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USBIG Newsletter VOL. 6, NO. 36, November - December 2005

This is the Newsletter of the USBIG Network (http://www.usbig.net), which promotes 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 would like to be added to or removed from this list please email: Karl@Widerquist.com.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  1. The Fifth USBIG Congress: Tentative Schedule Now Available
  2. President Bush Questioned (by Senator Suplicy) About BIG
  3. Alaska Permanent Fund hits new high as politicians talk of copying it in Iraq, Wyoming, and Venezuela
  4. Basic Income Debated by the ruling party in Quebec
  5. BIG Discussion in Denmark, but far from implementation
  6. Renewed Discussion of BIG in France
  7. Dutch Green Party Reduces Support for Basic Income
  8. Britain Might be Moving Toward a Citizens Pension
  9. South African Protesters Call for a Basic Income Grant
  10. Presentation on Guaranteed Livable Income in Victoria, BC, Canada
  11. First German-language Conference on Basic Income
  12. First Annual Meeting of the Argentinean Basic Income Network
  13. New Publications
  14. Announcement: Hoover Fellowship in Economic and Social Ethics
  15. New Link
  16. New Members
  17. Links and other info

1. The Fifth USBIG Congress: Tentative Schedule Now Available

The Fifth Congress of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network will take place at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel at 1200 Market Street, Philadelphia, February 24-26, 2006. Forty participants will participate in sessions such as:

Featured speakers include Heather Boushey, Nicolaus Tideman, Senator Eduardo Suplicy, Kevin Zeese, Alanna Hartzok, Bill Grennon, Steve Bloom, James Bryan, Samuel Butler, David Casassas, Richard Caputo, Timothy Carter, Stephen Clark, Harry Dahms, Jurgen De Wispelaere, Kruti Dholakia, Nir Eyal, Sandra Gonzalez Bailon, Philip Harvey, Marie Janicke, Michael A. Lewis, John Marangos, George McGuire, Roy Morrison, Nicoli Nattrass, Eri Noguchi, Hans Peeters, A.R. Rowe, Shlomi Segall, Steven Shafarman, Al Sheahen, Jeff Smith, Dan Sullivan, Margy Waller, Amy Wax, David L. Wetzell, Karl Widerquist, Ji-Young Yoo, Naoki Yoshihara, and Almaz Zelleke.

The tentative conference schedule is on the USBIG Website.

The USBIG Congress is held jointly with the Eastern Economics Association Annual Meeting. All attendees of the USBIG Congress can attend any of the hundreds of session of the EEA Conference (see program at: http://www.iona.edu/eea/conf2006/PAHome.htm). Everyone who attends the USBIG conference must register with EEA. Registration instructions will be on the USBIG website soon.

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2. President Bush Questioned (by Senator Suplicy) About BIG

On November 6, at a conference on greater economic integration in the Americas in Brasilia, just after his 22 minutes conference in Brasilia, President Bush extended his hands Senator Suplicy, who asked:

Senator SUPLICY: “With respect to the integration of the Americas we should have the purpose of not only to have the free movement of capital, goods and services, without any barriers, but also and mainly of what is most important, that is, of human beings from Alaska to the Patagonia. More than that we should also have what you already have in Alaska with much success, a citizen’s basic income to all residents in that State.”
President BUSH: “Well, in Alaska they have lots of oil.”
SUPLICY: “But we may have a basic income from all the forms of wealth that are created. I would like to suggest that in order to create the conditions for real peace based on justice in Iraq that we should stimulate the Iraqians to follow the example of Alaska that pays every year a basic income to all residents living in that State in the form of dividends that result from the Alaska Permanent Fund.”
BUSH: “We are working on that! We are working on that! Thank you.”

Suplicy also spoke about Brazil's basic income at the Parliamentary Network Conference of the World Bank in Helsinki, Finland on October 21-23. About 180 members of the parliaments of about 100 countries of the world participated in the Conference. Senator Suplicy individually lobbied several members of parliaments on Basic Income. Suplicy presented the same lecture at the Austrian and Belgium Basic Income Network, in Vienna, October 9, and to the Training Department of the European Commission, on October 10.

