USBIG NEWSLETTER Vol. 11, No. 56 Spring 2010
This is the Newsletter of the USBIG Network (www.usbig.net), which
promotes the discussion of the basic income guarantee (BIG) in the
United States. BIG is a policy that would unconditionally guarantee at
least 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. EDITORIAL: I have a
basic income
2. JOINT
USBIG/BIEN-CANADA CONFERENCE HELD IN MONTREAL
3. ALASKA DIVIDEND
PAYOUT SECURE FOR 2010
4. MAINE INTRODUCES
A SMALL REFUNDABLE TAX CREDIT
5. BIG NEWS FROM AROUND
THE WORLD
6. UPCOMING EVENTS
7. RECENT PUBLICATIONS
8. NEW LINKS
9. LINKS AND OTHER INFO
1. EDITORIAL: I
have a basic income
In a period of about eight months, I managed to save and invest enough
money to get myself a small personal basic income. It was easy—if you
get the kind of lucky breaks I got. I’m telling you this story only
because it illustrates how much our economic fortunes are determined by
luck, how favorably our laws treat people who own stuff (people who
have obtained control of natural resources) and how much unearned
income is available for redistribution.
According to my job title, I’m a philosopher. My field is not known as
a big money-maker. But at least since Aristotle, philosophers have
occasionally made good money by teaching the children of the rich.
Aristotle went to Macedon to teach the son of the king. I went to the
Middle East the children of the oil-rich. The history that made parts
of the Middle East rich began more than 90 years, as the Ottoman Empire
was breaking up. Britain and France decided to arbitrarily draw
lines on the map of the Middle East to create dependencies that
eventually became states. Nobody knew at the time how much oil was
there or where most of it was. So, they had no idea those lines would
make eventually some of those countries very rich and others very poor.
Thanks to those decisions, the small Persian Gulf state of Qatar is now
the wealthiest country in the world. A few years ago the Emir of Qatar
(who basically owns the country) offered huge amounts of money to get
big-name Western universities, including Georgetown, to open campuses
there. Last year Georgetown hired me at a salary about three or four
times what I made on my previous job.
What did I do to “earn” this salary? My teaching load is lighter and my
skills are no higher than they were last year. The work I do now is no
more important than the work I did last year. The children of the
oil-rich can afford to pay more for their education, but it’s hard to
argue that it’s more important to educate them than anyone else.
Partly I’m being paid for my flexibility. Most people can’t pick up and
move to the Middle East. Partly I’m being paid because everybody knows
the Emir of Qatar has a lot of money, and nobody with any other options
is going to work there unless they get a piece of it. Just a lucky
break for whoever happens to be in position to take advantage of it.
So, suddenly, I had money to invest.
Meanwhile, in South Bend, Indiana, the most depressed real estate
market in the United States, my brother was a public school teacher. He
had bought a couple houses, fixed them up, and was making good money
renting them out. He had time and skills to invest but not money. I had
money but no time. We trust each other. The arrangement was obvious—a
lucky coincidence.
Because real estate prices are so low in South Bend, we already have
three houses, a lien on another, and we’ll soon be shopping for
another. We have long-term leases signed on the first three houses, so
that, beginning August 1, my share of the rental income from those
houses will be about $700 per month, or $8,400 this year, next year,
and every year. The laws of the state entitle me to keep that stream of
income from now until the end of time. I could leave it to my children
or set up a trust fund that to direct that flow of income toward
whatever purpose satisfies the whim I have in my head when I write my
will.
I have basic income, not just for life, but forever.
I pay about $15 a month in property tax on each home. But because we
can deduct funds spent on improvements to the homes and claim
“depreciation,” I can expect to pay no income taxes out of my share of
the returns. If it looks like our profit will be so strong that it will
force us to pay taxes we can put a new roof on a house, deduct the cost
from our earnings, see the value of our home increase (thought property
taxes will not), and earn more rent. People who actually have to work
for their money can expect a quarter or a third of it to go to income
taxes. This is not some brilliant shelter that our accountant devised.
This is how people who own stuff are treated by the tax rules from Key
West, Florida to North Slope, Alaska.
Assuming no compound interest and no new investments on my part, the
rent on the property I have accumulated in eight months of saving and
investing will add up to $84,000 over 10 years, $840,000 over the next
100 years. Assuming compound interests and new investments that amount
would go up exponentially—possibly increasing by 10 times in a dozen
years.
Of course, $8,400 is a very small basic income. It doesn’t tempt me to
quit my job and spend the rest of my life surfing off Malibu. Yet, it
is nearly as large as what a very optimistic basic income supporter
would hope to start out with. It is far larger than anything Congress
is likely to approve for people who need it. People are likely to say
we “can’t afford it” even though there are many people, who own much
more than I do, taking in money just as easily.
Compare my personal basic income to the only regional basic income in
the world today. Last year, the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend paid
$1305 to each resident of Alaska. That means that after eight months of
saving, I am able to pay myself a dividend more than six times the
amount that the oil-rich state of Alaska can pay its citizens after
more than thirty years of saving and investing. But Alaska taxes almost
nothing else but oil, and they use only a small portion of their oil
revenue to support the Permanent Fund. Mostly they used their oil
wealth to give people who own other things in Alaska a big tax cut. If
they had used all of their oil royalties to support the fund, the
dividend would be at least four times what it is now.
What can I possibly have done in eight months of investing to have
earned a perpetual stream of income from now until the end of time?
Not much really. Lucked into a situation. As much as people believe
that we must keep taxes low to reward people who do stuff and produce
stuff, our property laws and tax laws most favor people who own stuff.
