority owns everything; the working masses own nothing. The capitalists command; the workers obey. The capitalists exploit; the workers are exploited. The very essence of capitalist society is found in this merciless and ever-increasing exploitation.

As opposed to it, “the basis of communist society must be social ownership of the means of production and exchange…

    Producción. “Capitalist production is a practical instrument for the extraction of surplus vale. This greed knows no limits. It is the pivot, the prime motive, of capitalist production. As opposed to it, “the communist method of production must present the following characteristics: In the first place it must be an organized society; it must be free from anarchy of production, from competition between individual entrepreneurs, from wars and crises. In the second place, it must be a classless society, not a society in which two halves are at eternal enmity one with the other; it must not be a society in which one class exploits the other. Now a society in which there are no classes, and in which production is organized, can only be a society of comrades, a communist society based upon labour

    “The cooperative character of communist production is likewise displayed in every detail of organization. Under communism, for example, there will not be permanent managers of factories, nor there persons who do one and the same kind of work throughout their lives. Under capitalism, if a man is a boot maker, he spends his whole life in making boots; if he is a pastry cook, he spends all his life baking cakes; if he is a manager of a factory, he spends his days in issuing orders and in administrative work; if he is a mere labourer, his whole life is spent in obeying orders. Nothing of this sort happens in communist society. Under communism people receive a many-sided culture, and find themselves at home in various branches of production: today I work in a administrative capacity, I reckon up how many felt boots or how many French rolls must be produced in the following month; tomorrow I shall be working in a soap-factory, next month perhaps in a steam-laundry, and the month after in an electric power station. This will be possible when all the members of society have been suitably educated…

    Distribución. “The communist method of production presupposes in addition that production is not for the market, but for use. Under communism, it is no longer the individual manufacturer or the individual peasant who produces; the work of production is affected by the gigantic cooperative as a whole. In consequence of this change, we no longer have commodities, but only products. These products are not exchanged one for another; they are not bought or sold. They are simply stored in the communal warehouses, and are subsequently delivered to those who need them. In such conditions, money will no longer be required. ‘How can that be?’ some of you will ask. ‘In that case one person will get too much and another too little. What sense is there in such a method of distribution?’ The answer is as follows. At first, doubtless, and perhaps for twenty or thirty years, it will be necessary to have various regulations. Maybe certain products will only be supplied to those persons who have a special entry in their work-book or in their work-card. Subsequently, when communist society has been consolidated and fully developed, no such regulations will be needed. There will be an ample quantity of all products, our present wounds will long since have been healed, and everyone will be able to get just as much as he needs. ‘But will not people find it to their interest to take more than they need?’ Certainly not. Today, for example, no one thinks it worth while when he wants one seat in a tram, to take three tickets and keep two places empty. It will be just the same in the case of all products. A person will take from communal storehouse precisely as much as he needs, no more. No one will have any interest in taking more than he wants in order to sell the surplus to others, since all these others can satisfy their needs whenever they please. Money will then have no value.

    “Our meaning is that in the first days of communist society products will probably be distributed in proportion to the work done by the applicant (which does not mean that the worker will receive ‘the full product of his labour’); at a later stage, however, they will simply be supplied according to the needs of the comrades, for there will be an abundance of everything… (pp. 113-117).

    Este sería seguramente el momento de poder aplicar el importante criterio sobre la distribución socialista establecido por Marx en la Crítica al Programa de Gotha: “de cada cual, según sus capacidades; a cada cual, según sus necesidades”.

    Disciplina laboral fraterna versus vagancia. “The productivity of a country is not solely determined by the quantity of machinery, raw materials and other material means of production; its productivity depends also upon labour power…

    “The capitalist method of production kept the workers in subjection; compelled them to work for their masters; imposed upon them, in effect, the discipline of the lash…

    “The period of the destruction of the old [capitalist] discipline is over. There is now being inaugurated a new, a comradely labour discipline, not imposed and sustained by masters… or the capitalist whip, but by the labour organizations themselves, by the factory and workshop committees, and the trade unions. When we are organizing production, we cannot leave out of account the organization of labour in the factory…

    “A comradely labour discipline is one of the most important means for the organization of social production and for the increase of productivity: Comradely discipline must be accompanied by the complete spontaneity of the working class. The workers must not wait for orders from above, must not lack initiative. Far from this, every improvement in production, every discovery of new methods of organizing labour, must be trail for itself… Everything that is needed can be effected from below upwards through the instrumentality of the labour organizations…[5]

    “Labour discipline must be based upon the feeling and the consciousness that every worker is responsible to his class, upon the consciousness that slackness and carelessness are treason to the common cause of the workers. The capitalists no longer exist as a dominant caste. The workers no longer work for capitalists, usurers, and bankers; they work for themselves.[6]

    “Finally, labour discipline must be based upon the strictest mutual control. Since all the comrades know that a decline in the productivity of labour will involve the ruin of the whole working class, that if we fail to improve in this respect we shall inevitably perish, they must all supervise with a proprietary eye the common tasks of utilizing the life-giving energies of nature. For labour is a struggle; it is a struggle with nature… (pp. 338-340).

1928. Bernard Shaw (1856-1950). The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism. Pelican Book. Penguins Book. Great Britain, 1965.

