http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/danaher20131223
John Danaher wrote:
The point is that, for the republican, freedom is not simply a matter of factual non-interference; it is a matter of institutions and power relationships too. Unless A is institutionally freed from B’s dominating control, A is not free in the morally important sense...
(1) The republican political goal is to ensure that all people are free from dominating control (i.e. that the ideal of freedom as non-domination is achieved).
(2) The UBI is an essential (or at least highly effective) means of ensuring freedom as non-domination.
(3) Therefore, the UBI helps to achieve the republican goal.
The second premise is the important one. Why might the UBI be so important in ensuring non-domination? Very simply: relationships of economic dependency, which are institutionally supported by regimes of contract and property law, can involve dominating control. Pettit gives two examples of this. The first is a case in which there are many employees but relatively few employers.
The employers can thus use their superior bargaining power to impose harsh or unfair working conditions on the employees, and the employees cannot step beyond the bounds of the working relationship due to their economic dependency. The second case is that of the woman who is economically dependent on her husband. Pettit notes that the husband need not be abusive or violent toward the woman for a relationship of dominating control to arise: the economic dependency is sufficient for that.
In both of these cases, provision of a UBI would free the people from dominating control. Furthermore, the argument on behalf of such a UBI would have to meet the adequacy criterion. The amount of the income provided would need to be enough to eliminate the relationship of economic dependency.
(1) The republican political goal is to ensure that all people are free from dominating control (i.e. that the ideal of freedom as non-domination is achieved).
(2) The UBI is an essential (or at least highly effective) means of ensuring freedom as non-domination.
(3) Therefore, the UBI helps to achieve the republican goal.
The second premise is the important one. Why might the UBI be so important in ensuring non-domination? Very simply: relationships of economic dependency, which are institutionally supported by regimes of contract and property law, can involve dominating control. Pettit gives two examples of this. The first is a case in which there are many employees but relatively few employers.
The employers can thus use their superior bargaining power to impose harsh or unfair working conditions on the employees, and the employees cannot step beyond the bounds of the working relationship due to their economic dependency. The second case is that of the woman who is economically dependent on her husband. Pettit notes that the husband need not be abusive or violent toward the woman for a relationship of dominating control to arise: the economic dependency is sufficient for that.
In both of these cases, provision of a UBI would free the people from dominating control. Furthermore, the argument on behalf of such a UBI would have to meet the adequacy criterion. The amount of the income provided would need to be enough to eliminate the relationship of economic dependency.