In part, laws are set up this way because people who own stuff are very
powerful. They have an enormously disproportionate control over
government policy, and very often choose policies in their own self
interest. Owners have successfully pushed most of the tax burden off
onto people who make salaries.
But another important reason why the laws so greatly favor people who
own stuff is that most people do not understand the difference between
rewarding people who produce stuff and rewarding people who own stuff.
A lot of what we spend goes to reward production, but it’s a mistake to
think all income is earned. What can any investor do in a finite amount
of time to “earn” a stream of income that lasts forever?
Supposedly investors are paid for their forbearance and parsimony.
Because investors have the discipline to put money away instead of
spending it on consumption now, they earn a return on that savings. But
I didn’t save money because I was frugal. I saved money because I had
money. I have spent money more extravagantly in the past year than at
any other time in my life. Because I made so much more than I was used
to, I was able to buy pretty much whatever I felt like, and still have
a lot left over to invest. This seems to be true of a lot of investors.
Supposedly investors are paid for taking risks, but many of the vest
investments are not very risky. There is no chance that this business
will go bankrupt, because we don’t owe any money. There is some chance
that rental prices in South Bend will fall slightly, but probably not
much. If the South Bend real estate market stays depressed I can expect
my rental income to rise with inflation. If the market gets better I
can expect it to rise more quickly than inflation.
Supposedly investors are paid for providing a valuable service. To some
small extent this is true of me. If I hadn’t invested this money, the
South Bend real estate market would be just a little more depressed.
Rental properties would be just a little less available; purchase
prices would be just a little lower; rental prices would be just a
little higher, and other landlords would make just a little higher rate
of return. That’s something. But it hardly justifies a stream of income
from now until the end of time.
Supposedly the stream of income is justified by the continued
maintenance and improvements that owners put into their properties. But
those all come out of the stream of income. The need for maintenance or
improvement might decrease the size of my returns, but there is no
necessity for any new investment or even action on my part to maintain
them. I can just sit back and collect. Over time, the renters pay for
the maintenance themselves.
Investors might have to do something or produce something to obtain
ownership of a resource, but once they own it, anyone who wants to do
anything with that resource has to pay the owner for the privilege. The
owners of the past get a cut of all current production whether they
personally contribute anything or not. The existence of so much
unearned income reorients our economy away from productive activity so
that you can’t be sure that the initial investment was necessarily
something productive. Much of what people do, especially in the
financial, insurance, and real estate sectors revolves not around the
provision of services but around using financial resources as leverage
to obtain more financial resources.
Renters pay me because I own stuff that other people don’t. I’m in that
position, because I just happened to have a brother who needed an
investor just when I happened to have money to invest. I was in that
position because I just happened to get a job in Qatar. The Emir of
Qatar just happened to be able to give me that job because arbitrary
decisions made long ago by the British Empire just happened to have
worked out so that he owns stuff that other people don’t.
Lucky break upon lucky break upon lucky break determines who owns
resources and who does not. Those who do not own will pay those who do,
year after year, from now until the end of time or until we decide to
change the rules. We don’t need to eliminate property to change the
rules in an important way. How about a little rebate from those who own
stuff to those who do not? It would compensate them for all that they
have to pay just because others control the resources we all need to
use.
-Karl Widerquist, begun in New Orleans, completed in Buenos Aires
2. JOINT
USBIG/BIEN-CANADA CONFERENCE HELD IN MONTREAL
On April 15 and 16 the USBIG Network and the BIEN-Canada Network held a
conference in Montreal, Quebec. This was the Ninth North American Basic
Income Congress and the first joint conference of the U.S. and Canadian
BIEN affiliate. The theme of the Congress was “Basic Income at a Time
of Economic Upheaval: A Path to Justice and Stability?” The event was
organized by Centre de Recherche en Éthique de l’Université de Montreal
(CREUM) and held at McGill University. The event attracted almost 100
participants from North America and Europe, including a number of
people who had not previously attended Basic Income conferences or
meetings.
The highlights of the conference included presentations by Dr. Louise
Haagh of the University of York (UK) on “Basic Income and Public
Finance”, by Dr. Guy Standing, University of Bath (UK) on “Basic Income
for the Precariat”, and by Senator Eduardo Suplicy (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
on “Steps Towards a Citizen’s Basic Income”.
A “political panel” featured speakers from Quebec, Canada and the
United States who focused on political openings and challenges for
achieving BI in North America. The panel consisted of Amelie
Chateauneuf, spokesperson for FCPASQ; Tony Martin, Member of Parliament
and poverty critic for the New Democratic Party; Rob Rainer, Executive
Director for Canada Without Poverty; Al Sheahen, long-time activist
with USBIG; and Canadian Senator Hugh Segal. The panel was chaired by
Sheila Regehr, Director of the National Council of Welfare of Canada.
Other sessions at the conference addressed education for a BIG society
(Sally Lerner), pragmatic guaranteed income architecture for Canada
(Rob Rainer and Jim Mulvale), exporting the Alaska model (Karl
Widerquist), the ecological imperative for a BIG (three separate papers
by Anita Vaillancourt, Gianne Broughton, and Michael Howard), economic
crisis and income security (three separate papers by Chandra Pasma,
James Bryan, and Philip Harvey), Basic Income funded through common
assets (Gary Flomenhoft), Basic Income and consumption tax (Andre
Presse), Geonomics (Jeffrey Smith), income security for persons with
episodic disabilities (Andrea Vick and Ernie Lightman), and copyright,
creative work and the Basic Income grant (Matt Stahl).