    Expresión: enough wealth for everybody to be fairly respectable and well-to-do

    Justificación: “We were trying to find out a sound plan of distributing money; and every time we proposed to distribute it according to personal merit or achievement or dignity or individual quality of any sort the plan reduced itself to absurdity. When we tried to establish a relation between money and work we were beaten: it could not be done. When we tried to establish a relation between money and character we were beaten. When we tried to establish a relation between money and the dignity that gives authority we were beaten. And when we gave it up as a bad job and thought of leaving things as they are we found that they would not stay as they are.

    Let us consider for a moment what any plan must do to be acceptable. And first, as everybody except the Franciscan Friars and the Poor Clares will say that no plan will be acceptable unless it abolishes poverty (and even Franciscan poverty must be voluntary and not compelled) let us study poverty for a moment.

    It is generally agreed that poverty is a very uncomfortable misfortune for the individual who happens to be poor. But poor people, when they are not suffering from acute hunger and severe cold, are not unhappy than rich people: they are often much happier. You can easily find people who are ten times as rich at sixty as they were at twenty; but no one of them will tell you that they are ten times as happy. All the thoughtful ones will assure you that happiness and unhappiness are constitutional, and have nothing to do with money. Money can cure hunger: it cannot cure unhappiness. Food can satisfy the appetite, but not the soul. A famous German Socialist, Ferdinand Lassale, said that what beat him in his efforts to stir up the poor to revolt against poverty was their wantlessness. They were not, of course, content; nobody is; but they were not discontented enough to take any serious trouble to change their condition….

    Such poverty as we have today in all our great cities degrades the poor, and infects with its degradation the whole neighbourhood in which they live. And whatever can degrade a neighbourhood can degrade a country and a continent and finally the whole civilized world, which is only a large neighbourhood. Its bad effects cannot be escaped by the rich. When poverty produces outbreaks of virulent infectious disease, as it always does sooner or later, the rich catch the disease and see their children die of it. When it produces crime and violence the rich go in fear of both, and are put to a good deal of expense to protect their persons and property. When it produces bad manners and bad language the children of the rich pick them up no matter how carefully they are secluded, and such seclusion as they get does them more harm than good. If poor and pretty young women find, as they do, that they can make more money by vice than by honest work, they will poison the blood of rich young men who, when they marry, will infect their wives and children, and cause them all sorts of bodily troubles, sometimes ending in disfigurement and blindness and death, and always doing them more or less mischief…. Though the rich end of the town can avoid living with the poor end, it cannot avoid dying with it when the plague comes…

    Besides, as long as poverty remains possible we shall never be sure that it will not overtake ourselves. If we dig a pit for others we may fall into it: if we leave a precipice unfenced our children may fall over it when they are playing. We see the most innocent and respectable families falling into the unfenced pit of poverty every day: and how do we know that it will not be our turn next?

    It is perhaps the greatest folly of which a nation can be guilty to attempt to use poverty as a sort of punishment for offences that it does not send people to prison for. It is easy to say of a lazy man ‘Oh, let him be poor: it serves him right for being lazy: it will teach him a lesson’. In saying so we are ourselves too lazy to think a little before we lay down the law. We cannot afford to have poor people anyhow, whether they are lazy or busy, drunken or sober, virtuous or vicious, thrifty or careless, wise or foolish. If they deserve to suffer let them be made to suffer in some other way; for mere poverty will not hurt them half as much as it will hurt their innocent neighbours. It is a public nuisance as well as a private misfortune. Its toleration is a national crime.

    Distribución. “We must therefore take it as an indispensable condition of a sound distribution of wealth that everyone must have a share sufficient to keep her or him from poverty.

    This is not altogether new. Ever since the days of Queen Elizabeth it has been the law of England that nobody must be abandoned to destitution. If anyone, however undeserving, applies for relief to the Guardians of the Poor as a destitute person, the Guardians must feed and clothe and house that person. They may do it reluctantly and unkindly; they may attach to the relief the most unpleasant and degrading conditions they can think of; they may set the pauper to hateful useless work if he is able-bodied, and have him sent to prison if he refuses to do it; the shelter they give him may be that of a horrible general workhouse in which the old and the young , the sound and the diseased, the innocent girl and the hardened prostitute and the tramp are herded together promiscuously to contaminate one another; they can attach a social stigma to the relief by taking away the pauper’s vote (if he has one), and making him incapable of filling certain public offices or being elected to certain public authorities; they may, in short, drive the deserving and respectable poor to endure any extremity rather than ask for relief; but they must relieve the destitute willy nilly if they do ask for it.

    “To that extent the law of England is at its root a Communistic law. All the harshnesses and wickednesses which it is carried out are gross mistakes, because instead of saving the country from degradation of poverty they actually make poverty more degrading than it need be; but still, the principle is there. Queen Elizabeth said that nobody must die of starvation and exposure. We, after the terrible experience we have had of the effects of poverty on the whole nation, rich or poor, must go further and say that nobody must be poor. As we divide-up our wealth day by day the first charge on it must be enough for everybody to be fairly respectable and well-to-do. If they do anything or leave anything undone that gives ground for saying that they do not deserve it, let them be restrained from doing it or compelled to do it in whatever way we restrain or compel evildoers of any other sort; but do not let them, as poor people, make everyone else suffer for their shortcomings”. (pp. 74-78)

1930.  John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). "Economic possibilities for our grandchildren". The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes. Volume IX, Macmillan. London.

