Voices on the basic income (II): Is it justified? [Política Entrevista Voces sobre la renta básica (II): ¿Está justificada?]

The website, Revista Libertalia, recently published an article in Spanish with extensive quotes from an interview conducted with me. The article is entitled, “Voces sobre la renta básica (II): ¿Está justificada? [Voices on basic income (II): Is it justified?].” It’s author is Pablo Magaña. The Spanish version was published on February 28, 2019. The author created, but did not publish an English version of the article. The quotes below reproduce the entire English version with no additional editing.

Voices on the basic income (II): Is it justified?

The idea of a basic income raises many hopes and some eyebrows. In this article, some of its defenders will explain to us which is, in their view, the best way to justify it. However, in order to make the discussion more interesting, we also asked them to answer one common objection that is often raised against the proposal: the free-riding objection. What does this objection say? Quite simple. Unlike other social security schemes, a basic income is unconditional, which means that you can be entitled to it regardless of your socio-economic condition. And, more crucially, regardless of the extent to which you contribute to your society.

For some people, this is plainly unfair. The viability of a basic income depends upon the existence of enough contributors to a common public fund. But, as long as this scheme is already in place and working in a stable manner, if any individual decided not to contribute to it, there would be nothing we could do in response: given the income’s unconditional character, the supposed free-rider would still be as entitled to it as any other citizen. Let us suppose – so goes the classical example[i] – that I decided to spent all my time living high, surfing the waves in Malibu, playing guitar under the moonlight, driving along endless highways on the wheel of an old van. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Still, since such a plan would only be possible if others work and contribute to a common fund, my decision might look like an injustice, a clear case of free-riding. But is it really like this?

Before introducing some possible answers to this challenge, we will look first at some arguments in favor of a basic income.

According to Hillel Steiner[ii], “the best way to defend the right to UBI involves a dual strategy: (a) showing that this right is implied by some more basic and uncontested principle, and (b) showing that this right is compatible with, and does not encroach upon, other widely accepted rights”. As a left-libertarian, Steiner regards the Earth as humanity’s common possession[iii], which entails that if somebody intends to appropriate herself of any portion of it, she should compensate her fellow co-owners. If she didn’t, she would be illegitimately appropriating of something that is not really hers. In other words, she would be stealing. Steiner’s emphasis on natural resources colors both his model of basic income and his preferred justification of it:

“In my view, a right to UBI should be funded by a 100% tax on the ownership of natural resources, commonly termed a ‘Land Value Tax’ or, more accurately, a ‘Location Value Tax’. This tax would be levied on the value of those locations themselves, and not on the value of any improvements made to those locations by human labour. A right to a UBI funded in this way satisfies (a) since those taxable natural resources/locations, not being the product of any person’s labour, are rightfully available for use by everyone. So if someone wants to privatise some of them, and to exclude all others from using them, then it seems only fair that the privatizer should compensate those others. The UBI I’m proposing simply is that compensation.”

This is a fairly common way to defend the right to a basic income, also employed by Guy Standing[iv], author of Basic Income: And How we Can Make it Happen[v]. In Standing’s view, “the right to a basic income can be justified on three ethical grounds. First, it is a matter of common justice. The land, the air, water, and even ideas inherited from our ancestors are all part of the commons which belong to everybody equally. But elites and the wealthy have been given, have inherited or have used the commons for their benefit. Therefore, they should compensate the commoners who have lost the commons, and the fairest way to do that is give everybody in society a common payment, a ‘common dividend’ on our collective public wealth”.

Again, the basic income is presented as a way of compensating human beings for having deprived them of what is, in essence, a public good. However, as we have seen, Standing believes there are additional reasons on behalf of a basic income. “[A] second fundamentally ethical reason for a basic income”, he contends, “is that it would enhance individual and societal freedom. In particular, it would strengthen republican freedom — the freedom from domination by figures in unaccountable positions of power. Whether you are on the political left or right, we all claim (or most of us do!) to believe in freedom. But you cannot be free unless you have the capacity to say ‘no’ to people who can oppress or exploit you. If you do not have basic income security, you do not have that capacity.”

Note that this argument is slightly different from the previous one. Granted, here the argument is also premised upon the existence of an injustice. Yet in this case the injustice does not involve the illegitimate appropriation of what is commonly owned, but rather the presence of a structure of domination under which individuals cannot really be considered autonomous or free. According to this argument, justice requires that nobody ever feel the need to be subjected to another’s arbitrary will, an aim which would only be secured by implementing a right to a basic income[vi].

