Like their previous paper on basic income (see https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/14/taking-it-to-the-streets-in-spain/), this essay by Daniel Raventós and Julie Wark is published by the influentiel left-wing political newsletter Counterpunch (USA). They wrote it at the occasion of the first anniversary of the ‘indignados’ movement (also called ‘the 15-M movement) in Spain. According to Raventós and Wark, this movement “has been a timely reminder of the old lesson that if ideas, however good they are, don’t take root in powerful movements that reach a large number of individual citizens and groups they don’t have much future.” The example they take is the 15-M’s call for a universal basic income. “The movement has done more to promote this proposal than thousands of seminars, books, articles and lectures, which are necessary, of course, but not sufficient. In the case of Spain, much of this groundwork has been done but the idea has taken off quite spectacularly with 15-M. Even though it hasn’t yet achieved overwhelming mass-based support, basic income is much better known, understood and accepted now than it was a year ago.”
The article is online at: https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/29/beyond-indignation/
Full references: RAVENTOS, Daniel & WARK, Julie (2012), ‘Beyond Indignation’, Counterpunch, May 29th, 2012.