A pre-conference workshop was held at the University of Montreal. It
featured three presentations: Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon, University of
Oxford, “Labour Behavior, Basic Income and Social Influence: A
Simulation Experiment”. Evelyn Forget, University of Manitoba,
“Canada’s Experiment with Social Justice: Using Health Administration
Data to Assess the Outcomes of a BI Field Experiment” (based on the
Mincome Project that ran in Dauphin, Manitoba in the 1970s), Guy
Standing, University of Bath, “Basic Income Pilot Schemes: Ten
Imperatives for Design and Evaluation”
Full details of the program can be found at
http://bigmontreal.wordpress.com/
Papers from the conference will be posted on the website of USBIG in
the near future:
http://www.usbig.net/
A huge vote of thanks goes to Jurgen De Wispelaere, currently a Senior
Research Fellow at CREUM (and also Co-Editor of Basic Income Studies)
who took the lead role in planning and organizing this conference.
Thanks also go to Jurgen’s colleagues at CREUM for financial, practical
and logistical support for this event.
BIEN Canada and USBIG are planning future joint events, building on the
strong interest in and excellent program of this conference in Montreal.
Audio podcasts of the Congress are available at:
http://www.creum.umontreal.ca/spip.php?article1168
Montage : Martin Blanchard - Musique : tintamar
-Jim Mulvale, BIEN Canada
3. ALASKA
DIVIDEND PAYOUT SECURE FOR 2010
The 2008-2009 financial crises created worries that this year the
Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC) might not be able to payout
the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), Alaska’s small basic income
guarantee. However, according to Tim Bradner, of the Alaska Journal of
Commerce, the rebound in the fund over the last 12 months has ensured
that the 2010 dividend will be paid out this fall.
The state of Alaska maintains a small Basic Income Guarantee from the
returns on the state’s sovereign wealth fund. Royalties from the states
oil reserves go into the fund, which is invested in stocks, bonds, real
estate, and other financial assets. Returns from the fund finance the
PFD.
According to Bradner, “The fund closed out its most recent quarter
March 31 with a value of $36.09 billion and a return on investments for
the first three months of its fiscal year of 17.6 percent.” The fund
reached a high of more than $40 billion before the financial crisis in
2008 and a low of about $28 billion at the bottom of the financial
crises in 2009.
The APFC has not yet released an estimate of what the 2010 dividend is
likely to be. The level will not be determined until the end of the
APFC’s fiscal year in July. If markets hold up, I 9the author) expect
that the payout will be not much more or much less than the 2009
dividend of about $1300 for each resident. But a lot could happen in
the markets before the end of the fiscal year.
The Alaska Journal of Commerce article by Bradner, “Permanent fund
having a good year; full dividend payout is secure” April 30, 2010, is
online at:
http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/043010/loc_4_001.shtml
4. MAINE
INTRODUCES A SMALL REFUNDABLE TAX CREDIT
The state of Maine has introduced a small refundable tax credit as part
of a tax reform bill designed to streamline and flatten the tax system,
The refundable portion of the tax credit is only $50, and residents
have to apply to get it. Thus, the take-up rate and the significance of
the program remain to be seen, but it is a small step in the direction
of universality.
For stories on Maine’s tax reform see:
"Who Pays and Who Benefits?: 21st Century Tax Reform for Maine, the
Bureau of Labor Education, University of Maine, available at:
http://dll.umaine.edu/BLE/index.htm
and
Income Tax Reform in Maine: How It Works and Who Benefits?
Richard Woodbury, Working Paper, March 2010, available at:
http://taxreformmaine.org/docs/Income%20Tax%20Reform%20in%20Maine.pdf
5. BIG NEWS FROM
AROUND THE WORLD
THE UNITED KINGDOM: New government scrapes the child trust fund
The new Conservative/Liberal-Democratic coalition government of Great
Britain has announced that it will rescind the one step in the
direction of a universal basic income made by the previous Labour
government. In 2002, the Labour government created “the Child Trust
Fund” which gave each child born in Britain that year a 250GBP plus
another 250GBP when reaching ate 7. The bonds reach maturity when the
child turns 18, at which time the bonds would be potentially worth
thousands of pounds. The idea was that every child born in Britain
should have some small share of inheritance. The ruling government
announced that the program will be entirely phased by 2011, so that
only children born between 2002 and 2010 will receive any part of the
fund.
Stuart White, a professor of Political Theory at Oxford, commented, “So
the party of 'property-owning democracy' (Tories) and 'ownership for
all' (Liberals) combine to end the first policy ever to guarantee an
asset for all young people.”
Martin O'Neill, a political philosopher at the University of York (UK),
pointed out that the announcement of the repeal of the Child Trust Fund
was made by Gideon George Osborne, who sits in the British “House of
Commons” despite being the heir apparent of Osborne Baronetcy. He
stands to become the 18th Baronet of Ballintaylor, and according to
O'Neill, Osborne has already inherited a personal trust fund of more
than 4 million pounds.
A blog about the demise of the trust fund is online at:
http://www.nextleft.org/2010/05/child-trust-fund-great-liberal-policy.html
SOUTH KOREA: Basic Income Coalition created with aim to support
candidates in elections
Following the recent creation of the Basic Income Korean Network
(BIKN), Koreans have now launched the Basic Income Coalition (BIC).
According to BIEN, BIC held its inaugural event in Seoul on April 25.
Fifty civil organizations and more than 770 people participated in this
coalition. The aim of the BIC is to support candidates in favor of
Basic Income in the upcoming local elections on June 2. There are 28
candidates who are members of the coalition: 23 from the Socialist
Party, 3 from the Democratic Labor Party, and 2 from the New
Progressive Party. Participants in the event also announced the
declaration of BIC's inauguration. According to BIEN, organizers argue
that BIC is the first coalition in Korean political history to focuses
on a future-oriented alternative such as Basic Income. Most committee
members of the Basic Income Korean Network (BIKN) are involved in the
coalition.
