The Right to Existence in Developing Countries: Basic Income in East Timor

Abstract

In this article we consider the potential of a Basic Income (BI) as a mechanism for promoting well-integrated and autonomous social and productive development in newly independent Democratic Republic of East Timor, and for expanding the freedom of this country's population that is struggling to throw off the bitter legacy of colonial and postcolonial dispossession and violence. We briefly outline the main social and economic problems faced by the new Democratic Republic of East Timor. Then we argue that a BI financed by oil and natural gas revenues could play a major role in combating these problems.