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3. Alaska Permanent Fund hits new high as politicians talk of copying it in Iraq, Wyoming, and Venezuela

The Alaska Permanent Fund has grown by 1.3 billion dollars since the start of its fiscal year in July. The fund hit a new high of $32.1 billion last month due to an increase in the value of its stock market investments. The fund’s value has increased by 50 percent since the bottom of the stock market downturn, in September 2002, when the fund was worth $21.8 billion. Because yearly dividends are based on a running average of returns, it will take several years for the new gains in the total value of the fund to translate into higher dividends.

Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial figure now serving as one of the deputy prime ministers of Iraq, has claimed credit for successfully pushing for language in Iraq's new constitution to create "an Alaska-style trust to share oil revenues equally among Iraqi citizens." However, according to Dermot Cole of the News-Miner, “The section of the Iraq constitution that is said to endorse something comparable to the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend does nothing of the kind, but it is vague enough to allow a distribution plan and it does set a philosophical foundation for spreading the wealth.” Tamara Chalabi, a London-based scholar who earned a doctorate at Harvard, said that rather than follow the examples of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, or Nigeria, Iraq should give everyone in the country shares of stock in a national oil holding company and make dividend payments once a month. This scheme “does not float on a utopian cloud,” but has its precedent in Alaska, she said.

In Wyoming, a Republican representative, David Miller, is proposing to give state residents a $2,000 piece of Wyoming's estimated $1.8 billion budget surplus, but he claims it would not be an “entitlement” program like Alaska’s Permanent Fund. In the Venezuela English-language daily newspaper, the Daily Journal, Michael Rowan, a political analyst and author, speculates that 80% of Venezuela’s poor would prefer an Alaska Style Fund, distributing 50% of oil revenues in dividends, to Venezuela’s current system of wholly state-owned oil industry.

This report was compiled from articles in the Alaska News-Miner, the Anchorage Daily News, and KTUU-TV, Anchorage, Alaska, and the (Caracas) Daily Journal.

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4. Basic Income Debated by the ruling party in Quebec

BIEN reports, on October 19, 2005, an informal group of prominent intellectuals, including the former Prime Minister of Quebec Lucien Bouchard, published a much-discussed manifesto on the future of the Province. In "Clear-eyed vision of Quebec", they argue for a basic income: "Québec could also consider creating a guaranteed minimum income plan… Such a system would have the advantage of reducing the cumbersome bureaucracy required to administer multiple, complex programs. The Québec model is founded on the ideal of social solidarity that we espouse with conviction. We are also convinced that if it is to be put into practice, this solidarity must be efficient." (Available in English and French at http://www.pourunquebeclucide.com)

In a column which was published in the French-language daily "La Presse" (Montreal) on October 26, 2005, Camille Bouchard, a member of the Quebecois provincial parliament and a figure of the nationalist "Parti Quebecois", criticizes the guaranteed minimum income plan. She argues that a substantial basic income might prove incompatible with the neo-liberal proposals included in the other sections of the manifesto, and put its feasibility into question (see http://www.politiquessociales.net/Docs/pourunquebeccoherent.htm) Within the "Parti Quebecois" itself, basic income was recently endorsed by two of the leadership candidates, Pauline Marois and, in a more vigorous way, Gilbert Paquette. In a short but detailed document, Paquette argues for a citizen's income, which he sees as a major reform to be implemented in an independent Quebec (see http://www.gilbertpaquette.org/solidarite_lutte_pauvrete.htm).

