The USBIG NewsFlash is both the newsletter of the U.S. Basic
Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network and the U.S. edition of the Basic Income Earth
Networks NewsFlash. The USBIG Network (www.usbig.net) 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.
1. Final Call for submissions:
NABIG Conference deadline November 30, 2012
2. Donate to the NABIG Congress
3. Editorial: A new name and a new affiliation for
the old USBIG Newsletter
4. ALASKA: This years dividend is the smallest
since 2005
5. BIG news from around the world
6. Opinion
7. Recent events
8. Upcoming Events
9. Publications
10. Videos
11. WRITERS AND VOLUNTEERS NEEDED for BI News, the
BIEN NewsFlash, and affiliate newsletters
12. New Links
13. Links and other info
[USBIG – November 2012]
Twelfth Annual North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress: Basic Income and
Economic Citizenship
Thursday May 9th to Saturday May 11th, 2013
Sheraton Hotel and Towers, New York City
The Twelfth Annual North American Basic Income
Congress, Basic Income and Economic
Citizenship, will take place in New York City on Thursday, May 9th
through Saturday, May 11th, 2013. The congress is organized by the
U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) in cooperation with the Basic
Income Canada Network (BICN/RCRG), and will be held in conjunction with the
Annual Meeting of the Eastern Economic Association (EEA). Attendees at the
North American Basic Income Congress are welcome to attend any of the EEAs events.
Featured speakers include Carole Pateman, UCLA and Cardiff University, co-author
of Basic Income Worldwide: Horizons of
Reform; Sheri Berman, Barnard
College, author of The Primacy of
Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europes Twentieth Century; Jurgen De Wispelaere, McGill
University, co-editor of The Ethics of Stakeholding;
David Casassas, University of Barcelona, co-editor of Basic Income in the Age of Great
Inequalities; James Riccio,
MDRC, co-author of Toward Reduced Poverty Across Generations:
Early Findings from New York City's Conditional Cash Transfer Program; Darrick Hamilton, The New School,
co-author of Can Baby Bonds
Eliminate the Racial Wealth Gap in Putative Post-Racial America? and Evelyn Forget, University of Manitoba,
author of The Town with No Poverty: A history of the North American Guaranteed
Annual Income Social Experiments.
All points of view are welcome, and proposals from any discipline are invited. For
more information see the call for papers at: www.usbig.net.
Or contact the congress organizer, Almaz Zelleke of USBIG, at
azelleke@gmail.com.
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: November 30th, 2012
[USBIG – November 2012]
The USBIG Network has started a We Pay Campaign for the next North American
Basic Income Guarantee Congress. We Pay allows organizations like USBIG to
collect money from donors for a cause without a formal structure (which USBIG
lacks). The campaign hopes to raise $2,500 to pay part of the travel and
registration expenses for featured speakers, students, or low-income
presenters, and perhaps to host a modest reception during the conference.
You can donate to the We Pay Campaign at:
https://www.wepay.com/x56f1op/donations/usbig-2013-congress
Beginning
with this issue (Volume 3, issue 66), the USBIG Newsletter becomes the USBIG
Edition of the BIEN NewsFlash, or
simply the USBIG NewsFlash for short.
In the last few years, the BIEN NewsFlash
and the USBIG Newsletter have been sharing more and more content, and the two
publications cooperated to create the BI News website (BInews.org).
After
editing the USBIG Newsletter for 12 years, BIENs General Assembly elected me
to take over as the BIEN News Editor in September 2012. This put me in change
of both the NewsFlash and BI News. I
decided to take the opportunity to make the USBIG Newsletter into the USBIG
edition of the NewsFlash. The USBIG
NewsFlash will include some overlapping content from the BIEN NewsFlash and with additional national content likely to
be of interest only to U.S. readers. Other affiliates of BIEN might begin
producing their own national editions of the Newsletter as early as next year.
The
new editorship and integration will likely come along with a new and evolving
format. The NewsFlash is now written
largely by a team of volunteers, after having been a one-person operation for
several years. I am not sure exactly what changes and in store, but I look
forward to seeing what happens next.
-Karl Widerquist, Quick Bites Caf, Doha Qatar, November 2012
Alaska distributed its yearly Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD)
on October 4, 2012. The amount was disappointing, only $878—down from
last years dividend of $1,174 and the smallest dividend since 2005. The 2012
dividend was only the second dividend in the last 20 years to be below $900,
and it is well below the all-time highest dividend of $2,069 in 2008 ($3269
including a one-time supplement the state added to the 2008 dividend).
The PFD is a sort of a yearly, variable basic income, given to all U.S.
citizens (men, women, and children) who fill out a form showing that they meet the
states residency requirement for eligibility. This year nearly 650,000 Alaskans
received the dividend. It is financed by the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF), which
is a sovereign wealth fund owned by the state and financed in turn by the
accumulated savings from the states oil exports. The dividend varies
considerably from year-to-year because the amount is calculated from a complex
formula averaging the last five years of returns to the fund. The dividend is
down this year because of the poor performance of international stock and bond
markets over the last five years.
Even this years small dividend will come to $4,390 for a family of five, and
the dividend makes a big difference in the lives on many Alaskans. The dividend
is one reason Alaska is the most economically equal of all 50 states. According
to Russ Slaten, the oldest applicant was 107 years-old, and the youngest was born
minutes before the qualification deadline on December 31 of last year.
According to Jeff Richardson of the
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Alaskan retailers have seen a smaller-than-usual
bump in sales around dividend time this year because of both the smaller
changes and in the higher cost of fuel oil. The smaller effect on retail sales
might also be partly attributable to the increase in people donating all or
part of their PFDs to charities through the states Pick-Click-Give program
that allows people to direct some or all of their PFD to the charity of their
choice in a few steps on the internet. This year, 23,000 Alaskans gave more
than $2.2 million through the program, four times as much as they gave in the
first year of the program (2009).
The PFD has largely escaped the demonization given to many programs that
promote equality, probably because it provides tangible benefits all Alaskans,
rich and poor alike. According to Jeanne Devon, Even those who gripe about it in theory dont want to
actually give up their own Alaskan entitlement. It is our oil, after all.
The yearly fluctuations in the fund do not signal a long-term threat to
the PFD. The fund has had a healthy grown trend since its inception, and it
continues today. The bigger worry for the future of the Alaska Dividend is
gradual decline in the states oil revenues. The amount of oil flowing through
the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is getting dangerously close to the minimum
level needed to keep the pipeline system open. Most of the states operating
budget comes from oil exports, and the state budget is not well prepared for
the loss of oil revenue. Gradual decline (or a sudden drop) in oil exports
would put enormous pressure on the state budget and might inspire the
legislature to divert returns currently used to financed the PFD toward regular
government spending.