    Expresión: to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes / doing nothing for ever end ever.[7]

    Justificación. “The modern age opened, I think, with the accumulation of capital which began in the sixteenth century... At the same time technical improvements in manufacture and transport have been proceeding at a greater rate in the last ten years than ever before in history... For the moment the very rapidity of these changes is hurting us and bringing difficult problems to solve... namely, technological unemployment... But this is only a temporary phase of maladjustment. All this means in the long run that mankind is solving its economic problem. I would predict that the standard of life in progressive countries on hundred years hence will be between four and eight times as high as it is today”.

    “Now it is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be insatiable. But they fall into two classes -those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of our fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the sense that we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the second class, those which satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed be insatiable; for the higher the general level, the higher still are they. But this is not so true of the absolute needs- a point may soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we all of us are ware of, when these needs are satisfied in the sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes”.

    “I draw that, assuming no important wars and no important increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not -if we look into the future- the permanent problem of the human race”.

    “We find that the economic problem, the struggle for subsistence, always has been hitherto the primary, most pressing problem of the human race... [But], if the economic problem is solved, will this be a benefit? [Let us hearer] the traditional epitaph written for herself by the old charwoman:

       Don't mourn for me, friends, don't weep for me never,
         For I'm going to do nothing for ever and ever
. 

    “Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem -how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well”.

    “The strenuous purposeful money-makers may carry all of us along with them into the lap of economic abundance. But it will be those peoples, who can keep alive, and cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself and do not sell themselves for the means of life, who will be able to enjoy the abundance when it comes”.

    “Yet there is no country and no people, I think, who can look forward to the age of leisure and of abundance without a dread. For we have been trained for too long to strive not to enjoy. It is a fearful problem for the ordinary person, with no special talents, to occupy himself, especially if he no longer has roots in the soil or in custom or in the beloved conventions of a traditional society. To judge from the behaviour and the achievements of the wealthy classes today in any quarter of the world, the outlook is very depressing!”

    “For many ages to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody will need to do some work if he is to be contended. We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich today, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter -to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Tree-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!”

    “Of course there will still be many people with intense, unsatisfied purposive ness who will blindly pursue wealth -unless they can find some plausible substitute. But the rest of us will no longer be under any obligation to applaud and encourage them”.

    “I look forward, therefore, in days not so very remote, to the greatest change which has ever occurred in the material environment of life for human’s beings in the aggregate. But, of course, it will all happen gradually, not as a catastrophe. Indeed, it has already begun. The course of affairs will simply be that there will be ever larger and larger classes and groups of people from whom problems of economic necessity have been practically removed. The critical difference will be realised when this condition has become so general that the nature of one's duty to one's neighbour is changed. For it will remain reasonable to be economically purposive for others after it has ceased to be reasonable for oneself”.

1932.  Jacques Duboin (1876-1976). Egalité économique (1938); L'economie distributive de l'abondance (1945)

    Término: revenu social / maximum vital

    Justificación. Pourtant, cette solution bancale est tellement nécessaire aux entreprises capitalistes, qu'il est question maintenant de la généraliser: de partout viennent des propositions pour assurer un revenu minimum a tout les foyers. Lorsqu'elle venait d'humanistes révoltés de voir que des êtres humains mourraient de misère à côté de montagnes d'invendus, une telle proposition ne recevait pas d'écot. Mais aujourd'hui, la publicité capitaliste a été tellement efficace, elle a si bien convaincu que hors du capitalisme il ne pouvait y avoir que le goulag, qu'on en arrive á un consensus pour adopter ce moyen de sauver encore le système du marché. Tous les partis politiques, qu'ils soient de droite ou de gauche, syndicalistes compris vont tomber d'accord: les discussions s'ouvrent déjà sur le montant du minimum à garantir; elles remplaceront bientôt les discussions paritaire sur les salaires ». p. 24. La Grande Relève des Hommes par la Science.

    Tout être humain a droit à la vie, il lient de la nature et donc avoir sa part des richesses du monde. Tout être humain vivant est l'héritier d'un immense patrimoine culturel, oeuvre collective poursuivie pendant des siècles par une foule innombrable de chercheurs et de travailleurs, tacitement associés pour l'amélioration de la condition humaine. Il est donc l'usufruitier de ce patrimoine. Les droit politiques ne suffisent plus à assurer la liberté de l'Homme, car la plus essentielle est celle de l'esprit, or n'a l'esprit libre que celui dont l'existence matérielle est assurée. Les droits du citoyen doivent donc se compléter de ses droits économiques, concrétisés par un revenu social, dont chaque individu bénéficiera du berceau au tombeau. Le revenu social libera la femme, aucune loi naturelle ne la condamnant à dépendre économiquement de l'homme. En contrepartie de cette revenue sociale, le citoyen accomplira un service social au cours duquel il fournira sa part de travail que réclame l'appareil de production et d'administration. L'économie distributive de l'abondance (1945). Extraits d'un article publié dans la Grande relève le 19 Avril 1958 y en La Grande Relève, Nº hors série Janvier 1992.

1936. Oskar Lange (1904-1965).On the Economic Theory of Socialism”. The Review of Economic Studies, pp. 53-71 y 123- 141, Volume IV. Reprinted by Kraus Reprint Corporation. New York 1959.

