Book Review: Experimenting with Unconditional Basic Income, Lessons from the Finnish BI Experiment 2017–2018 by Olli Kangas, Signe Jauhiainen, Miska Simanainen and Minna Ylikännö
| Author | Floriane Geels |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13882627221122796 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
somewhat unbalanced. Torry refers to continental Europe, but only examines Western Europe and
the Nordic countries; Southern and Central, let alone Eastern Europe, do not feature in the list.
Perhaps it would be useful to focus attention on these parts of Europe in the future, although, under-
standably, the history of the development of their concept of social protection is quite different from
the area of Europe Torry writes about. Central and Eastern European countries, for example, have
undergone a major transformation of their whole societies, and the concept of basic income, espe-
cially in relation to the cohesion of these societies, is proving increasingly important.
The final chapters of the monograph shed light on the shift of the basic income debate from the
national to the global level. Torry concludes that there is now a global debate on basic income. He
also argues that the recent developments in human history, brought about by (not only) the corona-
virus pandemic (today, we can sadly add, by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine), make it clear that the
basic income debate will not simply disappear. On the contrary, it seems that the very concept of
basic income is one of the central issues of contemporary social policy.
I fully agree with Torry’s latter point and would add that it is now more evident than ever that
basic income and social assistance should not be seen as pawns of social law, quite the contrary.
A properly designed social safety net is an increasingly important key to the success of all social
policy.
Torry’s monograph should become a must-read for social policy makers and social legislators, as
well as for politicians at all levels, students in many humanities disciplines, and scholars. The book
is both very informative and readable, and I believe it could be produced in further, expanded
editions.
ORCID iD
Kristina Koldinská https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2121-9007
Olli Kangas, Signe Jauhiainen, Miska Simanainen and Minna Ylikännö (eds.), Experimenting with Unconditional
Basic Income, Lessons from the Finnish BI Experiment 2017–2018, Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, 2021;
pp. 224
Reviewed by: Floriane Geels ,Université Saint-Louis
DOI: 10.1177/13882627221122796
What can we learn from Finland’s basic income (BI) experiment? This is the central question of the
collective volume Experimenting with Unconditional Basic Income. It all began in 2015, with the
decision of the centre-right government to launch a ‘basic income pilot study’(Chapter 3). This
social experiment was unique in scope and methodology: it granted 560 euros monthly, without
any conditions or means tests, to 2000 unemployed people in Finland between 2017 and 2018.
The book contains contributions from 12 authors, including four editors involved in the research,
and reports on the lessons learnt from the study. It offers complex but clear insights into the experi-
ment’s results. Scholars of social policy and working on BI, as well as policymakers, from both
Finland and abroad, could all gain knowledge from this research. Let us see why.
Book reviews 293
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