For more recent stories on Alaskas PFD, see the following stories:
Alaskans to get $878 in yearly oil wealth payout
By Rachel D'Oro Associated Press, September 18, 2012
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/amount-annual-alaska-dividend-be-announced
Smaller Alaska dividend check likely to disappoint ... for good reason
Carey Restino, Bristol Bay Times, Sep
20, 2012
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/smaller-alaska-dividend-check-likely-disappoint-good-reason
Dividend set: Alaskans shouldnt forget funds purpose
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Editorial
Sep 18, 2012
http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/20186798/article-Dividend-set--Alaskans-shouldn%E2%80%99t-forget-fund%E2%80%99s-purpose?instance=home_opinion_editorial
2012 Permanent Fund Dividend is $878
SIT News Ketchikan, Alaska, September
18, 2012
http://www.sitnews.us/0912News/091812/091812_pfd.html
Permanent Fund Dividend Lowest Since 2005
Russ Slaten, Your Alaska Link, Sep
19, 2012
http://www.youralaskalink.com/news/Permanent-Fund-Dividend-Lowest-Since-2005-170382336.html
With Alaska's higher costs, dividends won't go far
Mark Thiessen, Associated Press, Sep
18, 2012
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-09-18/with-alaskas-higher-costs-dividends-wont-go-far
PFDs still good for business, but not like the glory days
Jeff Richardson, Fairbanks Daily
News-Miner, Sep 19, 2012
http://newsminer.com/bookmark/20198521-PFDs-still-good-for-business-but-not-like-the-glory-days
Happy Socialist Money Grab Day, Alaska!
Jeanne Devon, the Mudflats, September
19, 2012
http://www.themudflats.net/?p=33271
By the numbers: Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend
Eric Christopher Adams, The Alaska
Dispatch, Sep 18, 2012
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/numbers-alaska-permanent-fund-dividend
Alaskans donate $2.2 million from PFDs using Pick.Click.Give.
Alaska Dispatch, Oct 06, 2012
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/alaskans-donate-22-million-pfds-using-pickclickgive
Count the ways Alaskans spend their $878 Permanent Fund check
Alaska Dispatch, Oct 05, 2012
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/count-ways-alaskans-spend-their-878-permanent-fund-check
It's time to cut state spending: The numbers show future has arrived
Bradford Keithley, Fairbanks Daily
News-Miner, Oct 07, 2012
http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/20385563/article-It-s-time-to-cut-state-spending--The-numbers-show-future-has-arrived?instance=home_opinion_community_perspectives
PFD program generates record amount for Alaska nonprofits
Anchorage Daily News, October 5, 2012
http://www.adn.com/2012/10/05/2652015/pfd-program-generates-record-amount.html
[Jenna van Draanen - BICN - November 2012]
Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party in Canada and an MP in British
Columbia recently endorsed basic income. The endorsement of a Guaranteed
Livable Income came through a press release on October 17, the United Nations
(UN) International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Mays press release
reminds her audience that the Green Party is the only political party in Canada
to advocate for a basic income as a means to eradicate poverty. The endorsement
occurring on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is an apt
response to the UN resolution for all member states to create and implement
concrete strategies to eliminate poverty.
More about her remarks can be found online at: http://www.canadianprogressiveworld.com/2012/10/18/elizabeth-may-calls-for-a-guaranteed-livable-income-in-canada/
[BIEN - September 27, 2012]
During its general assembly of September 16th, 2012, the Basic Income Earth
Network officially recognized three new affiliate networks. BIEN now has no
less than 20 affiliates. The three new BIEN national networks are all located
in Europe:
Belgium: http://basicincome.be/ (available in Dutch, French, German, and English)
Finland: http://perustulo.org/
Slovenia: contact address is valerija_korosec@yahoo.com (see also the programme of a conference to be organized in Ljubljana on October 11-12, 2012: http://www.inovum.si/ubi/en)
The BIEN General assembly was held within the framework of
BIENs 14th international conference in Munich, Germany.
[USBIG – October 2012]
According to the Namibian, the United
Nations (UN) special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Magdalena
Sepulveda, has called on the Namibian government to put aside prejudices
against the poor and implement the Basic Income Grant (BIG) as soon as
possible. A rapporteur is a person appointed by an organization to report on
the proceedings of its meetings. The Namibian reports that Sepulveda arrived in Namibia
on October 1, and toured several regions where she met with government
officials, civil society organizations and communities living in poverty.
For more info go to: http://www.namibian.com.na/index.php?id=28&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=102841&no_cache=1
[Robin
Ketelaars – Vereniging Basisinkomen (the Netherlands) – September
2012]
The elections of September 12, 2012 in the Netherlands were characterized by many
debates in the media: radio, television, magazines and newspapers. The
elections resulted in 21,176 votes for parties endorsing an Unconditional Basic
Income (UBI - OBI in Dutch), but these parties didn't get any seats in
parliament.
Reporting in the election paid little attention to UBI as an issue. Stories and
interviews focused on the party leaders of the major parties and some of the
smaller parties in the parliament. A few new parties that seek more substantial
innovations (such as direct democracy, digital civil rights and an
unconditional basic income) were sparsely covered. Of course, every political
party received free airtime on public broadcasting, but that was it. The polls
taken in advance of the elections only concerned the established parties. The
newcomers received no attention.
[Citizens
Income Trust – September 2012]
On the 30th
May 2012 the General Conference of the International Labour Organization reaffirmed
that the right to social security is a human right and recommended that member
countries should establish and maintain social protection floors Schemes
providing such benefits may include universal benefit schemes, social insurance
schemes, social assistance schemes, negative income tax schemes, .
For more information see: www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_183326.pdf
[USBIG – September 2012]
Over more than a year, Indias Self Employed Womens Association (SEWA) with
support from UNICEF has been conducting a cash transfer pilot project in rural
villages. They have just released some of their preliminary findings, and
results are extremely encouraging. The study was conducted in 20 rural villages
in India. Adult residents of 8 of those villages received a cash transfer of
200 Rupees (about US$3.75) per month. Children received 100 Rupees. Residents
of the other 12 villages were observed as a control group as in a medical
trial. The money was distributed unconditionally. Residents were told they
could do whatever they wanted with the money.
Positive results were found in terms of nutrition, health, education, housing
and infrastructure, and economic activity. The researchers found that the cash
transfer group spent significantly more on eggs, meat, and fish than the
control group. Researchers found a positive impact on health and access to
medical treatment. The most visible impact of the study was on educational
attainment. Researchers found increased spending on school-related items such
as school uniforms, school fees, shoes for school, books, school supplies, and
private tuition. School attendance in the cash transfer villages shot up, three
times the level of the control villages. Performance in school improved
significantly relative to control villages. There was increased investment in
housing, such as the installation of in-door plumbing. Twice the number of cash
transfer households started new activity over the study period as those in
non-cash transfer villages.
SEWA has released a video explain the results and including interviews with
participants in the study. This video explains the results of the Indian basic
income pilot project. It includes interviews with participants in the study.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItkZ5b-C3Nw&feature=youtu.be
See also the story in the video section below.
