Boston Basic Income #133: Consenting Power

To kick off 2021, we will be discussing basic income's effect on the agency of individual people to live their lives how they choose. We've previously talked about how basic income gives people the power to say no. Consenting power is the power to say yes.

When society is structured such that people have no choice but to work a job, to what extent is this analogous to slavery? Can we say that basic income gives people more consenting power without also arguing that the absence of basic income reduces labor-market efficiency?

The reading this week is a chapter from Henry George's Progress and Poverty: "The Enslavement of Laborers the Ultimate Result of Private Property in Land"

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/george-progress-and-poverty#lf0777_head_045

Henry George said that whoever owned the land also effectively owned the people who lived on/from the land. But George also lived in time when it was easier to draw a connection between land, labor, and the product of the economy. To what extent do his arguments still make sense today? In our modern world, what kinds of things serve as "land" in the Henry George sense?

Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included:

BBI #78: Land Value Tax
https://youtu.be/PgC0hmkr180

BBI #86: Thomas Paine
https://youtu.be/ce_PZCjnxBM

BBI #116: Power to Say No
https://anchor.fm/bostonbasicincome/episodes/116--Power-to-Say-No-einogg

By default, audience cameras and microphones will remain disabled. To ask a question, type it in the Zoom chat.

If you'd like to ask your question aloud, also click the "Raise Hand" button on the "Participants" tab. The hosts will unmute you when it's your turn.

The discussion will be streamed live at this URL:
https://www.youtube.com/bostonbasicincome/live

It will also be available in podcast form in the following days:
https://anchor.fm/bostonbasicincome

Image Source: Queen Mary Psalter
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reeve_and_Serfs.jpg