The inaugural Campfire Convention took place in August 12-14, 2016, in the English countryside. It featured a keynote address from Brian Eno, in addition to an array of panel discussions, music performances, and other events.
One panel discussion was on the topic of universal basic income:
Universal Basic Income: A Utopian Vision or a Viable Reality?
Basic income for all – a universal weekly payment for all eligible citizens – can lead to the kind of creativity needed in the sort of world we would all like to live in. Would we all qualify and how would we fund it? With rapid technological change and its impact on the number and quality of jobs, we need to reassess our expectations concerning work and its impact on the human spirit. How could BI facilitate an emergent spirit of co-operative intelligence with thriving creative environments. How do we free up people from unsatisfactory jobs to use time most productively to create space where we can do things that please us and earn a living from our ‘art’?
Panelists (viewer’s left to right):
• Daz Long, tarmacker, volunteer boxing coach, father of three and granddad of six.
• Imandeep Kaur, cofounder of Impact Hub Birmingham and director of Project 00 (pronounced “zero zero”), a collaborative studio of architects, designers, programmers, and social scientists.
• Barb Jacobson, coordinator of Basic Income UK and board member of Unconditional Basic Income Europe.
• Frances Coppola, finance and economics writer, singer, and musician, who has frequently written on basic income.
• Brian Eno, musician, composer, producer, and leading pioneer of ambient music, who has lately been promoting basic income. (In late 2015, Eno spoke about basic income on his John Peel Lecture on BBC Radio 6, and participated in the panel “Basic income: How do we get there?” with Coppola and David Graeber.)
Reviewed by Dawn Howard
Campfire photo CC BY-NC_ND 2.0 Snipps Whispers
