Politically and socially, the key social fact that has long obsessed me has been poverty, especially women’s poverty….and the importance of maintaining a responsible social state for addressing poverty and challenging the power of wealth, i.e.
“the wealth power.”. This was always the major focus for my writing, my teaching and my activism. Over the years my ideas and activism deepened, but poverty and economic injustice were always at the core of everything.
Most recently, the concept of “precarity” and seeing the precariat as a new dangerous class as presented by Guy Standing has helped me to move forward. Currently, development of the national Poor People’s Campaign has provided a new “movement home” for me. I have posted material from the Campaign. This is where my heart is now, in this “real deal movement. This work builds from and incorporates my earlier association with the Basic Income idea and movement that were the focus of much of my activism and speaking as I began this blog. Essentially, I see Basic Income as “welfare for all.” And that is a positive good for all — but only if it is truly universal, not categorical. Otherwise we recreate the the divisions of our historic welfare system. And today I see the new Poor People’s Campaign as the most effective social movement bringing folks together for doing so.
Since so much of my past and current writing and speaking focus on welfare rights and building the Basic Income Movement, I’ll let my writing speak for itself.
I do want to note here that over the past year Basic Income has gained far more national and international attention. It is being discussed, written about and serves as a source for organizing in ways I could never have dreamed three years ago. Because of this, I am even more committed to gathering people together around the concept, and to reaching out to other movements so that BI grows into a wider, bigger global movement for social and economic justice, and that it stays rooted in feminism, socialism and a commitment to deeply radical, liberationist thought and action. The time is now, bolstered and challenged by the “fierce necessity” recognized by our most visionary and radical predecessors.
And, for me the Poor People’s Campaign in the location and base for community, state and national organizing where a commitment to achieving a Universal Basic Income for All is imbedded in day to organizing. It is exciting and deeply satisfying to be a part of this effort at the local and national levels.
Here are uploads of some of my less easily found writings, and summaries of talks given, often with my friend and comrade, Diane Dujon on the subject:
Here are uploads of some of my less easily found writings, and summaries of talks given, often with my friend and comrade, Diane Dujon on the subject, and my more recently met friend and comrade.
Savina Martin, our Massachusetts Poor People’s Campaign Leader.
Fulfilling Fears and Fantasies, 2004 welfare in the Right-wing worldview
Women and Basic Income, 1993 Journal of Poverty, my first attempt to connect Basic Income and Welfare
Survival News, The welfare rights newspaper, published out of Boston
Mother Heroes, 1996 How to view Women on Welfare, with an award at least
For Better and for Worse 1986 tensions among women in the welfare state
Legitimacy Is Elsewhere 1995 unpublished Talk at the Florence Heller School of Social Policy Brandeis University
We Don’t All Agree that Welfare Has Failed 1996 For Crying Out Loud
Radical Truth Sayers 2012 Ann on the Welfare Rights Movement
Withorn-1996- “Why do They Hate me So Much?” American_Journal_of_Orthopsychiatry
We Knew We Were Somebody, 2010 Diane and Ann Talk About Welfare Rights
Who Cares? 2007 Research Plans
Basic Income as a Poverty Prevention Strategy 2015 Report Back from North American Basic Income Congress in NYC
Radicalreentry 