    Término: social dividend / free sharing

    Justificación: “In the socialist system... we have a genuine market (in the institutional sense of the word) for consumers' goods and for services of labour. But there is no market for capital goods and productive resources... Just as in a competitive individualist régime, the determination of equilibrium consists of two parts. (A) On the basis of given indices of alternatives... both the individuals participating in the economic system as consumers and as owners of the services of labour, and the managers of production and the ultimate resources outside labour... make decisions according to certain principles. These managers are assumed to be public officials. (B) The prices (whether market or accounting) are determined by the condition that the quantity demanded of each commodity is equal to the quantity supplied. Te conditions determining the decisions under (A) are the subjective while those under (B) are the objective equilibrium conditions. Finally, we have also a condition C expressing the social organisation of the economic system. As the productive resources outside of labour are public property, the incomes of the consumers are divorced from the ownership of those resources and the form of condition C is determined by the principles of income formation adopted. The possibility of determining condition C in different ways gives to socialist society a considerable freedom in matters of distribution of income. But the necessity of maintaining freedom of the choice of occupation limits the arbitrary use of this freedom, for there must be some connection between the income of a consumer and the services of labour performed by him. It seems, therefore, convenient to regard the income of consumers as being composed of two parts: one part being the receipts for the labour services performed and the other part being a social dividend constituting the individual's share in the income derived from the capital and the natural resources owned by society. We assume that the distribution of the social dividend is based on certain principles, reserving the content of those principles for later discussion. Thus condition C is determinate and determines the incomes of the consumers in terms of prices of the services of labour an social dividend, which, in turn, may be regarded as determined by the total yield of capital and of the natural resources and by the principles adopted in distributing this yield”. (p. 61)

    Distribución. Thus, “condition C determines the incomes of the consumers by the prices of the services of ultimate productive resources and the principles adopted for the distribution of the social dividend"... One of the two problems that "deserve some special attention is related to the determination of the best distribution of the social dividend. Freedom of choice of occupation assumed, the distribution of the social dividend may affect the amount of services of labour offered to different industries. If certain occupations received a larger social dividend than others, labour would be diverted into the occupations receiving a larger dividend. Therefore, the distribution of the social dividend must be such as not to interfere with the optimum distribution of labour services between different industries and occupations. The optimum distribution is that which makes the value of the marginal product of the services of labour in different industries and occupations proportional to the marginal disutility of working in those industries or occupations. To secure this not only wages but also the social dividend received by individuals must bear some relation to the marginal disutility of the particular kind of labour services performed. The social dividend paid to each individual must be such as no to disturb the proportionality of the supply price of the different services of labour and of the disutility of performing them. This is attained by making the social dividend a fixed percentage of the wage rate. As a result of this principle of distributing the social dividend the money incomes earned in different occupations are proportional to the value of the marginal product of the labour services performed by each occupation, but they are not equal to it. The excess of money incomes over the value of the marginal product of the services of labour is the social dividend”. (Pp.64-65) [8]

    “The idea of distributing goods and services by free sharing[9] sounds utopian, indeed. However, if applied to only a part of commodities free sharing is by no means such economic nonsense as might appear at first glance... The demand for many commodities becomes, from a certain point on, quite inelastic.  If the price of a commodity is below and the consumer's income is above a certain minimum the commodity is treated by the consumer as if it were a free good. The commodity is consumed in such quantity that the want it serves to satisfy is perfectly saturated. Take, for instance, salt. Well-to-do people do the same with bread or with heating in winter. They do not stop eating bread at a point where the marginal utility of a slice is equal to the marginal utility of its price, nor do they turn down the heat by virtue of a similar consideration. Or would a decline of the price of soap to zero induce them to be so much more liberal in its use? Even if the price were zero, the amount of salt, bread, fuel, and soap consumed by well-to-do people would not increase noticeably. With such commodities saturation is reached even at a positive price. If the price is already so low, and income so high, that the quantities consumed of those commodities is equal to the saturation amount, free sharing can be used as a method of distribution. Certain services are distributed in this way already in our present society. If a part of the commodities and services is distributed by free sharing, the price system needs to be confined only to the rest of them. However, though the demand for the commodities distributed by free sharing is, within limits, a fixed quantity, a cost has to be accounted for in order to be able to find out the best combination of factors and the optimum scale of output in producing them. The money income of the consumers must be reduced by an equivalent of the cost of production of those commodities. This means simply that the free sharing provides, so to speak, a “socialist sector” of consumption the cost of which is met by taxation (for the reduction of consumers' money-incomes which has just been mentioned is exactly the taxation to cover the consumption by free sharing). Such a sector exists also in capitalist society, comprising, for instance, free education, free medical service by social insurance, public parks, and all the collective wants in Cassel's sense (e.g. street lighting). It is quite conceivable that as wealth increases this sector increases, too, and an increasing number of commodities is distributed by free sharing until, finally, all the prime necessaries of life are provided for in this way, the distribution by the price system being confined to better qualities and luxuries. Thus, Marx's second phase of communism may be gradually approached: from each according to his capacity, to each according to his need”. (pp. 141-142)