Political philosopher Karl Widerquist[vii], author of many books and articles on the basic income[viii], has defended a similar view. As he puts it, we need acknowledge that:

“[I]t’s wrong for anyone to come between another person and the resources they need to survive. It’s wrong for anyone to put conditions on people’s access to the resources they need to survive. Don’t ignore this fact: poverty is the lack of access to the resources you need to live a decent life. A healthy person with the right skills and access to a healthy environment can do many things that are impossible for an impoverished person in society today. They can build their own house; fish, farm, or hunt their own food; they can work with who they want. They call work alone or with whoever they want. They don’t need a boss. They never have to follow orders.”

“Our societies create poverty by interfering with people who would like to use the resources of the Earth for themselves. We do it because better off people want to control all the world’s resources. By allowing a small group to control the world’s resources without paying compensation to the people they thereby make propertyless, we put most people in the position in which “work” becomes synonymous with “a job.” Making a living means taking orders. This is not a fact of nature. It is the outcome of society’s rules. We need to change those rules.”

“UBI rectifies that problem. It says if you’re going to hold more resources than others, you have to pay something back in compensation, so that no one ever again is forced to live in poverty and no one is ever forced into the position where they must take orders to survive.”

“UBI is not the end of the market or the end of paid labor. It is simply a market where income doesn’t start at zero, and workers are freed from the threat of destitution. With UBI, workers enter the labor market as free people. Employers have to pay enough to make it worthwhile for workers to take those jobs. UBI will give us a high-wage economy that works for everyone.”

One view in this vicinity has been defended by philosopher Elizabeth Anderson[ix], who, nonetheless, does not believe that a basic income would necessarily be the best option. Now, if it was, she says, the best way to ground it would be as follows:

“The best case for the UBI is as follows.  Automation, and changes in the nature of employment, are bringing about the disappearance of stable jobs and the rise of a precariat class whose members are unable to support themselves with steady employment.  UBI is needed to provide the security and basis for a decent life for a rising number of people in the world.  BI should be universal to ensure its political stability and to avoid the costs of means testing and intrusive investigations of people’s lives.”

Among other things, Anderson is well-known for her defense of so-called “relational egalitarianism”[x], the view that theorists of justice should focus a bit less on how resources are distributed and more on how we treat each other (the latter having obviously implications for the former). This is to say, what matters the most is not who gets what, but whether we treat each other as an equal or not – without distinctions based on social status or power asymmetries.

Before finishing this part of the article, let us look at another possible strategy to justify a basic income. Until now, the arguments we have seen have focused either i) on a compensation for an illegitimate appropriation of a common good, or ii) on the need to make sure that individuals enjoy a minimal independence, in that they ought not to be forced to choose between accepting orders or starve. But there is a third line of argument, which would stress iii) the alleged positive consequences of a basic income. This is Guy Standing’s third argument:

“The third ethical reason for wanting a basic income is that it would tend to provide basic security, which is what we call a public good. We all want basic security in our lives, and basic security is a superior public good in that if everybody in our community has basic security, it increases the value of it for everybody. Basic security has been shown to increase tolerance, resilience, altruism and mental bandwidth (or mental health and IQ).”

This is all very well, one might say. But, what happens with our Malibu surfer? Isn’t he objectionably free-riding on his fellow citizens? Isn’t it unfair that he can live a highly pleasant life while I have to break my back from 9 to 5?

In Steiner’s view, the answer is no: “[E]veryone – lazy, as well as industrious – is entitled to that compensation”. For remember that, according to him, a basic income is not just another subsidy, but the compensation that those who want to possess more than their fair share of the Earth’s natural resources have to pay to the rest of us – whether we are surfers or not.

Widerquist, in his reply, invites us to cast some doubt on the value judgments and the assumptions presupposed by the objection:

“The thing that most detracts people from UBI is the belief that prosperous people have the right and responsibility to tell less prosperous people what to do. We, the prosperous, want to think we are better than the less prosperous. We want to think our virtue—rather than a less-than-perfectly-fair system—is the reason people are less prosperous than we are. We like to think that we know what the less prosperous need to do to become prosperous—even though the vast majority of us have no idea what it is like to grow up poor and how different people’s circumstances can be.”