For further information: http://basicincome.kr/.
MONGOLIA: Thousands of protestors demand Alaska-style dividend
The Associated Press has been reporting that more than 5,000 and
perhaps as many as 10,000 Mongolians have been protesting for a
resource dividend. Mongolia is a poor nation, currently in the process
of developing what appear to be major mineral reserves. Back in 2008,
during elections, both of Mongolia’s major parties promised to set up
an Alaska-style resource dividend. But the ruling parliament has not so
far taken action to do so. The protestors have demanded that the
government move forward on its promise. Some are also calling for a
crackdown on corruption and the dissolution of the current parliament.
Two stories on the protests can be found online at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/world/asia/06briefs-protest.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hRaEkUdT6H4un1MakIf4UFNwvmFwD9ESRBVG0
NAMIBIA: Bishop Kameeta calls for an official study of the Basic Income
Grant
Bishop Zephania Kameeta of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the
Republic of Namibia and of the BIG Coalition of Namibia called for
President Pohamba to establish a consultative forum on the national
introduction of a Basic Income Grant. He wants the forum to spend three
months to study the BIG pilot project that recently concluded in
Otjivero, Namibia. The forum could then make recommendations on whether
BIG should be introduced nationally. Kameeta has been responding to a
government that has been unwilling to take the results of the pilot
project seriously. The New Era newspaper quoted President Hifikepunye
Pohamba’s saying, “money cannot be dished out for free to people who do
nothing”.
Kameeta replied, “It is an insult to the young men and women who go out
without food and come every morning until noon to stand at traffic
lights looking for jobs. They are not lazy, they are hunting for jobs
but don’t find them because there are no job opportunities,”
Results of the project have been impressive. Living conditions of
people at Otjivero significantly improved. New Era reports that
unemployment dropped from 60 percent to 40 percent, food poverty from
72 percent to 16 percent. Self-employment increased by 300 percent.
School dropout rates fell from almost 40 percent to zero percent, and
child malnutrition dropped from 42 percent to 10 percent.
A story on the issue by Irene !Hoaes is online at:
http://www.newera.com.na/article.php?articleid=10923
The BIG Coalition’s press release including its call for study of BIG
and other information about the pilot project can be found at the
coalition’s website:
http://www.bignam.org/
BELGIUM: Senator suggests implementation of basic income in Haiti.
On February 25, 2010, Senator Roland Duchatelet (from the Flemish
right-liberal party OpenVLD) raised the issue of a basic income for
Haiti during question time. He referred to a proposal made by several
basic income activists – and wrongly attributed it to BIEN itself,
whereas BIEN did not take any official position on the matter.
Duchatelet suggested a basic income of EUR9/month. In his reply,
Secretary of State Bernard Clerfayt argued that a basic income
certainly deserves to be studied in the framework of the long-term
reconstruction of the country (i.e. Haiti). The payment of a basic
income can boost economic growth. The income guarantee can help
citizens to start activities that will generate wealth. But he also
stressed the fact that such a basic income could only be designed in
coordination with other industrialized nations. Secretary of State
Clerfayt mentioned the fact that basic income was not an appropriate
solution in the short term, because priority was to be given to
infrastructure and food independence of Haiti. Duchatelet
counter-argued by stressing the positive effects on consumption that
could be expected from a basic income.
For further information: http://www.senate.be/
-From BIEN
SOUTH AFRICA: Research institute points to Namibian experience as
evidence that BIG could work in South Africa
Isobel Frye, the director of studies at the Poverty and Inequality
Institute (a nonprofit research institute based in Johannesburg)
pointed to the results of the Namibian basic income pilot project as
evidence that a BIG could work in South Africa.
In an editorial in the Sowetan, Frye wrote, “An actual experience of
how bold thinking can indeed overcome inequities can be found in the
two- year-old basic income grant pilot scheme in a village near
Windhoek, Namibia. … The results have been incredible. From a desolate
settlement of farm workers unfairly evicted after years of work by
surrounding farmers, the village has grown into a community.
Malnutrition rates as measured by the clinic have fallen from 42percent
of children under 5 – to zero cases. Gardens bloom, children go to
school and goats multiply.”
Frye wrote that income security is not only a tool for moving people
out of poverty, but argued that it should be the central plank to a
life of dignity for which so many fought. Frye criticized the
government for a lack of action on poverty, and concluded by asking,
“How long are we going to refuse to extend basic income security to
South Africans with as much right to a hot meal as you or I?”
Frye’s editorial, “Basic income pilot shows the way…” is online at:
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1116620
GERMANY: Petition on Basic Income at the Official “Petitions Committee”
At the end of 2008/2009, more than 52,000 German citizens signed a mass
petition to the German Federal Parliament (Deutscher Bundestag) for the
introduction of a basic income. The petition was submitted by Susanne
Wiest. If a collective or mass petition is supported by at least 50,000
petitioners, German law allows such petitioners to be heard at a public
committee meeting. Based on this, the Petitions Committee decided to
consider the petition individually in a public meeting in the second
half of the year. Dr. Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn, basic income supporter
and member of the Petitions Committee, supported this new development.
For further information: http://www.strengmann-kuhn.de/?p=1915
-From BIEN
BRAZIL: BIG Pilot project expands to 71 participants
The ReCivitas pilot project made its 19th payment in the village of
Quatinga Velho, Brazil on May 8th, 2010. With this payment ReCivitas
expanded the number of participants by 10 to a total of 71. The project
makes a small payment of 25 Brazilian Riyals to some of the residents
of a small town in the state of Sao Paulo. It is funded entirely by
private donations. For more information, or if you wish to donate, go
to http://www.recivitas.org.br/ or contact ReCivitas at:
recivitas@recivitas.org.br.