[Karl Widerquist - USBIG - November 2012]
My
new book, Independence, Propertylessness,
and Basic Income: A Theory Of Freedom as the Power to Say No, now has a
release date of February 28, 2013. Although I have edited or coauthored six
other books, this is the first book Ive written all by myself. It is also the
first published book in which I begin to outline—however
tentatively—my theory of justice. The basic income guarantee is
intimately tied up with this theory of justice, and so I would like to take this
opportunity to explain some of the background that led me to write it.
I
dont know exactly when I began thinking about the ideas that made their way
into this book. The general philosophical outlook is something that has been
bouncing around in my head for a long time. The outlook didnt appear as a
whole at any one point; it gradually developed. My interest in social justice
began when I was a kid. My parents were politically interested, liberal
Christians (a rarity these days). They, my brother, my sister, and I regularly
discussed politics around the dinner table. Growing up in that context in the
1970s, I was optimistic about the progress the United States had made against
racism, and I began to believe that the biggest problem remaining in most
democratic countries is the horrible way we treat the poor.
The
television series Free to Choose, by Milton Friedman, first introduced me to
the idea of a guaranteed income, which is now more commonly known as the basic
income guarantee. He presented it mostly as a way to simplify the welfare
system, but having thought about it over the years, I began to see it as the
centerpiece of a just society and a serious challenge to the Left: If we really
care about other people in society, we should care about them unconditionally.
The effort that has so far resulted in this book is a self-exploration of why I
think this perspective is so important.
As
I see it, from the hanging gardens of Babylon to the modern sweatshop, one
social problem occurs over and over again in different ways: advantaged people
force disadvantaged people to serve them. Can this be justified? I find the
social contract answer extremely dissatisfying: its OK to force people to do
things as long as you can imagine conditions under which they would have signed
a contract subjecting themselves to force.
For
some time I thought I was a libertarian, but I eventually came to see the
Right-libertarians, who call themselves libertarians in the United States, in
a similar light as social contract theorists. I find their answer even more
dissatisfying: its OK for owners to force the propertyless to do things,
because someone did something before we were all born to give owners special
rights over the Earth and its resources, so that the propertyless have no right
to refuse the duty to serve owners. Right-libertarians talk about freedom from
force, but they invite everyone to ignore the tremendous amount of
freedom-threatening force involved in the establishment and maintenance of
property rights to the earth and all its products. Without rectifying this
issue, libertarianism becomes the defense of privilege at the expense of
liberty.
Although
these issues were important to me, I didnt do much direct work on social
justice until the mid-1990s, when Michael Lewis, Pam Donovan, and I decided to
have weekly breakfasts to talk about the progress we were making on our theses.
These discussions usually turned to politics, and one day we found the one
thing we could all agree on was an unconditional basic income guarantee. So,
Michael Lewis and I wrote a paper on it that was eventually published (about
ten years later and in heavily revised form) as An Efficiency Argument for the
Basic Income Guarantee, in International Journal of Environment, Workplace and
Employment.
One
paper on the basic income guarantee led to another as well as to involvement
with the Basic Income Earth Network and to writing the Newsletter for the U.S.
Basic Income Guarantee Network. I read a lot of impressive literature on basic
income, but none of it quite seemed to articulate the reasons I thought it was
so important. So, I had to explore my ideas further.
In
2001, I held a half-year fellowship at the Chaire Hoover at the Catholic
University of Lovain in Belgium. By this time I had realized that my interest
in economics was secondary to my interest in social justice, and I decided that
the best way to work full-time on social justice was to go back to graduate
school and get a doctorate in political theory. Getting a second doctorate still
feels like a crazy idea, but in hindsight, it was the right thing for me. I
started at Oxford in October 2002, and by April 2006 I completed a doctoral
thesis entitled Property and the Power to Say No: A Freedom-Based Argument for
Basic Income, which is my initial statement of the theory of justice as the
pursuit of accord. Many of the ideas in this book appeared first in that
thesis—often in a slightly different form.
I
have discussed these ideas with so many friends, colleagues, students, and
mentors that I cant possibly name everyone who has influenced this book. If
Ive discussed politics or philosophy with you in my lifetime, you might have
influenced this book in some way. So, thanks.
Since
leaving Oxford, I have continued to rework and extend the ideas from my thesis
on and off while working on other projects. Not long after Laurie Harting of
Palgrave Macmillan approached me about becoming series editor for their new
book series Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee, I thought about turning my thesis
into a book. In the spring of 2012, I set out to do that, but as I revised it,
I found that the chapters in the first half were growing and splitting into
more chapters.
I
finally realized that the book would be an extension of the first half of my
thesis—concentrating on an exploration of the theory of freedom I call effective
control self-ownership or personal independence and leaving the development
of most of the rest of justice as the pursuit of accord for later works.
Effective Control Self-Ownership is a theory of freedom that makes the freedom
from directly or indirectly forced service central to an individuals standing
as a free person. The book defines, derives, and defends this theory of freedom
in the context of the contemporary literature on freedom and justice. It
examines the implications of the theory and argues that a basic income
guarantee is an important tool to maintain personal independence in a modern
society.
Now
that the book is almost ready to be released, I still feel that it is tentative
in many ways. I could spend years revising it, but it is best to get it out.
Although tentative, it is a sincere expression of my beliefs on the issues
discussed at this point. I hope to explore these ideas much more in the future.
-Karl Widerquist, Mojos Coffee House, New Orleans, Louisiana, August 2012;
revised onboard a flight from Dallas to London, November 2012
This year Alaskans received a dividend of $878, not bad compared to all the other states, but this dividend is the smallest since 2005, and it is only the second time in more than 20 years that the dividend has been below $900 per person. Alaskas Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) needlessly fluctuates widely. This years dividend is 25 percent smaller than last years dividend of $1,174, and it is 57 percent smaller than the 2008 record-high dividend of $2,069 (not counting the one-time supplement of $1200 that was added to that years dividend).
The declining dividend does not mean that the PFD is in trouble. Actually the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF), which financed the PFD, is at near-record high levels. It closed the 2011-2012 fiscal year at 40.3 billion dollars. The dividend was low this year because the state uses a complex formula averaging the returns over a five-year period to determine yearly returns. The five-year average was chosen to smooth out fluctuations in market returns to create a more stable dividend, but—as Alaskans can easily see—a five-year average is not enough to do that job. Markets tend to have stable long-term trends, but they can have occasionally large yearly fluctuations (either up or down) that can dwarf a five-year average. The mid-2000s market boom, and the 2008-2009 market bust were just such fluctuations. Now, several years later with the boom returns falling out of the calculations but the decline still in, the 2008 market bust affects the dividend the more than it did at the time.
Theres a better, more stable way to calculate the dividend. Its called percentage of market value (POMV). Most financial managers agree that an individual can afford to withdraw up to 4 percent of a well-invested diversified portfolio and still expect it to grow in real terms over time.
If Alaska used this rule to calculate the PFD, this years dividend would have been $2,380. It would have been a record-high dividend, because the APF closed the fiscal year at a record-high level. Suppose then there was a major sell-off in the markets and the fund declined by 25% to $30 billion. The dividend would decline by 25% as well, to $1,846. Suppose instead it rose by 25% to $50 billion. The dividend would rise by 25% as well, to $3,076. Because 25% is an unusually large fluctuation, we can expect this to be an unusually large change in the dividend. Most often it would change by less than 10% from year to year, and in most years it would increase.