1941. Simone Weil (1909-1943). “Our Father”. Waiting on God. Collins Fontana Books. London 1950.

    Término: right to a compensation

    Justificación: “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors”… At the moment of saying these words we must have already remitted everything that is owing to us. This not only includes reparation for any wrongs we think we have suffered, but also gratitude for the good we think we have done, and it applies in a quite general way to all we expect from people and things, to all we consider as our due and without which we should feel ourselves to have been frustrated. All these are the rights which we think the past has given us over the future. Fist there is the right to a certain permanence. When we have enjoyed something for a long time, we think that it is ours, and that we are entitled to expect fate to let us go on enjoying it. Then there is the right to a compensation for every effort whatever its nature, be it work, suffering or desire. Every time that we put forth some effort and the equivalent of this effort does not come back to us in the form of some visible fruit, we have a sense of false balance and emptiness which makes us think that we have been cheated. The effort of suffering from some offence causes us to expect  the punishment or apologies of the offender, the effort of doing good makes us expect the gratitude of the person we have helped, but these are only particular cases of a universal law of the soul. Every time we give anything out we have an absolute need that at least the equivalent should come into us, and because we need this we have a right to it. Our debtors comprise all beings and all things; they are the entire universe. In every claim which we think we posses there is always the idea of an imaginary claim of the past on the future. That is the claim which we have to renounce”. (pp. 172-173)

    “This principal claim which we think  we have on the universe is that our personality should continue. This claim implies all the others.. The instinct of self preservation makes us feel this continuation to be a necessity, and we believe that a necessity is a right… We live on the expectation of these compensations. The near approach of death is horrible chiefly because it forces the knowledge upon us that these compensations will never come… God will have forgiven our debts when he has brought us to the state of perfection… Until the God forgives our debts partially in the same measure as we forgive our debtors”. (pp. 174-175).

1964. James Edward Meade (1904-1965). (a) Planning and the Price Mechanism, George Allen & Unwin Ltd. London 1948. (b) Efficiency, Equality and the Ownership of Property. George Allen & Unwin Ltd. London 1964. (c) The Stationary Economy: Principles of Political Economy. Unwin University Books, London 1965.

    Término: equal social dividend

    Justificación: Dice JE. Meade que comenzó a estudiar económicas “because he abhorred mass unemployment and wanted to know why society was failing to avoid the stupidity of idle men and machines combined with crying real needs for the products of those men and machines. The problems of the present age are different. The huge and growing disparities of wealth between the rich developed and the poor underdeveloped countries of the world would be the problem which would be most likely to attract him to economics if he were now starting once more at the beginning”.(c; p. 13)

    “In the highly developed industrialized countries a substantial proportion of the real product does accrue to the owners of property and property is very unequally owned. There is already, therefore, a problem. The pattern of real wage rates which is required on efficiency grounds may lead to a very high level of real income per head for the small concentrated number of rich property owners”. (b; p. 25)

    The welfare state means that “taxation of the incomes of the rich (could) subsidize directly the incomes of the poor”. But, even if “the system could be used to equalize incomes, it would not directly equalize property ownership. Extreme inequalities in the ownership of property are in my view undesirable quite apart from inequalities of income which they may imply. A man with much property has great bargaining strength and a great sense of security, independence and freedom; and hi enjoys these things not only vis-à-vis his propertyless fellow citizens but also vis-à-vis the public authorities. He can snap his fingers at those on whom he must rely for an income; for he can always live for a time on his capital. The propertyless man must continuously and without interruption acquire his income by working for an employer or by qualifying to receive it from a public authority. An unequal distribution of property means an unequal distribution of power and status even if it is prevent from causing too unequal a distribution of income”. (c; p. 38-39)

    “Let us turn now to the Social Ownership of Property as an alternative means for combining an efficiency level of the real wage rate with an equitable distribution of income. Suppose that by the wave of some alternative magic wand, the ownership of all property were transferred from private individuals to the State. The real wage rate is set at the level which enables is to be used exclusively as an ‘efficiency’ guide for the use of labour. If this ‘efficiency’ level is a low one, then a large part of the national income accrues as profits on capital of all kinds. But these profits now go to the State, which could use them to pay out an equal social dividend to every citizen. In both cases income from property is equally divided between all citizens… In the case in which property is in private ownership the achievement of the budget surplus will require increased tax revenue; and the rise in rates of taxation may have unfortunate effects on economic incentives. In the case of the social ownership of property, on the other hand, all income from property accrues to the State. The State can, therefore, generate a given level of public savings through the budget with a lower level of tax rates and therefore with less adverse effects on efficiency in the case of State ownership of property, than in the case of equalized private ownership of property”. (c; pp. 66-67)

    “One should avoid the risk of claiming more for one’s analysis than one can in fact rightfully claim. The art of political economy is to choose models which combine simplicity with relevance to certain important features of the real world. The economist can never be sure that he knows the answer. But if he has built a large number of models which between them incorporate in various ingenious combinations all the main features of the real world which he thinks are likely to be relevant to the issue which he is examining, and each of these models passes the same verdict upon a given economic policy, then he may have some confidence that this verdict is more likely to be right than wrong”. (c; p. 23)

    “A large part of economic policy consists of a judicious choice of measures which preserve a tolerable distribution of income without damaging too much the use of prices as guides to the efficient use of resources. The most complete way to deal with the clash is, no doubt, to affect fundamentally the distribution of the ownership of property. If, in our example, land were evenly owned by all citizens, prices could be used for the pursuit of economic efficiency without detrimental effects upon the distribution of income. What the representative citizen lost through a fall in his wages he would make up by a rise in his rents. Or if all property were owned by the State and the rents received by the State were used to pay social benefits to all the citizens, the same would be true. What the representative citizen lost through a fall in his wages he would make up by a rise in social benefits. (c; p. 191)