GERMANY: Green parliamentary group discusses basic income pilot project
At the invitation of Uwe Kekeritz and Dr. Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn,
Members of Parliament, Herbert Jauch, labor researcher, educator and
one of the initiators of the basic income pilot project in
Otjivero-Omitara, Namibia, reported on the results of the project in
the green parliamentary group. Inspired by the achievements of the
Namibian project, especially in terms of tackling poverty and child
malnutrition, Kekeritz and Strengmann-Kuhn put in a request to the
federal government to answer several questions related to issues of
social protection.
See:
http://www.gruene-bundestag.de/cms/entwicklungszusammenarbeit/dok/333/333915.befaehigen_statt_bevormunden.html
See also: http://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/012/1701278.pdf
-From BIEN
GHANA: Editorial calls for Alaska-style oil-dividend
A recent editorial in Peace FM online calls for Ghana to introduce an
oil-dividend similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend as a measure
to aid transparence, avoid the resource curse, and ensure that all
Ghanaians benefit from expected oil revenues. The editorial looks
deeply into the present situation in Ghana and at the positive examples
of Alaska and Norway.
The editorial, “Kosmos Energy Apologizes To The Ghanaian Government: So
What?” by SS Quist, is online at:
http://news.peacefmonline.com/features/201004/41213.php.
6. UPCOMING EVENTS
THIRTEENTH BIEN CONGRESS
SAO PAOLO (BR), June 30 – July 2, 2010
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) will hold its Thirteenth Biennial
Congress on June 30, July 1st and 2nd, 2010, at the Faculty of
Economics, Administration and Accounting of the University of São
Paulo. More than 140 paper proposals have been submitted. The Primary
language for the Congress is English, but it will include simultaneous
translation for Portuguese speakers and attendees. There will be some
simultaneous translation into Spanish as well.
President Lula da Silva is tentatively scheduled to give the opening
address of the Congress. Other speakers include Carlos Roberto Azzoni
(FEA-USP), Lena Lavinas (IE/UFRJ), Fabio Waltenberg (UFF), Karl
Widerquist (Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar),
Louise Haagh (University of York, UK), Ingrid Van Niekerk (Economic
Policy Research Institute, South Africa), Francisco de Oliveira
(FFLCH/USP), Ricardo Abramovay (FEA/USP), Kari Polanyi Levitt (McGill
University, Montreal), Robert van der Veen (University of Amsterdam),
Luiz Felipe de Alencastro (Universite Paris-Sorbonne), Eduardo Suplicy
(Brazilian Senate), Philippe Van Parijs (Université Catholique de
Louvain), Guy Standing (University of Bath and Monash University),
Scott Goldsmith (Alaska Permanent Fund), Nelson Barbosa (IE/UFRJ),
Rubén Lo Vuolo (REDIAC - Argentine Citizens' Income Network), Pablo
Yanes (Secretary of Social Development, Mexico City), Joel Rogers
(University of Wisconsin-Madison), Paul Singer (Secretary of Solidarity
Economics, Ministry of Labour), Christian Ydesen (BIEN, Denmark), Toru
Yamamori (Doshisha University, Japan), Sugeng Bahagijo (Indonesia),
Andrea Fumagalli (BIEN Italy), Bishop Kameeta (Namibia), Claus Offe
(Hertie School of Governance, Berlin), Cristovam Buarque (Brazilian
Senate), Marcio Pochmann (Ipea), Maria Fernanda Ramos Coelho (Caixa
Econômica), Patrus Ananias (Ministério de Desenvolvimento Social), and
many more.
More details about the congress are available at www.bien2010brasil.com
KARL WIDERQUIST DISCUSSES BASIC INCOME IN SEVERAL CITIES IN SOUTH
AMERICA
Karl Widerquist is a co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN)
and a Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown
University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He has written and
edited several books and articles on the basic income guarantee and he
is the editor of this newsletter.
In the weeks leading up to the BIEN Conference in Sao Paulo, Widerquist
will speak in several cities in South America on topics related to the
Basic Income Guarantee. The first few speeches have already taken place:
Date, time, topic, location, organizer <organizer’s email>
-May 19, 6-8pm, “Status Freedom,” Faculty of Philosophy, National
University of La Plata, La Plata Argentina, Julieta M. Elgarte
<julielgarte@yahoo.com.ar>
-May 20, 10am-noon, “Exporting the Alaska Model: How the Permanent Fund
Dividend can be Adapted as a Reform Model for the World,” Faculty of
Economic Sciences, University of Buenos Aires, Corina Rodriguez
<crodriguezenriquez@ciepp.org.ar>
-May 28, 6:30-8pm, “Status Freedom,” room 38, Facultad de Ciencias
Economicas, the Universidad de la Republica, Gonzalo Ramirez 1926,
Montevideo, Uruguay, Andrea Vigorito <andrea@iecon.ccee.edu.uy>
-May 31, time to be announced, “Basic Income and the experience of the
Alaska Permanent Fund dividend,” the Basic Income Research Center, the
National University of Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina, Julio Leonidas Aguirre
<jaguirre@uncu.edu.ar>
-June 10-15, dates, times, places and topics to be announced, Sao
Paulo, Brazil, Eduardo Suplicy < eduardo.suplicy@senador.gov.br>
-June 17, TBA “Basic Income,” Department of Economics, Universidade
Federal Fluminense (UFF), Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Fabio
Waltenberg <waltenberg@economia.uff.br>
-June 20-25, dates and times to be announced, “Basic Income, ReCivitas,
Instituto pela Revitalização da Cidadania, Quatinga Velho, Brazil,
Bruna Augusto - ReCivitas <bruna@recivitas.org.br>
-June 30-July 2, The Basic Income Earth Network Congress, Faculty of
Economics, the University of Sao Paulo, the Basic Income Earth Network
<info@basicincome.org>.