Perhaps Alaskans should be more conservative. The goal of the fund is not just to payout as much as possible. It is also to save for the future. The more the APFC pays out in dividends now, the slower the APF and the PFD will grow over the long term. So, perhaps a POMV rule of 3% would be better—a little more cautious—than the 4% rule. If so, payouts this year would have been $1860. Payouts after a 25% decline to $30 billion would be $1,395. Payouts after a rise to $50 billion would be $2325, and Alaska could expect to larger reinvestments by the APFC to help the APF get to $50 billion much more quickly.
POMV just makes sense. Nobody likes the big fluctuations. No one wants their dividend to be less than half of what it was a few years ago. POMV stabilizes dividends, making it easier for Alaskans to plan, and it can be part of a conservative payout strategy that will keep the fund growing over time.
-Karl Widerquist, Doha, Qatar, November 2012
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) held its 14th
international Congress in Munich, Germany on September 14-16, 2012. The
following reflections by Philippe Van Parijs provides a good overview of the
Congress.
Personal reflections on the 14th congress of the Basic Income Earth Network
By Philippe Van Parijs ⋅ October 1, 2012
What did I learn from this splendidly organized gathering of academic and
activists from over thirty countries? As usual, many things. About people and
about things. About facts and about dreams. I discovered, for example, that
Gtz Werner was perhaps even better at reciting Goethe than Eduardo Suplicy at
singing Dylan. I also admired how much progress had been made in the
sophistication of the study of small-scale basic income experiments. Long gone
is the time when all that seemed to be needed was to hand out some cash and
enthusiastically report that all recipients were delighted to get it and that
at least some made laudable use of it. Serious assessments of the effects of
duly specified basic income schemes require control groups of similarly
situated communities who do not receive anything, or who receive the same total
amount but distributed according to different rules. And even the best
assessment of this sort cannot claim to tell us what a real-life basic income
scheme would bring about, if only because the funding side tends to be left
out, or because of the recipients awareness that the experiment is limited in
time, or because the political packaging of a real-life reform is most likely
to affect individual responses. Nonetheless, these experiments are instructive
in all sorts of ways and are well worth the hard work they require: conducting
laborious interviews and processing recalcitrant statistics, sometimes even in
flooded villages, as reported by Guy Standing, with water above the waist and
the laptop above the water.
Ecological sustainability and basic income: three links
In these brief remarks, however, I shall concentrate on two points that struck
me particularly because of they ran through several of the workshops I attended.
The first one is the link between basic income and ecological sustainability,
which featured was central in many presentations and the subsequent exchanges.
On reflection, however, there is not one but there are three such links,
logically independent and profoundly different from each other.
The first link is connected to the theme full employment. In good Keynesian
fashion, an unconditional basic income is sometimes defended on the ground that
it boosts economic growth and thereby employment. Like any other minimum income
scheme, it redistributes from the rich, who save more, to the poor, who spend
more, and it thereby helps sustain effective demand and business confidence.
More often, however, and in contrast to many other schemes, an unconditional
basic income is defended instead on the ground that it provides an alternative to the
pursuit of full employment through economic growth: Freiheit statt
Vollbeschftigung. The underlying idea is that we must manage to tackle
involuntary unemployment in a way that does not rely on a growth of production
that constantly outpaces the growth of productivity, indeed — as
discussed in a fascinating session of our congress — in a way that is
consistent with de-growth. This way consists in transforming both some
involuntary employment and some involuntary unemployment into voluntary
unemployment. Or, to put it differently, some people make themselves sick by
working too much and must be enabled to work less, while others get sick
because of being excluded from work and must be enabled to access the jobs
freed by those working too much. There is one simple way of achieving this: an
unconditional basic income. This is a conclusion reached in the early eighties
by some of the earliest basic income advocates in the context of the first
signs of awareness of the limits to growth. It is also, fundamentally, the
view now held by Baptiste Mylongo and the dcroissants. The recognition of the
right to idleness is here meant as the supply-side, anti-Keynesian, earth-friendly
solution to the problem of unemployment.
The second link passes through the price mechanism. Prices are a handy tool for
guiding both consumption and production. They condense in a single figure
millions of data about the preferences of consumers and the scarcity of factors
of production. But they can go badly wrong because they do not spontaneously
incorporate either the damage inflicted on the environment or the right of
unborn generations to use their share of the resources of the earth. In order to
correct this twofold major defect, some prices must be dramatically increased
to reflect so-called negative externalities and to protect the legitimate
interests of the unborn. One salient example of this is a carbon tax
sufficiently high to keep the total of emissions below the ceiling that should
not be exceed, or equivalently the sale to the highest bidder of carbon
emission permits whose total amounts to this ceiling. In either case, the
consumers will ultimately pay the price, but something must be done with the
huge proceeds. Whether at the world level or at the European level, there is
one simple way, both efficient and fair, of distributing them: an unconditional
basic income. The logic is fundamentally analogous to the equal distribution of
the rent on land advocated in Thomas Paines Agrarian Justice (1796). Three
eco-bonus proposals along these lines were proposed at one of our sessions,
in greatest detail by Ulrich Schachtschneider.
There is, however, yet another quite distinct link between basic income and
ecological sustainability. At its core is the role that will need to be given
to trans-national transfers. Those who make this third link may share with the
dcroissants the view that we in the North need to reduce our consumption.
But they do not conclude that we need to reduce our working time, because there
is no good reason to believe that we should reduce our production as well as
our consumption. This sounds paradoxical but is easy to understand. No one
visiting, for example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo can resist the
conclusion that achieving a decent standard of living for all inhabitants of
the world through local production within a foreseeable future is simply out of
the question. This is so because of a combination of sustained demographic
growth, deeply dysfunctioning and under-resourced administrative, judiciary and
educational systems, and sheer climatic conditions which, in the absence of
unaffordable generalized air conditioning, cannot but keep productivity down in
quite a large number of countries. To believe that fair trade or the end of
exploitation of the South by the North would enable these countries to get
out of trouble is sheer self-serving wishful thinking. The growth of production
in poor countries can and will help, of course, but access to a minimally
decent living standard for all within a foreseeable future cannot count on it
as its main means. It must also count on a massive dose of one or both of two
other means: massive migration to the North and massive transfers to the South.
