USBIG NEWSLETTER VOL. 4 NO. 22, JULY-AUGUST 2003
This is the Newsletter of USBIG, (http://www.usbig.net) a network promoting the discussion of the basic income guarantee (BIG) in the United States--a policy that would unconditionally guarantee a subsistence-level income for everyone. If you'd like to be added to or removed from this list please email: Karl@Widerquist.com.
1 CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS: THE THIRD CONGRESS OF THE U.S. BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE NETWORK
2 INTRODUCTION TO BIG ON WEB IN STREAMING AUDIO AND VIDEO
3 ROBERT SCHILLER ENDORSES A VARIANT OF BIG IN HIS NEW BOOK
4 RECENT EVENTS
5 PRO-BIG PARTIES FACING TOUGH TIMES IN BELGIUM
6 THE IRISH PRIME MINISTER SAYS BASIC INCOME IS WORKABLE
7 A BASIC INCOME FUNDED BY THE EU IN WESTERN SAHARA?
8 RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON BIG
9 LINKS AND OTHER INFO
1 CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS:
THE THIRD CONGRESS OF THE U.S. BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE NETWORK
February 20-22, 2004 the Hyatt Regency Washington, DC
400 New Jersey Avenue, NW
The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network will hold its Third Annual Congress in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Economics Association at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The Congress is co-sponsored by the Citizen Policies Institute. USBIG is a network promoting the discussion of the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) in the United States -- a policy that would unconditionally guarantee a subsistence-level income for everyone.
Scholars, activists, and others are invited to attend, to propose papers, and to organize panel discussions. Proposals are welcome on topics relating to the Basic Income Guarantee or to the current state of poverty and inequality. Suggested topics include the political economy of BIG; the history of BIG; gender, family, and labor market issues of BIG; rights and responsibilities relating to BIG, refundable tax credits as a path to BIG, and empirical issues of BIG and of poverty including cost estimates. The purpose of the conference is discussion, and all points of view are welcome. Although the meeting is in conjunction with the Eastern Economics Association, the USBIG Congress is entirely autonomous in content and submissions are welcome in any discipline.
The first two USBIG Conferences have been attended by a wide range of academics and activists from the United States and a dozen other countries. Three papers from the first conference will soon be published as a symposium in the Review of Social Economy. Seven papers from the first two Congresses will form the basis of a special issue on the basic income guarantee in the Journal of Socio-Economics forthcoming in 2004. Several of these papers will be published in a book entitled “The Economics and Ethics of the Basic Income Guarantee,” edited by Lewis, Pressman, and Widerquist.
TO PROPOSE A PAPER, send a proposal including the following information to Karl@Widerquist.com:
1. Name
2. Title (if applicable)
3. Affiliation (if applicable)
4. Address including City, State, Zip Code (Postal Code), and Country
5. Telephone number
6. Email Address
7. Paper Title
8. Abstract (of 50 to 150 words)
The Deadline for submissions is November 7, 2003. Anyone who submits a paper must also be available to chair a session and/or to act as discussant. Anyone who wants only to chair a session or act as a discussant should email their name, affiliation, and contact information to Karl@Widerquist.com.
TO PROPOSE A PANEL DISCUSSION, please send a title (and topic) for the panel and the following information for each participant:
1. Name
2. Title (if applicable)
3. Affiliation (if applicable)
4. Address including City, State, Zip Code (Postal Code), and Country
5. Telephone number
6. Email Address
7. Title of remarks (if appropriate)
Please indicate whether or not the speakers will be presenting formal papers. If so, please include an abstract for each paper. Given the time constraints, panels with formal paper presentations should usually contain three presentations, although it is possible to squeeze in four, and discussions without formal papers can include more.
EVERYONE WHO ATTENDS MUST REGISTER WITH THE EEA. Indicate on your registration form that you will be attending the USBIG conference and you can register at the members’ price ($45 in advance and $60 on site) without paying the EEA membership fee (saving $50). This saves more than half price off of the regular EEA registration fees. Check the EEA website (http://www.iona.edu/eea/) for more information about registration. Please note, the EEA does check to make sure we all register.
2 INTRODUCTION TO BIG ON WEB IN STREAMING AUDIO AND VIDEO
(By Howard Chong, Berkeley, CA)
If you or someone you know would profit from hearing about Basic Income, rather than reading about it, there is an excellent Web Broadcast on Basic Income Guarantee (BIG). Carole Pateman, a professor of Political Science at UCLA introduces Basic Income in a 50-minute lecture. Skip over the first 10 minutes of introduction and you get a well structured three-part lecture on 1) What is a BIG, 2) What are its advantages, and 3) What are the current criticisms. It is simple enough for newcomers to the subject. After the lecture are a few questions, including some tried and true arguments like that about whether BIG should be unconditional or not.