For more information contact the organizers or Karl Widerquist
<Karl@Widerquist.com>.
7. RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Wacquant, Loic (2009) Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of
Social Insecurity. Durham: Duke University Press.
The punitive turn of penal policy in the United States after the acme
of the Civil Rights movement responds not to rising criminal insecurity
but to the social insecurity spawned by the fragmentation of wage labor
and the shakeup of the ethnoracial hierarchy. It partakes of a broader
reconstruction of the state wedding restrictive “workfare” and
expansive “prisonfare” under a philosophy of moral behaviorism. This
paternalist program of penalization of poverty aims to curb the urban
disorders wrought by economic deregulation and to impose precarious
employment on the postindustrial proletariat. It also erects a garish
theater of civic morality on whose stage political elites can
orchestrate the public vituperation of deviant figures—the teenage
“welfare mother,” the ghetto “street thug,” and the roaming “sex
predator”—and close the legitimacy deficit they suffer when they
discard the established government mission of social and economic
protection. By bringing developments in welfare and criminal justice
into a single analytic framework attentive to both the instrumental and
communicative moments of public policy, Punishing the Poor shows that
the prison is not a mere technical implement for law enforcement but a
core political institution. And it reveals that the capitalist
revolution from above called neoliberalism entails not the advent of
“small government” but the building of an overgrown and intrusive penal
state deeply injurious to the ideals of democratic citizenship.
Loic Wacquant is Professor of Sociology at the University of
California, Berkeley, and Researcher at the Centre de sociologie
europeenne, Paris. He is a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and recipient of
the 2008 Lewis Coser Award of the American Sociological Association. He
has argued that a citizens income is an important part of the solution
to the marginalization of the poor.
Gregory W. Kimura (ed.), 2010. Alaska at 50: The Past, Present, and
Future of Alaska Statehood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
(distributed by University of Alaska Press). 264 pages. ISBN: 1602230811
This book presents a collection of essays on the first 50 years of
Alaskan statehood, including coverage of the Permanent Fund Dividend.
Colombino, Ugo, Marilena Locatelli, Edlira Narazani, and Cathal
O'donoghue (2010), “Alternative Basic Income Mechanisms: An Evaluation
Exercise with a Microeconometric Model,” IZA Discussion Paper No. 4781,
February 2010, available at http://ftp.iza.org/dp4781.pdf
This paper develops and estimates a microeconometric model of household
labour supply in four European countries representative of different
economies and welfare policy regimes: Denmark, Italy, Portugal and the
United Kingdom. The authors then simulate, under the constraint of
constant total net tax revenue (fiscal neutrality), the effects of
various hypothetical tax transfer reforms which include alternative
versions of a Basic Income policy: Guaranteed Minimum Income, Work
Fare, Participation Basic Income and Universal Basic Income. The
article includes indexes and criteria according to which the reforms
can be ranked and compared to the current tax-transfer systems. The
exercise can be considered as one of empirical optimal taxation, where
the optimization problem is solved computationally rather than
analytically. It turns out that many versions of the Basic Income
policies would be superior to the current system. The most successful
policies are those involving non means-tested versions of basic income
(Universal or Participation Basic Income) and adopting progressive
tax-rules. If –besides the fiscal neutrality constraint – also other
constraints are considered, such as the implied top marginal tax rate
or the effect on female labour supply, the picture changes:
unconditional policies remain optimal and feasible in Denmark and the
UK; instead in Italy and Portugal universal policies appear to be too
costly in terms of implied top marginal tax rates and in terms of
adverse effects on female participation, and conditional policies such
as Work-Fare, emerge as more desirable.
-From BIEN
James K. Boyce, April 15, 2010 “Will America Buy a New Climate Policy?”
Foreign Policy In Focus: A project of the Institute for Policy Studies.
(Originally published in Triple Crisis.)
This article positively examines the Carbon Limits and Energy for
America's Renewal (CLEAR) Act global warming proposal, which includes a
small dividend. The author describes the act proposed as a
"100-75-25-0" policy:
“100 percent of the permits to bring fossil carbon into the U.S.
economy will be auctioned. Polluters won't get any permit giveaways,
and there will be no scope for speculation and market manipulation by
Wall Street traders.
75 percent of the auction revenue is recycled directly to the public as
equal per-person dividends. The majority of households will receive
more in these monthly dividends than they pay in higher energy costs.
25 percent of the auction revenue is dedicated to investments in energy
efficiency, clean energy, adaptation to climate change, and assistance
for sectors hurt by the transition away from the fossil-fueled economy.
Zero offsets are allowed. In other words, polluters can't avoid curbing
use of fossil fuels by paying someone else to clean up after them.”
The article is online at:
http://www.fpif.org/articles/will_america_buy_a_new_climate_policy
TATEIWA Shin'ya & SAITO Taku, 2010. Basic Income: Possibility of
the Minimal State that Distributes Seidosha. ISBN-10: 4791765257
ISBN-13: 978-4791765256
According to the authors, “This book tries to consider what needs to be
considered concerning the way to distribute in the world, namely basic
income (BI) followed by Repairing the Tax (Written by TATEIWA, MURAKAMI
& HASHIGUCHI in 2009). Part I of this book is based on TATEIWA's
series in Gendai Shiso (mainly from the issue of September 2009 through
that of March 2010 except for some). In Part II, SAITO, who is one of
the interpreters of Van Parijs' book that is examined in Part I, not
only introduces its discussions but expresses his views on basic
income. In Part III, SAITO introduces, comments and describes recent
discussions and statements on basic income. This book is also one of
the achievements of Global COE Program Ars Vivendi: Forms of Human Life
and Survival.”