If the migration of hundreds of millions of Africans to Europe is regarded as
undesirable for both the communities they leave and the communities they join,
only trans-national transfers are left. And to be sustainable at a high level,
such transfers arguably need to be both inter-personal (as opposed to
inter-governmental) and universal (as opposed to means-tested), i.e. take the
form of something like a universal basic income. As was the case with the first
link I mentioned above, sustainability here requires a reduction of consumption
in the North and the introduction of a basic income. But in the first case, the
basic income was there to help increase the leisure enjoyed in the North, and
in the second case to channel wealth to the South. Unlike the former, this
latter argument, frankly, has nothing to do with what triggered my interest in
basic income thirty years ago. But it is closely related to the argument I used
in my contribution to one of the sessions of this congress to explain why the
buffering device needed to save the euro needs to take the form of a universal
basic income.[1]
Universality and unconditionality: the crucial conjunction
The second point I want to mention emerged particularly clearly from the session
that hosted a conversation between Gtz Werner, CEO of the large drugstore DM,
and Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn, member of the Bundestag for the Green Party. A
central part of the background of any discussion on social policy in Germany is
the dramatic reform of the German
welfare state by Gerhard Schrders red-green government known as Agenda
2010 or Hartz IV (2005). By reducing the duration of unemployment benefits,
lowering the average level of social assistance and increasing the pressure on
benefit recipients to seek and accept jobs, it is fair to say that the reform
has improved the competitiveness of the German economy. But in a free trade
area, making one country more competitive means making the other countries less
competitive, and if this free trade area is also a single currency area, this
means, for these other countries, deficits in the balance of trade, persistent
unemployment and a pressure to restore their competitiveness by similarly
scaling down their welfare states. For this reason, Hartz IV is no small factor
in the current crisis of the Eurozone.[2]
Nonetheless, it is also fair to say that nothing ever happened in Germany that
was better than Hartz IV at triggering a lively basic income debate. To
understand why, note, first of all, that about half the recipients of the new
social assistance scheme officially called Arbeitslosengeld II (but
colloquially called Hartz IV) are at work. The reform massively extended the
possibility of the Kombilohn, of low earnings combined with benefits. As such,
this is not something basic income supporters should object to, as it is
inherent in a universal basic income that it would generalize this possibility.
But there is a major difference. Gerard Schrder himself complained that Hartz
IV was misused by employers, as they used it to get workers into lousy jobs,
with harsh conditions, no on-the-job training and no prospects of improvement.
This is precisely why basic income supporters find unconditionality so
important: a benefit granted to (potential) workers irrespective of whether
they are willing to accept a job enhances their bargaining power and enables
them to turn down poorly paid jobs of no intrinsic interest.
Put differently, the universality of the basic income — its not being
means-tested — is what enables a person to say yes to a low-paid job. Its
unconditionality — its not being work-tested — is what enables a
person to say no to a low-paid job. Universality without unconditionality is a
recipe for exploitation, because of the potential misuse of the Kombilohn by
employers. Unconditionality without universality is a recipe for exclusion,
because of the trap created by means-tested handouts. Instead, the conjunction
of universality and unconditionality — so central to the basic income movement
since its inception — is a path to emancipation. How emancipatory it can
be will of course depend on its level. As stressed by Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn,
however, the emancipatory effect starts being produced even with a level of
basic income far below what would be deemed sufficient to live on for ones
whole life, even in a city, even on ones own. Even a much lower universal and
unconditional basic income broadens life options and thereby empowers its
beneficiaries: it can make it realistic, for example, to accept an internship
or an apprenticeship, or to combine further education with a part-time job, or
to take the risk of becoming self-employed or of starting a cooperative, in
situations in which today, in the absence of a basic income, one would be
forced to accept a lousy full-time job.
A partial basic income, i.e. a low but genuinely universal and unconditional
basic income, is therefore one obvious way in which one can move forward. But
there are many others, more or less suited to local circumstances, more or less
achievable in a particular political context, more or less likely to trigger a
sequence of further emancipatory steps rather than unleash a damaging backlash.
To move forward, we must dare to be visionaries, as emphasized by Gtz
Werner, while not hesitating to be opportunists, as demonstrated by Wolfgang
Strengmann-Kuhn. Guided by our vision of a just society and a just world, we
must be on the lookout for political opportunities to get closer to it, without
denying the size of the challenges ahead — not least those arising from
globalization — and without too much optimism about immediate success.
Some good surprises are then bound to come our way
[1] No Eurozone without euro-dividend, downloadable from www.uclouvain.be/8609.
[2] See my response to Gerard Schrders defence of Agenda 2010 on the occasion
of his visit to Brussels in April 2012 : LAgenda 2010: un modle pour
lEurope?, downloadable from www.uclouvain.be/8611
[BIEN – November 2012]
This conference is part of the Council of Europes ongoing project on the fight
against poverty and inequality. Two members of BIENs Executive Committee,
Yannick Vanderborght and Louise Haag, have been invited to participate in this
project. Both will give plenary speeches at this conference, and basic income
will be a major topic of discussion.
For more information go to: http://rights-poverty.eu/conference/
[USBIG – November 2012]
Featured speakers include Carole Pateman, UCLA and Cardiff University, co-author
of Basic Income Worldwide: Horizons of
Reform; Sheri Berman, Barnard
College, author of The Primacy of
Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europes Twentieth Century; Jurgen De Wispelaere, McGill
University, co-editor of The Ethics of Stakeholding;
David Casassas, University of Barcelona, co-editor of Basic Income in the Age of Great
Inequalities; James Riccio,
MDRC, co-author of Toward Reduced Poverty Across
Generations: Early Findings from New York City's Conditional Cash Transfer
Program; Darrick Hamilton, The New
School, co-author of Can Baby
Bonds Eliminate the Racial Wealth Gap in Putative Post-Racial America? and Evelyn Forget, University of Manitoba,
author of The Town with No Poverty: A history of the North American Guaranteed
Annual Income Social Experiments.
All points of view are welcome, and proposals from any discipline are invited. For
more information see the call for papers at: www.usbig.net. Or contact the
congress organizer, Almaz Zelleke of USBIG, at azelleke@gmail.com.
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: November 30th, 2012
[BIEN – November 2012]
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) has named the Basic Income Canada Network
as the host of the 15th BEIN Congress, which will take place in
Ottawa, Ontario in the spring or summer of 2014. Kelly Ernst, of Sheldon Chumir
Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, will chair the Local Organizing Committee
(LOC). Other members of the LOC include Jurgen de Wispelaere, Kizzy Paris,
Jenna van Draanen, Linda Lalonde, Myron Frankman, Tim Rourke, and Sharon
Murphy. The LOC will name a date and a venue for the conference within the next
six months and release a call for submissions sometime in 2013. For more
information about the organizational efforts that will bring congress into
being in a little more than 18 months, contact: Kelly Ernst
<kernst@chumir.ca>
[USBIG – November 2012]
The next issue of Basic Income Studies (BIS) will be
available soon. This academic, peer-reviewed journal has been in a period of
transition. The new publisher is De Gruyter, which acquired BIS earlier this
year from Berkeley Electronic Press. The editing of the journal is being passed
from Karl Widerquist and Jurgen De Wispelaeare to Louise Haagh (University of
York, UK) and James Mulvale (University of Regina, Canada).
The past issues of BIS continue to be accessible at no cost at
http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis (by pressing on "read content"
button).
If you are involved in scholarly work on Basic Income, and would like to reach
a broad audience of academics from many disciplines as well as policy experts
and advocates, please consider submitting your manuscript to BIS.