    “A more direct measure would be to tax the incomes of the rich landlords and to use the revenue to pay social benefits to the poorer members of society. This might have little adverse effect upon economic efficiency other than to disturb somewhat the balance between work and leisure for those whose incomes were taxed –and even this effect might be avoided by confining the tax to income from rent”. (c; p. 191)

    “Suppose finally that the incomes received from social benefits and from wages can be spent in a free consumers’ market on the products of the various firms and farms. The essential features of this arrangement are (i) that the worker’s real wage varies directly with the value of the marginal product of his current work and (ii) that this is not offset by counter-acting variations in the social benefits received by him and his family”. (c; p.232)

    “Similarly it would be possible for the individual worker to indicate to the Central Authority whether at the real wage per hour which he was receiving (and which would correspond to the value of his marginal product) he preferred more work or more leisure. To the extent to which it was administratively possible the Central Authority could then adjust the hours worked in the desired direction”. (c; p. 233)

    “But would the distribution of income be an equitable one? An essential feature of the above arrangement for achieving an efficient deployment of labour is that the incomes received as social dividends or social benefits should not be adjusted to take into account differences in wage earnings. The reason for this is clear. A man considering a move, say, from a pleasant low-paid job to an unpleasant high-paid job would reach the correct decision if both of two conditions are fulfilled: (i) the two wages reflect the different marginal products of the jobs and (ii) the wage earner keeps the whole (no more and no less) of the increase in the wage income if he moves. But if a man’s social dividend or social benefits are reduced when his wage income goes up, the worker will not feel the whole of the incentive which he should feel on moving from a job with a low marginal product to one with a high marginal product. For an efficient solution then (i) wage rates must be equal to marginal products and (ii) social dividends and social benefits must be fixed independently of wage earnings”.(c; p.235)

    “The basic conditions in the economy may be such that wage earnings make up a much larger proportion of the national income than do the social dividends and benefits paid out of income from property… The progressive taxation of high wage earnings to supplement the social benefits of the poor would blunt the incentives for efficiency which depend upon variations in retained earnings corresponding to variations in the marginal products of the work done”. (c; p. 235)

1974.  Robert Nozick .Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books Inc., Publishers. New York 1974.

    Término: compensation

    Fundamentos: “The subject of justice in holdings consists of three major topics. The first is the original acquisition of holdings, the appropriation of upheld things... [To the issues and processes related with the upheld holdings we shall refer as] the principle of justice in acquisition. The second topic concerns the transfer of holdings from one person to another... [To the issues and processes related with voluntary exchange and gifts we shall call] the principle of justice in transfer. (p. 150) the existence of past injustice (previous violations of the first two principles of justice in holdings) raises the third major topic under justice in holdings: the rectification of justice in holdings... The principle of rectification presumably will make use of its best estimate of subjunctive information about what have occurred (or a probability distribution over what might have occurred, using the expected value) if the injustice had not taken place”. (p. 152)

    “The general outlines of the theory of justice in holdings are that the holdings of a person are just if he is entitled to them by the principle of justice in acquisition and transfer, or by the principle of rectification of injustice (as specified by the two principles). If each person's holdings are just, then the total set (distribution) of holding is just”. (p. 153)

    “Whether or not Locke's particular theory of appropriation can be spelled out so as to handle various difficulties, I assume that any adequate theory of justice in acquisition will contain a proviso similar to the weaker of the ones we have attributed to Locke. A process normally giving rise to a permanent bequearthable property right in a previously unwoned thing will not do so if the position of others no longer at liberty to use the thing is thereby worsened. It is important to specify this particular mode of worsening the situation of others, for the proviso does not encompass other modes. It does not include the worsening due to more limited opportunities to appropriate (the first way above, corresponding to the more stringent condition), and it does not include how I 'worsen' a seller's position if I appropriate materials to make some of what he is selling, and then enter into competition with him. Someone whose appropriation otherwise would violate the proviso still may appropriate provided he compensates the others so that their situation is not thereby worsened; unless he does compensate these others, his appropriation will violate the proviso of the principle of justice in acquisition and will be an illegitimate one. A theory of appropriation incorporating this Lockean proviso will handle correctly the cases (objections to the theory lacking the proviso) where someone appropriates the total supply of something necessary for life”. (p. 178)

    Con los pertinentes matices que R. Nozick menciona, “a theory which includes this proviso in its principle of justice in acquisition must also contain a more complex principle of justice in transfer”. (p. 179) y el oportuno principio de rectificación.