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5. BIG Discussion in Denmark, but far from implementation

In Denmark the flat tax proposal has been repeatedly debated in recent months. According to BIEN-Denmark, a liberal think tank called CEPHOS held a conference on this idea on June 28, 2005. A number of liberal politicians have expressed some interest in the idea, but the Danish minister of Taxation has, so far, rejected it. One of the pioneers of the Danish Basic Income debate, former professor in economics Gunnar Thorlund Jepsen, University of Aarhus, wrote a thought-provoking feature article entitled 'Flat Tax and Citizens Income', in Jyllandsposten, August 8, 2005, in which he supported the idea of a flat tax, while also pointing to the fact that it should be combined with some sort of Citizen's income. In November 2005 the physician Ellen Ryg Olsen published a book entitled Sick People in Forced Labour: Treatment of Disability Retirement Benefit Applicants, documenting the pressure from the state and municipal authorities that is put on sick, worn-out and expelled people, with the purpose of having them go through work test assessments, so that they can be integrated in the job market. One of her suggestions, as an alternative to this system, is an unconditional basic income. The Danish Basic Income Movement has just published a folder called 'Basic Income ­ Why and How?' showing three different models for the implementation and financing of Basic Income for all citizens. For further information: http://www.borgerloen.dk/. –From BIEN

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6. Renewed Discussion of BIG in France

BIEN reports, on November 10, 2005, the left-of-center daily "Libération" has published a special issue on "Thirty ideas to revive the Left". Starting with an interview of Philippe Van Parijs, it includes a discussion of basic income along the lines of proposals made by French economists Yoland Bresson and Yann Moulier-Boutang, respectively. According to Moulier-Boutang, the level of the French basic income should be "at least 1.000 Euros" a month. More interestingly, this special issue also briefly discusses a proposal of capital grant, which is totally new to the contemporary French debate. Economist Roger Godino argues that each French citizen should receive a basic capital of 10.000 Euros at the age of 18. Libération's website: http://www.liberation.fr.

On the occasion of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (Oct. 17, 2005), the French Federalist Party has published a Press Release calling for the implementation of a so-called "Existence Income.” The Federalist Party, which remains so far a very small player in France's political circles, argues that basic income should be defended as a European project. For further information: http://www.parti-federaliste.fr.

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7.Dutch Green Party Reduces Support for Basic Income

BIEN reports, The Dutch Green Party GroenLinks, which had been the most prominent political support of an unconditional basic income in the Netherlands during the 1990s, gives its full support to more active social policies. Under the supervision of its leader Femke Halsema, GroenLinks has just published a policy document stating that the unemployed should be "obliged to participate" if they cannot find a job. The obligation means that after one year of job search, all able-bodied unemployed should participate in subsidized employment, or follow educational programs. Somewhat surprisingly, GroenLinks still argues in favour of a so-called "partial basic income". In fact, since this benefit should be restricted to low-paid workers, it is similar to a modest Earned Income Tax Credit. For further information, see http://www.groenlinks.nl

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8. Britain Might be Moving Toward a Citizens Pension

BIEN reports, the Second Report of the Pensions Commission directed by Lord Turner (the "Turner Report") has been published on November 30, 2005. Among other things, the most controversial being the raising of the pension age, this report recommends "reforms to make the state system less means-tested and closer to universal". In a Press release which was published on the very same day, The Citizen’s Income Trust (CIT) suggests that a "Citizen's pension" might be the best alternative to the current means-tested system. According to the CIT, an adequate universal flat-rate 'Citizen’s Pension' (CP) for every resident adult over the state retirement age, and paid at the rate of 109.45 British Pounds per week for a single pensioner would allow most of the 5 million British senior citizens without other financial resources to live with dignity and without recourse to means-tested benefits. A CP would provide a stable foundation for a portfolio including occupational and private pensions. The British Pensions Policy Institute has calculated that a Citizen's Pension of 110 British Pounds per week (approx. 30% of GDP per capita) could be afforded immediately within current government spending on pensions. Further information is available from Dr. Malcolm Torry, the Director, The Citizen's Income Trust, Tel: 020 8305 1222, info@citizensincome.org

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9. South African Protesters Call for a Basic Income Grant