[USBIG – November 2012]
Brown, Ellen, Why QE3 Wont Jump-Start the
Economy—and What Would, Web of
Debt, September 21, 2012; reprinted by Truth
Dig Sep 22, 2012.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_qe3_wont_jumpstart_the_economyand_what_would_20120922//
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2012/09/20/for-qe-ben-should-have-tried-the-helicopter
Kaletsky, Anatole, How about quantitative easing for the people? Reuters Opinion, August 1, 2012
http://blogs.reuters.com/anatole-kaletsky/2012/08/01/how-about-quantitative-easing-for-the-people/
Hutchinson, Martin, For QE, Ben Should Have Tried the Helicopter, Resource Investor, September 20, 2012
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2012/09/20/for-qe-ben-should-have-tried-the-helicopter
Three recent U.S. editorials have argued that Quantitative Easing would be more
effective and more equitable if the money was given directly to the people in
the form of a basic income—if only a temporary one. Martin Hutchinson
discusses the Feds goal of buying $40 billion dollars worth of debt each month
for as many months as it takes. He argues that for only $31 billion dollars per
month the Fed could send a $100 check to each of the 310 million US citizens. Anatole
Kaletsky argues that $2 trillion (the amount the Fed spent on Quantitative
Easing in 2009) could finance a cash dividend of $6,500 for every man, woman
and child, or $26,000 for a family of four. All three agree this would be a
superior anti-recession policy than Quantitative Easing, which directly
benefits bankers and has a lesser effect on overall economic activity.
[USBIG – November 2012]
According to the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, this paper has the following
content: Short history of the idea of a basic income in Europe and the US; The
idea of a basic income becomes the political call of a wide, but politically
differently coined movement in Germany; The European Basic Income Movement;
Market liberal and emancipatory approaches to reasoning for and design of a
basic income; Occupation, welfare state and radical democratisation of society
and economy; Public goods, infrastructure and services; Redistribution; Gender
equality; Reduction in use of natural resources; and Global Social Rights.
Ronald Blaschke, From the Idea of a basic income to the political movement in
Europe, The Rosa Luxembourg Foundation
Papers, August 2012
Information about the paper is online at:
http://www.rosalux.de/publication/38626/from-the-idea-of-a-basic-income-to-the-political-movement-in-europe.html
The paper is online at: Papers_Basic-Income_Blaschke-2012pdf.pdf
[BICN - Jenna van Draanen - October 2012]
Ed Broadbent, the former leader of Canadas New Democratic
Party and the founder of the Broadbent Institute, recently wrote an opinion piece in the Toronto Star in response to
a host of austerity policies that are being implemented across Canada.
Broadbent wants to stimulate a national discussion on extreme income inequality
and potential ways to address it.
In terms of solutions, he points to Canadians willingness to pay higher taxes
to protect social programs and calls on the government to take leadership on
reducing inequality. Broadbent includes among the ways to address inequality:
upgrading income security and federal support programs, a progressive taxation
system, and transfers to the provinces. The piece also advocates for the
promotion of jobs, investment in early childhood and post-secondary education,
and protective employment legislation.
Notably, he says we should seriously debate the concept of a Guaranteed Basic
Income that ensures a minimum level of economic security for all and points
out that we already have such a system for seniors through the Guaranteed
Income Supplement. This article concludes by calling on Canadians to use
collective will to demand the major changes to current social and economic
arrangements that will rebalance priorities in a way that works for Canada.
Broadbent, Ed. What kind of Canada do we want? Toronto Star. October 8, 2012.
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1267780--what-kind-of-canada-do-we-want
[USBIG – November 2012]
According to the publisher, This exciting and timely
collection brings together international and national scholars and advocates to
provide historical overviews of efforts to pass basic income guarantee
legislation in their respective countries and/or across regions of the globe.
Contributing authors address specific substantive issues such as: who were the
main people and groups involved in support of or against such legislative
efforts; what were the main reasons for the success or failure of BIG-related
initiatives to date; and what the prospects are for the future. Countries
discussed include Australia, Finland, Germany, Iran, Japan, Mexico,
Netherlands, Spain, the UK, and the US. The publisher also quotes Greg
Marston, who writes, "This book integrates careful research, political
theory and practical insights in a way that no other volume on the idea of a
basic income guarantee has yet done. Through engaging and thoughtful
presentation of wide ranging national case studies, readers will learn a great
deal about the global state of play. In an age of growing economic insecurity,
the book provides a timely reminder of the possibilities income guarantee
schemes offer for improving social wellbeing."
For more information go to: http://us.macmillan.com/basicincomeguaranteeandpolitics/RichardKCaputo
[Citizens
Income Trust – September 2012]
The latest edition of the Citizens Income Newsletter contains an
editorial, the research note: A Citizen's Income scheme's winners and losers
by Malcolm Torry, a review essay: The message of James Robertson's Future
Money by Conall Boyle, book reviews, a viewpoint: Why Austerity is the Wrong
Answer to Debt by Geoff Crocker, and more.
Citizens Income Trust (UK), The Citizen's
Income Newsletter, Issue 3 for 2012.
http://www.citizensincome.org/
[USBIG – November 2012]
This article argues that basic income is a bold solution that could not only
reduce but actually eliminate poverty.
Dearlove, Cameron, Consider guaranteed annual income to reduce poverty, The Record, 19 October 2012
http://www.therecord.com/opinion/columns/article/819662--consider-guaranteed-annual-income-to-reduce-poverty
[BIEN Ireland - September 19, 2012]
This new book by Danny Dorling (University of Sheffield) includes an 8-pages
discussion of basic income in the British context. Dorling seems to be very
supportive of the idea, including at EU-level: Imagine how much money would be
saved, he writes, if a basic income one day replaced all the numerous
different benefit and taxation systems existing across the whole of the
European Union. How else could Europe ever have a unified system of social
security to go with its free movement of labor? (p.160).
Dorling, Danny, The no-nonsense guide to
equality, Oxford: New Internationalist. 2012
http://www.dannydorling.org/books/equality/Homepage.html
[USBIG – November 2012]
This article argues the a form of basic income guarantee
would work better than Canadas current poverty-reduction strategies.
Ernst, Kelly, Poverty reduction strategies are wrong-headed, The Record, 23 October 2012
http://www.therecord.com/opinion/columns/article/821876--poverty-reduction-strategies-are-wrong-headed
[CIT - October 10, 2012]
The World Bank has published a report, The Cash Dividend: The rise of cash
transfer programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, by Marito Garcia and Charity M. T.
Moore. The authors conclude: Much can already be learned from Sub-Saharan
Africas experience with cash transfer programs. Evaluations of unconditional
programs have found significant impacts on household food consumption (for
instance, Miller, Tsoka, and Mchinji Evaluation Team 2007 for Malawis Social
Cash Transfer Program; Soares and Teixeira 2010 for Mozambiques Food Subsidy
Program); nonfood consumption (for instance, RHVP 2009 for Zambias Social Cash
Transfer); and childrens nutrition and education (including Agero, Carter,
and Woolard 2007 and Williams 2007 for South Africas Child Support Grant). A
recent experimental evaluation found that a program for adolescent girls
conditioned on their school attendance improved enrollment, attendance, and
test scores in Malawi. Unconditional transfers in the same program decreased
early marriage and pregnancy among girls who had already dropped out of
school. (p.8).