Titled "The Equivalent of the Right to Land, Life, and
Liberty? Democracy and the Idea of a Basic Income", her talk emphasizes
the problem of democratic participation and "self-governance" when
people do not have the ability to be independent and economically
self-sustaining. Perhaps this lecture will be most interesting for women, as
Pateman discusses unpaid labor and how BIG will affect the division of labor
and gender equity. The lecture is available in both streaming audio and
streaming video at: http://www.oid.ucla.edu/Webcast/FRL/Pateman/
3 ROBERT SCHILLER ENDORSES A VARIANT OF BIG IN HIS NEW BOOK
(By Mark White)
Yale economist Robert Schiller (Irrational Exuberance) has a new book called The New Financial Order where he touts a variant of the Universal Basic Income that he calls inequality insurance....
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/publications/review/2003_6/76-83mr18.pdf
4 RECENT EVENTS
(From BIEN)
LINZ (AT), 17 May 2003: Workshop on social cohesion
The Austrian network on basic income and social cohesion (Netzwerk Grundeinkommen und sozialer Zusammenhalt), founded in the Autumn of 2002, organised a first one-day workshop in the city of Linz in collaboration with the Katholische Sozialakademie. Among the speakers, Dietmar Koehler (coordinator of an unemployed association), Margit Appel and Lieselotte Wohlgenannt (Katholische Sozialakademie) and Manfred Füllsack (Universität Wien) argued explicitly for a basic income. The aim of the network is to further the debate on basic income as an alternative to the current welfare system and its hardening into workfare. Its founding members include Alois Riedlsperger SJ (director of the KSOe), the philosopher Karl Reitter (Univ. Wien) and the feminist theologian Michaela Moser. For further information: Markus Blümel <redaktion@ksoe.at>, "Netzwerk Grundeinkommen und sozialer Zusammenhalt", www.grundeinkommen.at
BARCELONA (ES), 3 June 2003: Socialist conference on basic income
A conference organised by the Fundació Rafael Campalans, a foundation closely linked to the Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC), with the active participation of Antoni Castells (PSC secretary for economic affairs) and Jordi Sevilla (Secretary for Economic Policy and Labour of Spain's socialist party PSOE. There were four roundtables: "Basic Income: a citizenry right?" (with Daniel Raventos and Maria Jose Anon); "Basic Income in the Welfare State" (with Jose Noguera); "Financial Feasibility of the Basic Income" (with Magda Mercader, Rafael Pinilla and Luis Sanzo) and "Labour Market" (with David Casassas). A background document was prepared by Jorge Calero, member of both the PSC and the Red Renta Basica (Spain's basic income network). Basic income seems to emerge as the horizon of the process of rationalization and unification of social and tax policies that the PSC is planning.
For further information: David Casassas casassas@eco.ub.es
BUENOS AIRES (AR), 17 June 2003: Roundtable on Citizen's Income
Ingreso ciudadano, trabajo y democracia. Potencialidades de una renta básica
Roundtable discussion on basic income at the Economics
Faculty o f the University of Buenos Aires, with the participation of Antoni Domenech (Universidad de Barcelona), Daniel
Raventos (Universidad de Barcelona) and Ruben Lo Vuolo (Senior Scholar at the
CIEPP, Buenos Aires). The visit to Argentina of philosopher Toni
Domenech and RedRentaBasica Chairman Dani Raventos also provided an opportunity
for organising other basic-income-related events at the initiative of the
Centro de Politicas Publicas para el Socialismo (CEPPAS) on 10 June 2003, of
the Institute of Philosophy of the Universidad de Buenos Aires on 19 June and
of the Association of students in the social sciences of the same University on
24 June. For further information: fenix@econ.uba.ar and ciepp@speedy.com.ar
AUSTRALIA: ADELAIDE FESTIVAL OF IDEAS
A major intellectual and cultural event organized every two years, the Adelaide Festival of Ideas chose "Hope and Fear" as the theme of its 2003 edition. One of its plenary evening sessions will be devoted to "Envisioning Real Utopias" and introduced by Erik Olin Wright, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin and editor of Verso's "Real Utopias", whose next volume is on basic income and stakeholder grants. Another will be devoted to "Basic Income: A Simple and Powerful Idea for the XXIst Century?" and introduced by Philippe Van Parijs, professor of economic and social ethics at the University of Louvain and secretary of BIEN. For further information: afa@adelaidefestival.net.au, http://www.adelaidefestival.org.au
5 PRO-BIG PARTIES FACING TOUGH TIMES IN BELGIUM
(From BIEN)
On 18 June 2003, Belgium had a general election after four years of a coalition government between the liberals, the socialists and, for the first time since they were founded around 1980, the Green parties. The most striking outcomes were a sharp rise (from 19.7% to 27.9%) of the socialist vote - especially its Flemish wing with Social Affairs Minister Frank Vandenbroucke (co-author of Basic Income on the Agenda, Amsterdam, 2000) - and a sharp fall (from 14.3 to 5.5 %) of the vote for the Greens - whose francophone wing was led by economist Philippe Defeyt, one of the co-ordinators of the Collectif Charles Fourier, which played a key role in the birth of BIEN. Owing to a new threshold of 5%, the Flemish wing of the Green party, the most explicit pro-BI party represented in the national Parliament, lost all its seats in both the Chamber and the Senate. As to Vivant, the party founded in 1997 by businessman and BIEN member Roland Duchatelet with a generous VAT-funded BI as its central policy, it attracted 1.2% of the vote, down from 2.9% when it fist stood four years ago).