According to "The Independent Online" (Oct. 17, 2005), about 400 people gathered outside the Gauteng legislature on October 17, 2005, where they formed a human chain around the building to mark International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Representing a variety of non-governmental organisations such as the Treatment Action Campaign, the South African Non-governmental Organisations Coalition, Ikageng and Network Against Child Labour, the demonstrators called for a basic income grant for all. "We held our hands in a symbolic mark that shows that when we tie our hands together we make work light," said Hassim Lorgat, spokesperson. Sheilagh-Mary Waspe of Justice and Peace said they were also calling for government to extend the child support grant to children up to the age of 18, from 14, as a step towards the establishment of a comprehensive social security system in South Africa. "We are not calling for handouts. We are calling for the extension of the basic income grant for all so that people's dignity can be restored and that they can be able to pay for services," she said.

The Independent Online website: http://www.int.iol.co.za. Link to the article: http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=129&fArticleId=2951008.

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10. Presentation on Guaranteed Livable Income in Victoria, BC, Canada

Saturday, December 3rd, 1:30 pm, University of Victoria, British Columbia

This illustrated digital slide show by Cindy L'Hirondelle of Livable Income For Everyone (LIFE) and the Status of Women Action Group explored the impacts of poverty and the economic reasons for a guaranteed income as well as an overview of the guaranteed/basic income movement past and present. A discussion followed the presentation about the impacts of pursuing more production as a solution to poverty vs. guaranteed income. For more information please contact Catherine Etmanski: etmanski@uvic.ca or Cindy L'Hirondelle of LIFE gli2020@shaw.ca.

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11. First German-language Conference on Basic Income

VIENNA (AT), 7-9 October 2005

BEIN reports the first German-language congress entirely devoted to basic income was a truly impressive event. Jointly sponsored by the Austrian Network for Basic Income and Social Cohesion, the German basic income network, ATTAC Germany, and ATTAC Austria, locally organized (like BIEN's 1996 Vienna congress) by the Katholische Sozialakademie, it gathered over three hundred people, essentially from Austria, Germany and Switzerland, for two full days of intense exchanges, some in plenary sessions, others in parallel sessions and even, one evening, in the form of "philosophical cafes" in several of Vienna's famous cafes. The congress received good Press coverage. The Austrian national daily Die Presse devoted two pages to the theme, including a front page headline announcing that the socialist mayor of Vienna Michael Häupl expressed his sympathy for the idea: "After the [imminent municipal] election", he told the newspaper, "I shall strongly express my interest for such a basic income system, because the existing system of social assistance, family assistance and the like is opaque and smells of the charity state of the past." Germany's Tageszeitung (close to the Greens) and Neues Deutschland (close to the new "Left Party") also covered the event extensively, the Stuttgarter Zeitung carried an article, and several in-depth radio interviews and dossiers were broadcast.

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12. First Annual Meeting of the Argentinean Basic Income Network

BUENOS AIRES (AG), 5 November 2005

BIEN reports, the Red Argentina de Ingreso Ciudadano (Argentine Basic Income Network) held its first Annual Meeting on November 5th at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Buenos Aires. It was an open meeting to discuss key issues regarding the Basic Income debate in Argentina. Participants included María Julia Bertomeu, of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata and CONICET (National Council of Scientific and Technical Research), Cristian Pérez Muñoz, of the Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay, Noemí Giosa Zuazúa, of the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Public Policies, and Corina Rodríguez Enríquez, of the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Public Policies and CONICET. The main conclusions from the debates which took place at the meeting will be soon available on www.ingresociudadano.org

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13. New Publications

The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee

Widerquist, Karl, Michael Anthony Lewis, and, Steven Pressman. Aldershot: Ashgate, ISBN 0-7546-4188-0 (Hardback).