Garcia, Marito and Charity M. T. Moore. The
Cash Dividend: The rise of cash transfer programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, The
World Bank 2012.
http://bit.ly/ct4SSA
[USBIG –
Nov 2012]
In an obvious reference to Virginia Wolf, author Bill Jordon argues that the
current economic crisis provides are great opportunity for basic income because
there is now widespread recognition that the whole tax and benefit system is
malfunctioning
Jordan, Bill, An income of ones own: the citizens income, Red Pepper October 2012
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/an-income-of-ones-own-the-citizens-income/
[USBIG –
Oct 2012]
In this article, Sascha Leibermann calls the idea of a basic income, simple
and powerful, challenging and disturbing. He introduces the idea, considers
common objections to it, and discusses why it has such a difficult time getting
onto the political agenda even though many of the common objects to it are
unrealistic. Dr. Sascha Liebermann holds a PhD in Sociology. He is Assistant
Professor at Ruhr-University Bochum, Visiting Fellow at ETH Zurich
(Switzerland); Founding member of "Freedom not Full Employment"
(www.freiheitstattvollbeschaeftigung.de) (in 2003), a group of German citizens
arguing for an Unconditional Basic Income.
Leibermann, Sascha, Prospects of an Unconditional Basic Income, Club of Amsterdam Journal, June 2012,
Issue 150
http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/contentimages/journal/print%20journal/print%200150%20Journal%20July%202012.htm
[USBIG – 2012]
This article shows how conservatives' economic hero helped make the case for
a form of basic income guarantee.
Lind, Michael, Thank you, Milton Friedman, Salon.com Aug 7, 2012
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/07/thank_you_milton_friedman/
[USBIG – November 2012]
This opinion piece from the Washington Post favorably discusses basic income in
light of Mitt Romneys erroneous statement, Under Obamas plan, you wouldnt
have to work. You wouldnt have to train for a job. They just send you your
welfare check. The author discusses some of the history of BIG, including the
Tax Cut for the Rest of Us bill, which was authored by two members of the
USBIG Network. The author concludes, All of which is to say that while Mitt
Romney mocks the idea of just sending checks to fight poverty, the idea has an
impressive intellectual pedigree, including among conservatives. Perhaps we
should give just writing checks a shot.
Matthews, Dylan Obama doesnt want to just write welfare recipients checks.
But what if we did? The Washington Post,
August 8, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/08/obama-doesnt-want-to-just-write-welfare-recipients-checks-but-what-if-we-did/
[BI News – October 2012]
This article reviews Keyness 1930 prediction that economic growth would so
make possible the 15-hour workweek. The author, John Quiggin, argues that the
failure of the prediction to come true happened not because of a failure of
economic growth but because of policy decisions that have concentrated the
gains of economic growth on people at the top of the income distribution. As a
part of the solution, he argue for a guaranteed minimum income (another word
for a basic income guarantee). John Quiggin is a professor of economics and the
University of Queensland in Australia. He is the author of Zombie Economics.
Quiggin, John. The Golden Age: The 15-hour working week predicted by Keynes
may soon be within our grasp—but are we ready for freedom from toil? Aeon, 27 September 2012
http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/john-quiggin-keynesian-utopiav1/
[Aynur Bashirova – BIEN – October 2012]
In this article published in the Hufftington Post, Mike Sandler argues that if
we change the way money enters the economy (it enters as debt owned to private
banks), government of the United States will be able to create Citizens
Dividend and reduce the number of bankruptcies. The author comes to this idea
based on the Ned Act proposed by Dennis Kucinich to abolish Federal Reserve,
fractional reserve banking, prohibit compound interest, and give 25% of money
created to the states. According to him, this will help budget deficits and
help government to save money to give to every citizen of the United States in
the form of the Universal Citizens Dividend. Sandler argues that this new way
of handling economy will allow government to have enough money to give to
actual people who will spend it into circulation. This, in turn, will create
demand, so that employers will start hiring people again.
Sandler, Mike Citizens Dividends: Basic Income from your Share of the
Commons, Hufftington Post, October
3, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-sandler/citizens-dividends-basic-_b_1936182.html?utm_hp_ref=business
[USBIG – November 2012]
According to the publisher, A Basic Income Guarantee (BIG)
is the unconditional government-ensured guarantee that all citizens will have
enough income to meet their basic needs without a work requirement. Significant
questions include: Why should we adopt a BIG? Can the U.S. afford it? Why don't
the current welfare programs work? Why not guarantee everyone a job? Would
anyone work if his or her income were guaranteed? Has a BIG ever been tested?
This book answers these questions and many more in simple, easy-to-understand
language. The publisher also quotes U.S. Senator George McGovern, writing, "This
book is a great idea - brilliantly stated. Some may think it's ultra-liberal,
as they did when I proposed a similar idea in 1972. I see it as true
conservatism - the right of income for all Americans sufficient for food,
shelter, and basic necessities. Or, what Jefferson referred to as life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
For more information go to: http://us.macmillan.com/basicincomeguarantee/AllanSheahen
[USBIG – September 2012]
Here we uses computer simulation from survey data to
estimate the outcomes for a genuine Citizens Income scheme: an unconditional
and nonwithdrawable benefit for every citizen. The aim of the exercise was to
test a variety of schemes. The study finds that by making a small number of
changes to the present system in the United Kingdom, it is possible to
establish a genuine Citizens Income scheme. Malcolm Torry is the director of
the Citizens Income Trust (BIENs UK affiliate) and a parish priest and
industrial chaplain for the Church of England.
Torry, Malcolm Research note: A Citizens Income schemes winners and losers.
The Citizen's Income Newsletter,
Issue 3 for 2012
http://www.citizensincome.org/
[Aynur Bashirova – BI News – September 2012]
In the article published in Winnipeg Free Press, Mary Agnes Welch argues that
an experiment done in Dauphin province of Canada around 40 years ago regarding
the experiment of unconditional basic income was a success and should be
reapplied. The topic was discussed in a conference hosted by Winnipeg Harvest
at University of Manitoba. The experiment provided an unconditional basic
income guarantee to every low-income person in Dauphin whether or not they were
eligible to receive welfare. The results of the Dauphin experiment showed an
improvement in health, a lower high school dropout rate, and people did not
stop working just because they were receiving a guaranteed income. The
experiment was stopped because the government lost interest in it. Welch
further informs that the city of Dauphin is interested in having the experiment
again. However, it does not fit the new strategy of the government that follows
the policy of moving people back to work.
Welch, M. A. An End to the Perpetual War Trap: Guaranteed Incomes Debated. Winnipeg Free Press, August 22, 2012
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/an-end-to-the-perpetual-welfare-trap-167004295.html.