1986.  Robert J. Van der Veen and Philippe Van Parijs. A Capitalist Road to Communism. Theory and Society 15, 635-655.

    Término: universal grant

    Concepto. “If, on the other hand, guaranteed income takes the form of a universal grant, unconditionally awarded to every citizen, things are different indeed. Because citizens have an absolute right to this grant whatever their income from other sources, they start earning additional net income as soon as they do any work, however little and however poorly paid it may be. Combined with some deregulation of the labour market (no administrative obstacles to part-time work, no compulsory minimum wage, no compulsory retirement age, etc.), the universal grant would made it possible to spread paid employment much more widely than it is now. Consequently, if the guaranteed income takes this form, its growth need no longer generate acute tensions between the overworked who feel exploited and the jobless who feel excluded. Moreover, it also follows -however paradoxical it may seem- that awarding a decent basic income [10] to all may be, under appropriate conditions, much 'cheaper' (in terms of marginal tax rates), and therefore more realistic, than awarding it only to those who 'need' it”. (pp. 643-644)

    Justificación. “Consequently, if communism is to be approached within a capitalist society, it must be by way of raising as much as possible the guaranteed income in the form of a universal grant. Note that this maximization could be conceived in either absolute or relative terms. Maximizing the guaranteed income in absolute terms could be justified on the basis of John Rawls's well-known 'difference principle': it would amount to eliminating all income inequalities that are required if the least advantaged -here identified as those who have no income, in cash or kind, apart from the guaranteed minimum- are to be as well off as possible. Such an elegant way of combining the imperatives of equality and efficiency may seem attractive to many. But it does not coincide with the Marxian objective of abolishing alienation, which implies instead, at least as a first approximation, that the guaranteed income should be maximized in relative terms. Communism is achieved when the whole social product is distributed irrespective of each person's contribution, not when the share each gets irrespective of his contribution reaches some absolute threshold". (p. 644)

1992.  Philippe Van Parijs. "Competing Justifications of Basic Income" en Arguing for Basic Income: ethical foundations for a radical reform. Verso 1992.

    Término: basic income

    Concepto. "A basic income is an income unconditionally paid to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. In other words, it is a form of minimum income guarantee that differs from those that now exist in various European countries by virtue of the fact that is paid:

1.       to individuals rather than households;

2.       irrespective of any income from other sources;

3.       And without requiring any present or past work performance, or the willingness to accept a job if offered.

    Thus, the expression 'basic income' is meant here to convey both the notion that it is granted by virtue of an unconditional entitlement, and the idea that an income from other sources will come on top of the basis it provides. It is not, however, meant to suggest a link with so-called basic needs. As the expression will be used here, a basic income can in principle fall short of as well as exceed whatever level of income is deemed sufficient to cover a person's basic needs". (pp. 3-4)

1986. Agustí Chalaux de Subirà. Apunts de recerca interdisciplinari”. Disseny de Civisme. Centre d'Estudis Joan Bardina. Barcelona 1986.

     Términos: sou social, salari de solidaritat social, mínim vital

    Justificación. “Assegurar a les persones individuals el dret essencial d'un mínim vital [11] (com a qualsevol altra persona nacional-comunitària o social-col.lectiva), i d'uns serveis culturals humanistes gratuïts per a una existència digna i una inexistència sense procupants "mals de caps" materials”. (p. 202)

    Per a assegurar les necessitats mínimes de consum a totes les persones s'establiran uns sous comunitaris... L'estatut general acollirà totes les persones, que tindran dret a un mínim mensual vitalici, (p. 57). Propostes innovadores per repensar l'economia. EcoConcern - Innovació Social, Barcelona 1995. Garantir “un salari vital de solidaritat social- financera individual, que tothom cobrarà com a mínimum vital des del día del naixement fins al de la mort: diferencial segons grau de marginació social”, (p. 151) Assaig sobre moneda, mercat i societat. Centre d'Estudis Joan Bardina, Barcelona 2000.

1994. Yoland Bresson. Le partage du temps et des revenus. Ed. Economica, Paris 1994.

    Término: revenu d'existence

    Justificación. "Une nouvelle liberté est à conquérir; pour chacun, la maîtrise de son temps. Ce qui était réservé aux maîtres, aux nobles, aux rentiers, aux héritiers, aux capitalistes est non seulement ouvert, par l'abondance, à tous, dans les pays développés, mais aussi indispensable, pour que le capital humain puisse produire avec son rendement le plus efficace. Notre mode d'allocation de revenues doit se mettre en harmonie avec cette exigence. Il nous faut rompre avec le strict lien Emploi-Revenue, caractéristique du salariat. Chaque individu, parce qu'il existe, parce qu'il est un potentiel d'échange de temps, quels que soient son âge, son sexe, sa profession, qu'il travaille ou non, doit recevoir un Revenue d'existence". (p. 15)

1995. Jean-Marc Ferry. L'Allocation universelle: pour un revenu de citoyenneté. Les Editions du Cerf. Paris 1995.

    Término: L'allocation universelle

    Justificación. "L'Allocation universelle est un revenu social primaire distribué égalitairement de façon inconditionnelle. Il s'agit d'un véritable revenu de citoyenneté. Même si la reprise se confirme, la croissance économique ne créera pas plus d'emplois que de chômage. Elle n'apportera par elle-même aucune solution à l'exclusion sociale. La crise nous appelle à réfléchir sur un nouveau paradigme de la répartition: distribuer un revenu de base a tous les citoyens, quelle que soit leur situation dans la production: riches ou pauvres, actifs ou chômeurs, étudiants ou retraités. C'est en développant un droit indépendant au revenu, lequel favoriserait aussi l'essor d'un secteur quartenaire d'activités personnelles, non mécanisables, que le droit au travail cessera d'être une hypocrisie". (p. 7)

