• 한국사회정책
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.37-71
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• 2018

Since 2016, public and political interest on basic income has been increased beyond academic interest. The recent debate on basic income has expanded on issues regarding to the concrete implementation of basic income moving further than the debate on conception of the basic income in the abstract level. This study examines major critiques of basic income which was raised from social policy area and makes a counter-argument on these critiques. Major points summarized as follows. First, the problem of jobs and social insurance exclusion is not serious enough to call for basic income. Second, existing social security systems will be crowded out by excessive financial burden if basic income is introduced. Third, policies to cultivate citizens' capacities to cope with a technological change should be given priority over basic income. This study disputes these critiques by counter arguing four points. First, it is necessary to reconstruct welfare state based on basic income, given the labor market changes, such as long-term trend of employment change, newly emerging employment of platform companies, and inconsistency of platform labor and social insurance. Second, hypothesis of crowding-out effect on social security system is just a criticism that can be applied to the basic income initiative of the right-wing. Also, it is unable to find a logical basis or evidence of this hypothesis from the historical process of welfare state development or previous studies. Third, it is necessary to discuss how to reconfigure existing social security system and basic income which are complementary to each other and also have consistency with labor market as a configuration, not as a matter of choosing between basic income and social security system. Fourth, de-laborization does not mean a refusal to labor but a free choice, and the basic principle of social security is not needs but right. In conclusion, in order to develop more productive debate on basic income, it requires more sophisticated discussion and criticism from the point of view of the distributive justice; the debate on the sustainability of social insurance-centered welfare states; and debates on the political realization of basic income.