[USBIG – November 2012]
According to the publisher: very year, every Alaskan gets paid. They receive a
small dividend financed by returns on a fund created from the state's resource
revenues – what the authors have called the 'Alaska model.' This timely
book examines how the model can be adapted for use elsewhere, examining issues
of implementation and showing that this model can be employed even in
resource-poor areas in the industrialized and in the industrializing world.
The publisher also quotes Guy Standing, writing "The Alaska Permanent Fund
has reached its 30th anniversary and is one of the world's unsung innovations
in social and economic policy. It offers a route to income redistribution and
prompts realistic thoughts of more ambitious schemes to provide universal basic
income security. This book is an important contribution to what should be a
much more widespread debate about the Fund's role and potential." This
book is the sequel to Alaskas Permanent
Fund Dividend: Examining its Suitability as a Model, co-edited by Karl
Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2012).
For more information go to: http://us.macmillan.com/book.aspx?isbn=9781137006592
[USBIG – November 2012]
Matthew Yglesias, Slate's business
and economics correspondent, discusses the basic income guarantee as a more
cost-effective solution to poverty than many current strategies, which he sees
as attempts to use public services as a roundabout mechanism of income
redistribution. Hence the fiasco of Amtrak's money-losing food services line.
Yglesias, Matthew, How To Win The War On Poverty: Recognize That
Redistribution Works, Slate Sept.
15, 2012
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/09/15/tax_and_transfer_win_the_war_on_poverty_with_redistribution_.html
BI News has published the following six opinion pieces since October 1. Theyre all online at: http://binews.org/category/opinion/.
OPINION: A Popular Legislative Initiative for a Guaranteed Citizenship Income
in Spain
Red Renta Bsica ⋅
November 12, 2012
OPINION: Paul Ryan explains simple policy that would end poverty, but does not
support it
By Timothy Roscoe Carter ⋅
November 5, 2012
OPINION: Assessment of the Dutch Elections 2012, No entrance to Basic Income
By Robin Ketelaars ⋅
October 29, 2012
OPINION: Why Austerity is the Wrong Answer to Debt: A Call for a New Paradigm
By Geoff Crocker ⋅
October 15, 2012
OPINION: Funding Citizens Income by Seigniorage: The message of Future Money
from James Robertson
By Conall Boyle ⋅
October 8, 2012
OPINION: Personal reflections on the 14th congress of the Basic Income Earth
Network
By Philippe Van Parijs ⋅
October 1, 2012
[USBIG – November 2012]
Several blogs are currently discussing the basic income guarantee
RiseUpEconomics: We Need to Re-work Work
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/10/1129978/-We-Need-to-Re-work-Work
The Zeitgeist Movement Official Blog: "Basic Income - An immediate step in
the transition"
http://blog.thezeitgeistmovement.com/blog/dario-wurmd/basic-income-immediate-step-transition
Joshua Miller, Another Badly-Aimed Attack on the Basic Income Guarantee from
Crooked Timber, August 9, 2012
http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2012/08/another-badly-aimed-attack-on-the-basic-income-guarantee-from-crooked-timber/
The Digital Journal's blog: "How Practicable Is Basic Income Today?"
http://www.digitaljournal.com/blog/18677
The Heteconomist blog: Greece, Basic Income and the European Left
http:// heteconomist.com/?p=6128
The Progress Report: Local Equity & Citizen Dividends Proposed: Put Toll
Concession Fees In a Permanent Fund For All
http://www.progress.org/2012/tollroad.htm
USBIG - September 22, 2012
This video explains the results of the Indian basic income pilot project. It
includes interviews with participants in the study.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItkZ5b-C3Nw
USBIG - October 18, 2012
European Alternatives has posted an attractive animated video presenting
reasons for Basic Income on YouTube. In English, with Italian subtitles, it is
currently being used to support the Italian campaign for a minimum income.
According to European Alternatives, Anyone is welcome to use and disseminate
the video for our common cause.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxBbi3hlXkU
[USBIG – October 2012]
In this 15-minute video Milton Friedman discusses the Negative Income Tax in an
interview with William F. Buckley. Its posted on the libertarian/conservative
website, LibertyPen.
http://libertypenblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/video-milton-friedman-negative-income.html
[BIEN – October 2012]
This video is 90 minutes long. It includes presentations by Senator Eduardo
Suplicy and two others. It is posed on the website FirstPost.com.
http://www.firstpost.com/topic/place/austria-basic-income-and-its-implementation-in-brazil-eduardo-suplic-video-NLndVviBgmk-138-15.html
[BIEN – October 2012]
This 85-minute video is of a session at the 2012 BIEN Congress in Munich.
Participants include Renana Jabhvala, Guy Standing, abd Shikha Joshi. It was
posted on YouTube by Friedel Hans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6mYSNpcscQ
[BIEN – October 2012]
This 75-minute is from a session at the BIEN Congress in Munich in September
2012. Presenters include Almaz Zelleke, BIEN New York, James Mulvale, BIEN
Executive Committee Canada and Wouter van Ginneken, Divonne-les-Bains, France.
It was posted on YouTube by Friedel Hans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IKbzInMUnc
[BIEN – October 2012]
This 90-minute video is from a Session at the BIEN Congress in Munich, Germany
on September 14, 2012. Participants include Bruna Augusta Perreira, Luis
Henrique da Silva Paiva, Rolf Knnemann, Eduardo Suplicy. It was posted on
YouTube by Friedel Hans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uSb57jHDrA&feature=relmfu
[BIEN – October 2012]
This YouTube channel has dozens of videos on BIG, some in English and some in
German.
http://www.youtube.com/user/videoattac
[BICN – November 2012]
Two videos on Guaranteed Annual (Basic) Income in the Canadian context,
featuring Senator Hugh Segal, can be found on the TVO website:
What Do You Think of "Guaranteed Annual Income"? (2 minutes)
http://theagenda.tvo.org/blog/agenda-blogs/what-do-you-think-guaranteed-annual-income
Politics Around Poverty (49 minutes):
http://ww3.tvo.org/video/184975/politics-around-poverty
Volunteers are needed to write (and do other things) for BI
News, the BIEN NewsFlash, and the USBIG Newsletter. All of the news you read
here is written by a group of volunteers. We need more writers for our team. As
a writer you get: byline, feedback on your writing, and a chance to help the
global basic income movement. If youre interested, please email
Karl@widerquist.com
[USBIG – November 2012]
This page on Scoop.it has links to dozens of websites discussing basic income.
Its curated by Bipedal Joe and online at:
http://www.scoop.it/t/basicincome/
[USBIG – November 2012]
This website has several posts on Basic Income: http://cod-democracy.blogspot.com/
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 NewsFlash
Editor: Karl Widerquist
Copyeditor: Mike Murray and the USBIG Committee
Research: Paul Nollen
Special help on this issue was provided by: Cindy L'Hirondelle, Amanda Reilly,
Steve Shafarman, and others
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. More news about BIG is online
at BInews.org.
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