For further information: http://www.vivant.org/
6 THE IRISH PRIME MINISTER SAYS BASIC INCOME IS WORKABLE
(From BIEN)
The issue of Basic Income was discussed at some length in the Dail (Irish Parliament) in the Leader's Questions session of 9 April 2003. A Green Paper was published in October 2002 by the Prime Minister's Department. A working group at the Department of Finance is now supposed to come up with a report that would take it into account. In reply to questions put to him, the Taoiseach showed himself non-committal but open: "It would be an enormous change and we have changed our tax system considerably in the past five or six years. Even some of those who were in favour of the studies and the work surrounding it have different views. It has to be discussed and analysed by many people. While I would not consider myself qualified to call it (sic), I believe it is workable... However, the plusses and minuses require enormous analysis. The full text of this exchange can be downloaded from http://www.cori.ie/justice/basic_income/leaders_questions_9_04_03.pdf. The Justice Commission of CORI has published an update on the costing of a full universal Basic Income for Ireland, available at http://www.cori.ie/justice/soc_issues/basic_inc.htm. For further information on the state of affairs in Ireland: Sean Healy sean.healy@cori.ie
7 A BASIC INCOME FUNDED BY THE EU IN WESTERN SAHARA?
(From BIEN)
Ever since 1975, when the Moroccan army invaded what used to be Spanish Western Sahara, the Sahraouis have been living in refugee camps on Algerian soil. They are now about 155,000 spread over four camps, with their own (Polisario-Front-linked) government in exile. Their daily subsistence takes the form of rations of food, clothing and other necessaries distributed by the Red Crescent and funded by the European Commission's Development Department (ECHO programme) and the UN's World Food programme (PAM). These rations are distributed without means test (the ministers receive them too) or work test (there is hardly any job going anyway). Many Sahraouis supplement this basic ration with modest supplements, sometimes in cash, sometimes not, that stem from working more or less regularly as truck drivers, nurses or teachers, or from raising some goats or camels, or from trading couscous, tea pots or old cars. For further information: Patrick van Male (patrick_vm@hotmail.com), who worked there as a volunteer for one month.
8 RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON BIG
(From BIEN)
McKINNON Catriona. Liberalism and the Defence of Political Constructivism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. (Author's address: cm31@york.ac.uk)
By way of illustration of the "radical potential" of a liberal approach that includes the social bases of self respect among its central concerns, York University political philosopher Catriona McKinnen discusses at some length the proposal of an unconditional basic income (pp. 138-142). An unconditional basic income would contribute to expanding the social bases of self-respect of the worst off by giving them more freedom to change jobs, access to more leisure time and a greater opportunity to use this leisure time for associational activities. However, it faces the serious objection that it exonerates of their personal responsibility those who take advantage of it to enjoy leisure while letting other do the work that funds it. Is this objection sufficient to offset the prima face advantages of a universal basic income from her radical liberal perspective? The author does not answer in her book.
McKINNON Catriona. "Basic Income, Self-Respect and Reciprocity", in Journal of Applied Philosophy 2003. (Author's address: cm31@york.ac.uk)
In her Liberalism and the Defense of Political Constructivism (Palgrave, 2002), Catriona McKinnon hinted at a radical liberal case for an unconditional basic income inspired by John Rawls's emphasis on the social bases of self respect. In this article, she spells out the argument, by showing than an unconditional basic income maximins the distribution of income and wealth understood as a social basis of self-respect. The most important objection to this argument available to Rawlsians is that basic income violates the demands of reciprocity, where reciprocity in any scheme of distribution is a requirement of justice. Mc Kinnon discusses this objection at length, and argues that even if Rawlsians can make the objection successfully at a theoretical level (which is not clear), it is not sufficient to divest them of a commitment to basic income, given some practical considerations relating to a "participation income", which would then provide in theory a superior alternative to basic income.