CITIZEN’S INCOME TRUST (2010), Citizen's Income Newsletter, Issue 1,
2010 available at www.citizensincome.org
This new issue of the Newsletter of CIT, the British basic income
network, contains a progress report, a review article on Wilkinson and
Pickett’s The Spirit Level, and other book reviews. It is also
available as a Word document or as a pdf.
Ford, Martin (2010), The lights in the tunnel: Automation, Accelerating
Technology and the Economy of the Future, Acculant Publishing,
http://www.acculant.com/
One of the book’s central arguments is that accelerating technology is
likely to result in significant structural unemployment and plunging
consumer confidence as machines, computers and software automation
algorithms are increasingly able to perform many routine jobs and
tasks. The book suggests that unless countervailing policies are
adopted, the trend toward concentration of income will be relentless
and may well lead to economic disruptions even more severe than the
current crisis. The book employs a thought experiment or mental
simulation based on "lights in a tunnel" to illustrate the potential
economic impact of technologies that will soon be available. The
author, Martin Ford, is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and computer
engineer who is deeply concerned that the issues raised in the book are
currently not widely recognized and are generally dismissed by
economists. His concern is that, as information technology advances,
the impact on the job market may unfold at a relatively rapid pace. The
author is also a guest blogger at Angry Bear (one of the top 5
economics blogs according the Wall Street Journal and CNN) and has
written several posts on this issue. He also has his own blog at
www.econfuture.wordpress.com and writes about the economic implications
of future technologies.
Reviews of the book have been published at:
http://thefutureofwork.net/newsletter_0310_Notes.html#bookshelf
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/post.aspx?bid=358&bpid=24609
http://singularityhub.com/2009/12/15/martin-ford-asks-will-automation-lead-to-economic-collapse/
Author’s address: lightstunnel@yahoo.com
-From BIEN
SOCIAL JUSTICE IRELAND (2010), An Agenda for a New Ireland', Dublin:
Social Justice Ireland (Socio-Economic Review 2010). Further details at
http://www.socialjustice.ie/
Social Justice Ireland issued its Socio-economic Review for 2010.
Entitled "An Agenda for a New Ireland", it advocates the introduction
of a Basic Income system as part of the solution to the many crises
that Ireland faces today. The Review provides an alternative narrative
to the one currently guiding policy development and public discourse on
how Ireland came to be in its current situation, where it is now, where
it ought to go in the future and how it might get there. The Review
argues that:
1. Ireland’s policy-making for more than a decade was guided by many
false assumptions concerning economic growth, taxation, services and
infrastructure.
2. Many policy failures arose from these false assumptions.
3. These policy failures produced much of the current series of crises
that Ireland is facing.
4. These crises have been exacerbated by persevering with failed
policies and false assumptions.
5. Ireland needs a new vision to guide policy development and
decision-making if it is to move beyond the current series of crises.
The Review sets out four core values that should underpin a guiding
vision for Ireland in the years ahead. These are human dignity,
sustainability, equality/human rights and the common good.
6. These values lead to key policy priorities for moving Ireland
towards a desirable alternative vision and spells out the details.
This Review is available free of charge on line. A printed version can
also be purchased. For details check the website:
http://www.socialjustice.ie/. Each section of the Review can be
downloaded separately. The complete 250-page book can also be
downloaded as a unit. The Basic Income issue is addressed in Chapter
3.1 which addresses the issue of Income.
Rose, Dave with Charles P. Wohlforth, 2008. Saving for the future: my
life and the Alaska Permanent Fund; foreword by Arliss Sturgulewski.
Kenmore, WA: Epicenter Press.
This book is the memoir of Dave Rose, who was the director of the fund
when it first paid dividends. He played an important part in creating
the dividend and ensuring that it remained stable in the recessionary
years immediately following its creation.
Loic Wacquant 2007. Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced
Marginality, (University of California, Berkeley and CSE-Paris)
Breaking with the exoticizing cast of public discourse and conventional
research, Urban Outcasts takes the reader inside the black ghetto of
Chicago and the deindustrializing banlieue of Paris to discover that
urban marginality is not everywhere the same. Drawing on a wealth of
original field, survey and historical data, Loic Wacquant shows that
the involution of America's urban core after the 1960s is due not to
the emergence of an 'underclass', but to the joint withdrawal of market
and state fostered by public policies of racial separation and urban
abandonment. In European cities, by contrast, the spread of districts
of 'exclusion' does not herald the formation of ghettos. It stems from
the decomposition of working-class territories under the press of mass
unemployment, the casualization of work and the ethnic mixing of
populations hitherto segregated, spawning urban formations akin to
'anti-ghettos'.
Urban Outcasts sheds new light on the explosive mix of mounting misery,
stupendous affluence and festering street violence resurging in the big
cities of the First World. By specifying the different causal paths and
experiential forms assumed by relegation in the American and the French
metropolis, this book offers indispensable tools for rethinking urban
marginality and for reinvigorating the public debate over social
inequality and citizenship at century's dawn. The book closes its
analysis of the transformation of neighborhoods of relegation in
advanced society by arguing for basic income as a remedy for rise of
new regime of "advanced marginality.”
