Dear Michael, is there any literature or ideas of how the basic income is necessarily, or not, related to centralized systems for its organisation and disbursement? See the remark by Sy below Michel On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 4:45 PM, Sy <[email protected]> wrote:
I think you're referring to the Speenhamland system - which wasn't a universal system (it was mainly limited to southern counties in England), was mandated by judges - part of a centralised and hierarchical system of lawmaking - and was paid by local parishes - ie it was managed and distributed local arm of another national, centralised and hierarchical structure, the Church of England.
I'm intrigued to hear of how you envisage a basic income system without some for of centralised apparatus to ensure that the income is universally available and equitably distributed.
I'm less convinced that a substantive difference exists between P2P theory and anarchism in that there needs to be reform (particularly in the formation of voluntary networks of self-aggregation which can fulfil roles currently undertaken by the state/market) before revolution. While there are currents of anarchist thought which call for the immediate destruction of the state, there are others which contend that networks based on mutual aid need to be created beforehand (Chomsky for example has regularly ridiculed anarchists who argue that we could transition into a stateless society today).