U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Newsletter, August 2000</br></br>

Contents</br></br>

1. September Basic Income Guarantee Seminar</br>
2. The Basic Income Guarantee in the media</br>
3. Recent publications on the Basic Income Guarantee</br>
4. New web sites on Basic Income</br>
5. Links and other information</br></br>

1. BASIC INCOME SEMINAR</br></br>

The next basic income guarantee seminar will be held at Hunter College
(68th Street and Lexington Ave.) at 5pm on Friday, September 15. (The
room number will be announced in a few days.) Karl Widerquist, of the
Educational Priorities Panel, will present "Citizenship or Obligation."
</br></br>

At the October seminar, Brian Steensland, of Princeton University, will
present "Defining Welfare: Media Depictions of the Struggle over
Guaranteed Income, 1966-1980." The date and time will be announced by
the end of September.</br></br>

2. THE BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE IN THE MEDIA</br></br>

According to Citizens' Income, Samuel Brittan's fulsome
review discussed basic income in a recent issue of The Financial Times
of the United Kingdom. Brittan recognises that the current path of
welfare reform leads naturally to some form of Basic Income.  Writing of
the problems inherent to the Working Families Tax Credit, he continues,
"The best way of avoiding these snags might then be to go the whole hog
to an unconditional Basic Income, which would not by then be all that
much more expensive."</br></br>

To see his comments in full, go to:</br>

http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT37O19BZBC&live=true</br></br>


3. RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON THE BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE</br></br>

Article: "The Collision of Tax and Welfare Politics: The Political
History of the
Earned Income Tax Credit, 1969-99" by Dennis J. Ventry, Jr, University
of California, Santa Barbara, and Harvard University, The National Tax
Journal Special Issue: "The Earned Income Tax Credit: Early Evidence"
(2000)</br></br>

Abstract-This paper uses the political history and pre-history of the
EITC to describe how the politics of welfare reform influence tax
policies that function as social policy. It suggests that the economic
tradeoffs inherent in the formulation of tax-transfer programs are also
political tradeoffs. It examines policy choices between costs and labor
supply incentives, as well as those between ease of participation and
compliance rates. This paper concludes that although economic analysis
influenced the creation and development of the EITC, political factors,
not economics, animated the history of the program.</br></br>

Book: Reclaiming Work, by André Gorz Blackwell Publishers</br></br>
                    
Description: Over the last twenty-five years, Western societies have
been reversing into the future. They are able neither to reproduce
themselves in accordance with past norms, nor to exploit the
unprecedented freedom offered by the savings in working time which new
technology has generated. In this major new book, André Gorz argues that
the societies created by Fordism have been falling apart and have given
way to "non-societies", in which a tiny dominant stratum has grabbed
most of the surplus wealth. In the absence of any alternative political
project, social disintegration and individual despair have prevailed.
Mainstream economists seek solutions to this "crisis", but Gorz argues
that we are in fact in the grip of a new system which is
abolishing work as we know it. The worst forms of exploitation are being
restored, as each is forced to fight against all (both at the individual
and the national level) in a desperate struggle to obtain the
diminishing supply of work. In the face of these developments, Gorz
argues that we should fight not against the destruction of work itself
(in the sense of stable employment), but against the new system's
efforts to perpetuate the ideology of work as a source of rights. We
should welcome the reduction in the working hours required to meet our 
material needs and should realize the creative potential that this
reduction could release. Through measures such as a sufficient
unconditional basic income for all and new, co-operative economic
structures, we can reclaim work and  rebuild a future beyond the
wage-based society. Author Description: André Gorz is one of the leading
social and political thinkers of our time, and is the author of many
books, including Critique of Economic Reason, Farewell to the Working
Class and Paths to Paradise. </br></br>


4. NEW WEB SITES ON THE BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE</br></br>

Tim Rourke's has create a new BIG website</br>
http://www3.sympatico.ca/tim.rourke/bi.html</br></br>

MATS HÖGLUND has created two web sites about the basic income
guarantee.</br>
In English: http://go.to/basicincomemovement</br>
And in Swedish: http://go.to/basinkomst</br></br>


5. LINKS & OTHER INFO:</br></br>

The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) can be reached at
www.usbig.net or by email at widerquist@levy.org. There are several
other BIG organizations and BIG web sites around the world
including:</br></br>

The Basic Income European Network (BIEN) will have its next conference
this fall in Berlin (October 6-8). BEIN also maintains a website and a
newsletter promoting basic income in Europe and around the world. If you
are interested in finding out more about it, see the BIEN website:</br>

http://www.econ.ucl.ac.be/ETES/BIEN/bien.html</br></br>

Britain's Citizens' Income Trust publishes a newsletter and maintains a
website; both have news on basic income/citizen's income from the United
Kingdom and around the world. See their website:</br>

http://www.citizensincome.org</br>

Email:</br>

citizens-income@lse.ac.uk</br>

A lively email discussion group on basic income is up and running in
Canada. If you're interested contact:</br>

Sally Lerner <lerner@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca></br></br>

The Australian Basic Income group, OASIS, publishes an email newsletter.
Anyone interested in receiving a copy should contact:</br>

Allan McDonald <allanmcd@satcom.net.au></br></br>

Tim Rourke's new BIG website</br>
http://www3.sympatico.ca/tim.rourke/bi.html</br></br>

MATS HÖGLUND has created two web sites about the basic income
guarantee.</br>
In English: http://go.to/basicincomemovement</br>
And in Swedish: http://go.to/basinkomst</br></br>

The Geonomy Society, which promotes using land taxes to support a
universal basic income guarantee, can be reached by contacting:</br></br>

SMITH, Jeffrey J.</br>
President, the Geonomy Society, Portland, Oregon, USA</br>
www.progress.org/geonomy</p>


If you have any news on basic income or any comments on the newsletter
or the web site, please let me know. If you know anyone who would like
to be added to this list please ask them to contact me. If you'd like to
be removed from this list please email me. </br>
-Karl Widerquist, coordinator, US BIG.