John B. O'Donnell. 1997. “Three Steps to Economic Freedom -- or -- How
to Tax and Spend to Prosperity”
Step three of this article is “sharing nature”, which involves a basic
income guarantee under the name of Citizen Dividend. The article is
online at:
http://www.oocities.com/capitolhill/1067/c00r4.html
8. NEW LINKS
YOUTUBE VIDEO AND AUDIO SERIES ON BASIC INCOME
Joerg Drescher has compiled a video and audio series on Basic Income
and posted it on YouTube. Some of the entries interviews are conducted
by Drescher. Others are from video archives. The series includes
discussion of basic income by former Alaska Governor Jay Hamond,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Guy Standing, Karl Widerquist, John Tomlinson,
Senator Eduardo Suplicy, and others. The series playlist is online at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/BODinUA#g/c/3DD864D8692717D5
BIN ITALIA TELEVISION
On May 16, 2010 the Italian Basic Income Network (Bin Italia) opened an
online television channel called Bin Italy TV. The network intends to
use this and other media to make the necessity and possibility of the
introduction of basic income more visible. The Bin Italy television
will be airing video footage, interviews and everything will be
possible and useful to raise awareness of internet users around the
theme of guaranteed income. The video will also be broadcast in several
languages, just to make clear to the interesting and prolific
international debate. The website has normal programming and video on
demand.
It is online along with the rest of the Bin Italia webpage at:
http://www.livestream.com/binitalia.
GLOBAL ETHICS CORNER SLIDESHOW ON YOUTUBE
Can basic income grants work for those living in extreme poverty? Or
are grants discouraging people from taking individual responsibility?
This Global Ethics Corner slideshow is based on the Namibian pilot
project. It is part of a weekly series from the Carnegie Council:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaWVbTd0-_I
For further information: http://www.cceia.org
-From BIEN
BASIC INCOME AND HAITI ON FACEBOOK AND YOUTUBE
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=291135833623&ref=nf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNkY1MWQx6k
-From BIEN
ROBIN HOOD WAS RIGHT
The Blog, Daily Kos by RiseUpEconomics on has an entry about basic
income entitled “Robin Hood was Right”
Posted Thursday, May 13, 2010, it’s online at:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/13/213428/970?new=true
NAMIBIA BASIC INCOME PILOT PROJECT
A short piece on the Namibian pilot project by Isobel Frye, director of
studies at the Poverty and Inequality Institute, a nonprofit research
institute based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1116620
-From BIEN
The National Safety: Creating a Better America and a Better World.
This website proposes a seven-point agenda. It does not directly
include a universal basic income, but it goes a long way toward
universality. According to the website, “The NSN [National Safety Net]
could be woven together by 7 essential elements: Universal Health Care,
a Living Wage, Fair Unemployment Benefits, Free Education, Affordable
Housing, Fundamental Ecology, and a Department Of Peace. This list is
not meant to be exhaustive or complete, and clearly Organic Food for
Everyone, Life Long Pensions, Mass Transit, etc. would add to the
strength and comfort of America’s social fabric.”
It is online at: http://www.nationalsafetynet.info/
"COMMON PURPOSE" MANIFESTO
A Manifesto written by Ben Wallace, which includes a plea for basic
income: "Because direct income equality from free trade is impossible,
and free trade is vital, a shared base income, ensuring equal
opportunity for all to realise potential, must be created by sharing
the earnings we make on our trade (the earnings we make from sale of
our products and services after our expenses involved in producing
them)."
http://www.thecommonpurpose.com/
-From BIEN
BASIC INCOME SIMULATION
Keith Rankin, Department of Accounting and Finance, Faculty of Creative
Industries and Business, Unitec New Zealand) has published a number of
tables that show, for individual taxpayers, average and marginal tax
rates for: the status quo; conservative reform options that recognise
the comparatively high rates of tax that low income New Zealanders pay;
and less conservative (but even more principled) "refundable tax
credit" options that integrate a flat tax (inclusive of ACC) with a
basic universal benefit.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1003/S00196.htm
-BIEN
CANADIAN BASIC INCOME PETITION
An online petition on basic income was started by Cheryl Ives
(Community Engagement Manager with Opportunities Waterloo Region) at
http://www.petitiononline.com/gai08/petition-sign.html
See also:
http://tweetmeme.com/story/735743899/sign-the-canadian-gai-citizens-income-petition
-From BIEN
EIGHT REASONS FOR UNCONDITIONAL BASIC INCOME
A short clip about basic income on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg9tNhUDh5g&feature=player_embedded
-From BIEN
GLOBAL BASIC INCOME FOUNDATION
The global basic income foundation, which advocates a worldwide basic
income, has added a page to its website with a brief overview of BI
developments worldwide. The page includes a short reference to USBIG in
the overview & introduction section and at the bottom of the page.
The address of the webpage is:
http://www.globalincome.org/English/BI-worldwide.html.
Global Basic Income Foundation
www.globalincome.org
info@globalincome.org
9. LINKS AND OTHER INFO
For links to dozens of BIG websites around the world, go to
http://www.usbig.net/links.html. 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
Copyeditor: Mike Murray and the USBIG Committee
Research: Paul Nollen; and Yannick Vanderborght of the BIEN NewsFlash
Special help on this issue was provided by Rene Heeskens, Michael
Howard, Claudia & Dirk Haarman, and Bin Italia.
The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network publishes this
newsletter. The Network is a discussion group on 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.
You may copy and circulate articles from this newsletter, but please
mention the source and include a link to 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: Karl@Widerquist.com.
As always, your comments on this newsletter and the USBIG website are
gladly welcomed.
Thank you,
-Karl Widerquist, editor
Karl@Widerquist.com
===========================================================
KARL WIDERQUIST
Visiting Associate Professor in Philosophy
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Mailing address:
3300 Whitehaven Street, N.W.
Suite 2100, Harris Building
Washington, D.C. 20007-2401
US cell phone: +1 504-261-0891
Qatar cell phone: +974 508-9323
Qatar fax: +974 457-8231
EMAIL: Karl@widerquist.com
PERSONAL WEBSITE: http://www.widerquist.com/
===========================================================