This book is a collection of essays mostly from the First Congress of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, held at the Graduate Center of City University of New York and sponsored by the Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare. After an introductory chapter by the editors the book is organized into four parts. Part One contains four chapters on the history of the idea. Fred Block and Margaret Somers discuss the relevance of Speenhamland system that existed in England in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. John Cunliffe and Guido Erreygers examine early American views on equal access to inherited wealth. Robert Harris discusses the U.S. guaranteed income movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Levine and others interpret the negative income tax experiences of the 1970s. Part two is dedicated to the ethical debate over the desirability of an unconditional basic income. Almaz Zelleke connects basic income to citizenship. Michael Howard discuss the duty to work and liberal neutrality. Karl Widerquist defends basic income against Gijs van Donselaar’s version of the exploitation objection. Michael A. Lewis takes on Ackerman and Alstott’s argument that stakeholder grants are more freedom promoting than basic income. Part Three contains four papers that examine empirical issues of basic income. Steve Pressman considers the efficiency-equity tradeoff. James B. Bryan examines the effects of the 1996 welfare reform and the Earned Income Tax Credits as a combined alternative to basic income. Thierry Laurent and Yannick L’Horty use French labor market data to examine the work incentive effects. Stephen Bouquin examines the strategy of subsidizing low-wage workers, which has recently been employed in several European countries, finding considerable evidence that a large part of the benefits of these subsidies have been captured by employers. Part Four concludes with a discussion of political proposals for basic income in several countries. Nicoli Nattrass and Jeremy Seeking discuss the political economy of the basic income grant in South Africa. Eduardo Suplicy discusses the approval of the basic income proposal in Brazil. Yannick Vanderborght examines the Belgian and Dutch “back door strategies” for basic income. Derek Hum and Wayne Simpson estimate the cost of eliminating poverty in Canada with a modified basic income. Randall Bartlett, James Davies, and Michael Hoy estimate the affordability of a negative income tax in Britain.
Publisher's website: http://www.ashgate.com/

For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs

Heinlein, Robert. Pocket Books, 2004.

Noted science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein's recently discovered first novel, written in 1938-39, was published by Pocket Books in 2004. The book's main character is transported 150 years in the future to the year 2086. Beginning on page 188, a citizen of the utopian society explains the rational behind their basic income guarantee.

"Basic Income Guarantees and the Right to Work"

Harvey, Phil and Boyle, Jennifer (eds.). Special issue of Rutgers Journal of Law & Urban Policy, vol.2, issue 1, Fall 2005

BIEN reports, this issue of the Journal of Law & Urban Policy (JLUP) is pioneering in both its substance and its format. The papers published in this issue of JLUP comprise the first direct scholarly exchange between proponents of basic income guarantees and employment guarantees to appear in print, and it also marks the first time a scholarly journal has taken full advantage of the Internet to create a genuine discussion format for carrying on a scholarly exchange such as this. The interrelated problems of endemic unemployment, low-wage work, poverty and growing inequality have inspired the growth of the contemporary basic income movement and have also revived interest in proposals to use direct job creation by government to achieve full employment. Advocates of this strategy argue that the best way to combat these problems is to close the economy’s job gap with an offer of decent work in government-funded jobs for all involuntarily unemployed workers. At the most recent international Congress of BIEN, which met in Barcelona in September 2004, leading proponents of these two strategies participated in a scholarly dialogue on the relative merits of their respective proposals. Four papers were presented in a session chaired by Philippe Van Parijs. Papers supporting the basic income idea were presented by Guy Standing and José Antonio Noguera. Papers supporting guaranteed employment proposals were presented by Philip Harvey, and by William Mitchell and Martin Watts. These four papers comprise the opening contributions to this JLUP’s symposium on Basic Income Guarantees and the Right to Work. The papers reflect sharp differences of opinion between proponents of the two strategies, but possibilities of convergence in their respective positions also receive some attention. This issue also includes papers on the same topic by Pavlina R. Tcherneva & L. Randall Wray, Axel Marx, Michael W. Howard, Erik Olin Wright, John Tomlinson, and José Luis Rey Pérez. Journal's webiste: http://www.jlup.org/

“Basic Food Income – Option or Obligation?”

Kunnemann, Rolf. FIAN International, defending the right to food worldwide. January 15, 2005, 31 pages.

