Can you think of a better title for a book where Pope Francis proposes that governments should establish a permanent universal basic income? He argues that a universal basic income will bring many benefits for people such as support for unpaid care workers in families, the freedom to refuse bad work, the end of the ‘welfare’ stigma and the ability to opt for voluntary community work
The book is the result of a collaboration of Pope Francis with his biographer Austen Ivereigh. The English version will be published by Simon & Schuster next week on 1 December. Many other important topics are discussed such as the killing of George Floyd in the USA and the urgent need for racial justice and the persecution of the Uighur Muslim minority in China’s Xinjiang region.
You can find a discussion of the book in the Guardian ‘Pope says for first time that China’s Uighurs are persecuted‘ and in the journal America – the Jesuit Review ‘Pope Francis talks about Uighurs, George Floyd and Universal Basic Income in new interview’. There will probably be several different language versions of the book. In the journal La Croix the French version of the book « Un temps pour changer » is presented in an article with the fitting title ‘Le plaidoyer du pape François pour le revenu universel‘. The French term <le revenu universel> means universal income.