MOFFITT, Robert. "The Negative Income Tax and the Evolution of U.S. Welfare Policy", NBER Working Paper No. W9751, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2003, Available from http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=414249 (Author's address: moffitt@jhu.edu). The negative income tax proposed by Milton Friedman represents one of the fundamental ideas of modern welfare policy. However, the academic literature has raised two difficulties with it, one challenging its purported work incentives and the other suggesting the possible superiority of work requirements. In addition, work requirement approaches have gained ground in actual U.S. welfare policy over the last 30 years and the number of different programs has proliferated, another development counter to the negative income tax. On the other hand, the Earned Income Tax Credit has produced a negative-income-tax-like program on a vast scale.
SEEKINGS & al., Welfare Reform in South Africa, special issue of Social Dynamics (Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa, cmcbride@humanities.uct.ac.za) (Coordinator's e-mail: JSEEKING@commerce.uct.ac.za)
This rich contribution to the debate on the future of South Africa's welfare state includes articles by Jeremy Seekings ("The broader importance of welfare reform in South Africa", Servaas van der Berg and Caryn Bredenkamp ("Devising social security interventions for maximum poverty impact"), Michael Samson ("The social, economic and fiscal impact of comprehensive social security reform for South Africa"), Pieter le Roux ("Financing a universal income grant in South Africa"), Teresa Guthrie ("Family social security benefits in South Africa"); Steve Wamhoff and Sandra Burman ("Parental maintenance for children: how the private maintenance system might be improved"); Francie Lund ("Social security and the changing labour market: access for non-standard and informal workers in South Africa"); and Nicoli Nattrass ("Should youth unemployment be targeted as part of a comprehensive welfare policy in South Africa?").
SHAPIRO, Daniel. 2002. 'Egalitarianism and Welfare-State Redistribution'. Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred Miller & Jeffrey Paul (eds.) Should Differences in Income and Wealth Matter? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-35. ISBN 0-521-00535-3
This challenging essay reviews arguments advanced by Left-leaning political philosophers and policy analysts about the shape welfare assistance should take: private or state-organised, and conditional or unconditional. After a systematic discussion of contemporary liberal-egalitarianism, Shapiro argues that egalitarians might prefer state welfare over private charity, but that this preference is not demanded by egalitarian doctrine. Moreover, egalitarians must support conditional aid over unconditional aid as a matter of egalitarian justice. The main reason is that "only the former helps to reveal whether a recipient is willing to take responsibility for his future, and egalitarians should view taking responsibility as essential for enabling victims of brute bad luck to get their lives under their control" (p.34). Shapiro's essay does not discuss basic income directly, but it contains ample material for basic income supporters who argue in favour of unconditional aid from an egalitarian point of view to engage with.
MORRISON, Roy “Tax Pollution, Not Income” includes as much about the negative income tax as it does about eco-taxes. From the series Directions for A New Millennium from Beshert Books, it is now available for reading and downloading in PDF format at:
http://www.essentialbooks.com/id91.htm.
“Like a latter-day Tom Paine, Roy Morrison calls
forth from the woods of New Hampshire for more than a little common sense to be
applied to two of our more pressing problems... The solution lies not in going
back to a pre-industrial past but in significantly increasing the costs of
these activities so the market will curtail the production of "bads"
and human ingenuity will be enlisted in a creative search for more sustainable
modes of industrial life....” -David Ellerman, Economic Advisor to the Chief
Economist World Bank
9 LINKS AND OTHER INFO
FOR LINKS TO DOZENS OF BIG WEBSITES AROUND THE WORLD, go to http://www.usbig.net, and click on “links.” These links are to any website with information about BIG, but USBIG does not necessarily endorse their programs.
THE U.S. BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE NETWORK (USBIG), which publishes this newsletter, is dedicated to promoting the discussion of the basic income guarantee (BIG) in the United States. BIG is a generic name for any proposal to create a minimum income level below which no citizen’s income can fall. Information on BIG and USBIG can be found on the web at: http://www.usbig.net. If you know any BIG news; if you have any comments on the newsletter or the web site; if you know anyone who would like to be added to this list; or if you would like to be removed from this list; please send me an email: Karl@Widerquist.com.
Thanks,
-Karl Widerquist, coordinator, USBIG.