About a quarter of those people facing food insecurity are so undernourished that they are unable to work. Others are unable to engage in agricultural work or wage labour due to infirmity or responsibilities such as family care (e.g. HIV-positive people and orphans). Even access to resources and minimum wages cannot help either of these two groups. A universal basic income paid to every citizen without means-testing and irrespective of age and employment status, which is recouped through taxation from better earners, is an effective way of remedying the abject poverty and destitution faced by the lowest quartile of the poor. Pilot programmes in different countries have shown that such cash transfer programmes can raise the standard of living of this group by providing the means for procuring food. FIAN supports civil society efforts towards the creation of basic income programmes in different countries of the world.

The full text of this article can be downloaded from: http://www.fian.org/fian/index.php?option=com_doclight&Itemid=100&task=showdocument&dl_docID=43.
Author’s email address: kuennemann@fian.org.

“Globalization or Hyper-Alienation? Critiques of Traditional Marxism as Arguments for Basic Income,”

Dahms, Harry F. Social theory as Politics in Knowledge; Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Volume 23, 205-276 (London: Elsevier), 2005

The Basic Homework on Basic Income Grants

Archer, Sean. Working Paper No. 122, the Center for Social Science Research October 2005

This skeptical paper on the BIG debate in South Africa argues that giving cash grants to individuals is not the best way to fight poverty because individuals might not know best how to spend it. The most important goods that everyone needs are so-called merit goods, such as schooling, health care, child care, and public transportation. The article argues that it is not necessarily better to give people money and let them decide what goods they should buy, when the government can decide for them by directing all of the available funds into providing merit goods. The article can be downloaded free at http://www.cssr.uct.ac.za. Archer is a research associate in the University of Cape Town School of Economics.

"Three Models of Social Protection"

Grinspun, Alejandro (2005). One Pager - International Poverty Center, United Nations Development Programme, October 2005, Number 17.

BIEN reports, This page briefly discusses the idea of social funds as ways of providing cash to individuals or families in developing countries. It briefly focuses on South Africa, where a proposal for a universal basic income is said to having "raised a storm". "Many dismiss the idea as impracticable", Grinspun writes, "but a broad coalition of supporters has kept the debate raging. They claim it is affordable and feasible, and would give effect to the ‘right to social security’ written into the 1996 Constitution by providing a modicum of economic security to the more than half of South Africans trapped in long-term poverty." The document - which does not necessarily reflect the official views of the International Poverty Centre or the United Nations Development Programme - also briefly mention the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Programme. This One Pager can be downloaded at http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/newsletters/OnePager17.pdf.

"Frames of Justice. Implications for Social Policy"

Pelton, Leroy H. (2005). New Brunswick (USA): Transaction.

BIEN reports, this essay by Leroy H. Pelton (former director of the School of Social Work, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA) is devoted to analyzing three major frames of justice -- group justice, individual desert, and life affirmation -- and their implications for social policy as well as their reflections in contemporary social policies, while simultaneously exploring the notion of desert in religion, philosophy, and legislation ­especially within the context of the moral question of the relationship between means and ends. In chapter 5, on "Need, Desert, and Nondiscrimination", Pelton argues that "a liberal and just community, through its instrument of government, is obliged not to allow basic human needs to go unaddressed, and must address such need without judgment or discrimination" (p. 88), and proposes "that an annual common monetary benefit, at least of sufficient size to address the basic human needs of an individual in a minimally adequate manner, be allocated (without transfer) to every member of the community, adjusted only for size of household. This benefit would, at the least, set a floor under which no one would be allowed to fall (p. 89)". Pelton stresses that "even for a wealthy man, the amount allocated would be his fair share that he would have used to meet his basic needs, or somewhat beyond (depending on the level of common benefit that the society has decided upon) had he lost his wealth" (p. 89). “If a society is to respect human life without discrimination, its policies must enhance the lives of all regardless of economic station. True, the degree of one’s wealth is itself an indicator of the extent to which one has benefited from the community” (p. 89). In Pelton’s proposal of this arrangement that allocates common benefits, “the tax on other income would be flat, or strictly proportional” (p. 90). Leroy H. Pelton finally point out that under the proposed system “there is no disincentive to work unless one is fully content with minimal survival, since no matter what a man makes, he is allocated the common benefit, offset only somewhat by taxes at the lower income levels” (p. 92).

