Long term historic data shows the inadequacy of labour income to meet consumer expenditure. Data prior to the 2007 economic crisis shows an increasing gap between GDP and disposable consumer income being met by increased household loans which lead to crisis. Financial orthodoxy applies an affordability criterion of deficit limitation to constrain welfare expenditure and imposes austerity.
In this seminar, Geoff Crocker develops a neo-Keynesian proposal for basic income to supplement consumer demand, displacing consumer credit and avoiding crisis. At the same time, he takes the claims of modern monetary theory that a sovereign state can issue money against a criterion of output GDP without incurring repayable debt, to propose funding of basic income by money creation.
This seminar is co-hosted with the Department of Economics at the University of Bath. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Speaker profiles
Geoff Crocker holds a first class degree from Durham in economics, where he studied under John Hey, and an MA in Philosophy of Science from Bristol. He has worked extensively in industry technology strategy. He is an advocate of basic income and the editor of the site at www.ubi.org where several of his papers can be found.