1997. Michel Aglieta. Régulation et crises du capitalisme. Editions Odile Jacob. Paris 1997.

    Término: revenu minimum garanti

    Justificación. La logique qui consiste à fiscaliser tout ce qui, dans la protection sociale, ne ressortit pas à l'assurance résulte de l'évolution des sociétés salariales modernes. La démarche politique de la solidarité en tant qu'attribut de la citoyenneté remplace l'approche socio.professionnelle qui est affaiblie par la destruction des corporatismes sous l'impact du progess technique et de la mondialisation. Il en résulte que les droits sociaux ne doivent plus prendre la forme dégradante de l'assistance et que l'aide aux entreprises doit être remplacée par l'aide à la personne. La France est sans doute le pays qui a pousse le plus loin les aides a l'emploi, en arrosant les entreprises de subsides divers tout au long des années quatre-vingt- Cette méthode s'inscrivait dans le prolongement du fordisme postulant que l'entreprise était toujours une structure d'intégration sociale. Elle le faisait au moment même ou les entreprises éliminaient le travail non qualifie et desserraient leurs attaches avec les territoires. On no peut donc pas être surpris de la faible efficacité de ces aides. Plus grave est l'aveuglement a persister dans cette voie au cours des annes quatre-vingt-dix- Cependant, les illusions sont maintenant dissipées. Les pièges a l'emploi et a la pauvreté que constituent les multiples formes d'assistance sont dénonces de touts parts. Le temps est venu d'un projet politique qui engage une reforme radicale de la redistribution. Il s'agit d'instaurer un revenu minimum garanti, moyen économique des droits inconditionnels du citoyen. C'est un dispositif qui cherche à combiner l¡efficacité économique et l'équité sociale.

    Les économistes ont souvent fait des propositions dans ce sens. L'avantage du revenu minimum garanti est qu'il procède d'une conception universelle de la fiscalité incitant à l'emploi au lieu de le décourager. Parce que ce revenu est accorde a chaque personne en age de travailler, il évite toute discrimination entre ceux qui sont assistes et ceux qui ne le sont pas. Parce qu'il est maintenu que l'on ait un emploi ou pas, il ne provoque pas de trappe de pauvreté. Enfin, ce revenu est une aide aux individus et non aux entreprises. Il corrige les inégalités résultant des grandes différences de salaires et permet d'employer des travailleurs à faible qualification et basse productivité.

    Le mécanisme de redistribution consiste à définir le montant d'un transfert forfaitaire sans condition de ressource. Corrélativement, on détermine un impôt a taux uniforme et prélève a la source tous les revenues, quelle que soit leur nature. Enfin, on y superpose un profil progressif par une surtaxe sur les hauts revenus. Le taux moyen d'imposition est calcule de manière a réaliser la neutralité budgétaire- Le revenu minimum peut alors remplacer les transferts d'assistance existants (allocations familiales et allocation logement en France) qui lui sont inférieurs, et réduit ces allocations du montant du revenu lorsqu'elles lui sont supérieures. Soumettent l'ensemble de revenus, quelle que soit leur nature, au même taux de prélèvement pour un montant donne, ce dispositif se combiner a la CSG, aux cotisations santé et a ce qui subsisterait des cotisations familiales". (pp. 474-475)


[1] Esta nota aclaratoria está añadida por Michael B. Foster: “That is to say ‘states’, or political societies. The Greek state was the city, not the nation”. p. 44.

[2] Parece ser que antes lo hizo Xenophanes

[3] GDH. Cole. “Introduction”. Trabajo citado.

[4] B. Russell es de la opinión que “los Socialistas y Anarquistas en general, son productos de la vida industrial, pero muy pocos entre ellos tienen un conocimiento práctico de la producción de alimentos. P. Kropotkin es una excepción”, por eso apoya sus reflexiones en dos de sus obras: La conquista del pan y Campos, fábricas y talleres.

[5] La Constitución de la República Popular China de 1954, redactada esencialmente de la Constitución Soviética de 1936, destaca en su artículo 16: “El trabajo es una cuestión de honor para cada ciudadano de la República Popular China que tenga capacidad para trabajar. El Estado alaba el entusiasmo productivo y la actividad creativa de cada ciudadano”. Winberg Chai (Ed.). Essential Works of Chinese Communism. Bantam Books. New York 1972.

[6] Este es el mismo argumento que utilizan los directores de las cooperativas para disciplinar su propia fuerza de trabajo; es frecuente escuchar al grupo gestor decir al resto de la plantilla: ‘como socios que sois, no podéis acogeros al derecho de huelga pues, de aplicarlo y parar la producción, estaríais atentando contra vuestros intereses como socios propietarios de la entidad’.

[7] Que podríamos interpretar como el derecho de cada persona a disfrutar de actividades no económicas, libremente elegidas, y no relacionadas con el trabajo asalariado.

[8] Es aconsejable leer las correcciones que AP. Lerner incluye en el mismo Volumen IV, p. 73, sobre la relación entre “el divendo social y la distribución ideal de la fuerza de trabajo entre las diferentes ocupaciones”.

[9] Si recordamos, free sharing es el término que utiliza B. Russell y que O. Lange lo menciona expresamente en la pág. 141: “free sharing presupposes, of course, that the commodities in question are practically free goods”.

[10] Aquí aparece por primera vez el vocablo basic income como sinónimo de universal grant, que más tarde los autores lo generalizarían definitivamente en todos sus trabajos en lengua inglesa. La negrilla es nuestra.

[11] “Un mínim vital, sota forma de quantitats monetàries mensuals (salaris de solidaritat social com a poder de compra de consum mínim vital) entregat a les persones individuals i familiars”. (p. 202)


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