"Unconditional Welfare Benefits and the Principle of Reciprocity"

Segall, Shlomi (2005). Politics, philosophy & economics, vol.4, Number 3, October 2005, 331-354

BIEN reports, this article by Shlomi Segall (of Harvard University) seeks to rebut the claim, made by Stuart White and others, that providing welfare benefits to citizens who do not, and are not willing to, work breaks the principle of reciprocity. This, they argue, justifies placing a minimum work requirement on welfare recipients. The article begins by rejecting the attempt to ground the work requirement on a civic obligation to work. It then explores the principle of reciprocity, and argues that the practice of reciprocity depends on the particular conception of distributive justice adopted. An examination of different interpretations of egalitarian justice and their corresponding patterns of reciprocity demonstrates that unconditional welfare benefits are compatible with, and sometimes even warranted by, the principle of reciprocity. Thus, imposing a work requirement on welfare recipients is by no means a mandate of reciprocity.
Journal's website: http://ppe.sagepub.com
Author's address: shlomi.segall@seh.ox.ac.uk

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14. Announcement: Hoover Fellowship in Economic and Social Ethics

Hoover Fellowship in Economic and Social Ethics, Université catholique de Louvain 2006-07 funds every year a number of post-doctoral fellows in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. The fellowship is intended for scholars from outside Belgium, who hold a doctorate or possess equivalent qualifications and are active in the field of economic or social ethics. The fellowships are not specific to basic income, but a large amount of basic income research has come out of the Chaire Hoover. At least some rudiments of French and an active knowledge of either English or French are required. Fellows with no other source of income are offered an all-inclusive gross monthly stipend of Euros 2000 for a period not exceeding 4 months. Information about the application procedure and the fellowships is available at http://www.etes.ucl.ac.be/. The deadline for applications is February 28, 2006.

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15. New Link

Survey Asks About Basic Income and modern morality

Moralcompass.org is conducting an internet survey which seeks to establish the extent of the shift away from traditional morality (selflessness, altruism, sharing and cooperation) to the morality of the market (competitive self-interest). The Authors group respondents into four ideologies: traditional progressives, rationalists, new libertarians, and new progressives based on their respondents. The survey includes a question about basic income, and a surprisingly large number of respondents (more than 30%) have indicated that they favor basic income. If you would like to take the survey, go to Moralcompass.org.

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16. New Members

Membership in the USBIG Network is free and open to anyone who shares its goals. Ten new members have joined USBIG in the last two months. Their names are below in bold. To become a member of USBIG and to see the complete list, go to http://www.usbig.net.

Mark Ewbank, Coventry, United Kingdom; Bernard Cloutier, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Mark Erickson, Skokie, IL; Dale Carrico, Oakland, CA; Joseph Meyer, St.Vith, Belgium; A.R. Rowe, Brooklyn, NY; Pius Charles Murray, Somersworth, NH; John D. Jones, Milwaukee, WI; Troy Davis, Williamsburg, VA; William E Fraser, Santa Cruz, CA.

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17. 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 content or their agendas.

THE USBIG NETWORK NEWSLETTER

Editor: Karl Widerquist
Research: Paul Nollen
Copyediting: Mike Murray and the USBIG Committee
Thanks for help with this issue to: Harry F. Dahms, Bernard Marszalek

THE U.S. BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE (USBIG) NETWORK publishes this newsletter. The Network 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 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.

As always, your comments on this newsletter and the USBIG website are gladly welcomed.

Thanks,

-Karl Widerquist, Coordinator, USBIG. Karl@Widerquist.com

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