“Not only are these beliefs unfounded, they are not good for the middle class. Because we want to put the very poor in the position where they have to do what more prosperous people want, we put the vast majority of people in the position where they have to do what the wealthiest few want. Probably well more than 90% of people in every country have no choice but to take a job for a living. The vast majority of us—even some very prosperous people—are unfree to work for ourselves. And so, we must go to an employer—most of whom represent very wealthy corporations—get a job, and take orders all day. That is neither freedom nor fairness.”

“UBI will put the middle class in a much better bargaining position. In most countries, the middle class is not significantly better off than they were 40 years ago. Virtually, all the benefits of the last 40 years of economic growth have gone to the wealthiest 1%. UBI will help the other 99% command the better wages and the shorter working hours that they have earned.”

Another way to answer the free-riding objection involves calling into question its relevancy. Why should we care so much, the rejoinder goes, about something that is actually very unlikely? A rejoinder of this type has been endorsed by Guy Standing:

“The normal human condition is to want to work, to improve ourselves, to improve our living conditions, to improve the life prospects of our children and so on. I would feel sorry for somebody who would not work because he or she had a modest basic income. But of course this is not what happens or is likely to happen to more than a tiny number of people. We have found in our pilots that people with a basic income work more, not less, and are more productive, not less.”[xi]

Indeed, Standing believes that even if free riding was as likely as the objection assumes, the good consequences of a basic income would probably outweigh its potential defects or unfair aspects. As he puts it, a basic income “would encourage more of us to spend more time doing work that is not labour, such as caring for elderly frail relatives or children or doing community work. Most of us will go into old age wishing we had done more of that type of work and less of labour”.

Finally, one can accept the core of the objection – namely, that justice requires some degree of reciprocity – while denying that one’s contributions to society must be measured solely according to their market value. In Elizabeth Anderson’s words: “Everyone ought to contribute to society.  But not all positive contributions to society need be via paid employment on the market.  Much of women’s work taking care of children and elder dependents is not paid, although it is socially necessary.  Much nonprofit work makes a huge difference for others, but it is also not paid.  Most people want to make a positive contribution and will do so in one way or another.  Society should expand opportunities to make a contribution, but not insist that they survive a market test”.

What this view suggests is that Californian surfers needn’t be free-riding on us. Though their economic contribution to society may border on nothingness, this wouldn’t necessarily imply that they cannot contribute in other ways, nor that they are unable to provide us with valuable things. Suppose we discovered that no member of the Rolling Stones has ever paid a dollar in taxes since they became famous. Would that mean they haven’t contributed to society as much as they should? Probably. Would it also mean they haven’t contributed anything at all? That seems harder to stomach. For many people, listening to their songs, going to their concerts, or simply learning to play guitar by imitating Keith Richards or Roon Wood are in themselves valuable experiences that would not vanish of a sudden.

Are these arguments convincing? Do they answer adequately to the free-riding objection? Do they really succeed in justifying a basic income? That is something for the reader to decide.

—————-

[i] This objection was famously formulated by John Rawls in his article “The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good” (1988), Philosophy & Public Affairs 17(4): 257, n. 7. For an equally well-known response, see also Philippe van Parijs,“Why Surfers Should be Fed: The Liberal Case for an Unconditional Basic Income” (1991), Philosophy & Public Affairs 20(2): 101-131.

[ii] https://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/hillel.steiner/

[iii] See, for instance, Steiner’s article “Left Libertarianism and the Ownership of Natural Resources” (2009), Public Reason 1(1): 1-8.

[iv] https://www.guystanding.com/.

[v] For the Spanish tradition, see: https://www.marcialpons.es/libros/la-renta-basica/9788494769474/.

[vi] Let us remember that a similar argument was put forward by Matt Zwolinski in this article’s predecessor: https://www.revistalibertalia.com/single-post/2019/02/09/Voces-sobre-la-renta-basica-I-La-renta-basica-y-el-libertarismo.

[vii] https://www.qatar.georgetown.edu/profile/karl-widerquist.

[viii] See, for instance, https://www.amazon.com/Independence-Propertylessness-Basic-Income-Exploring/dp/1137274727.

[ix] https://www-personal.umich.edu/~eandersn/.

[x] The locus classicus of this discussion is “What is the Point of Equality?” (1999), Ethics  109(2): 287-337.

[xi] These results are discussed in chapter 8 of the book mentioned in note iv.

Voces sobre la renta básica (II): ¿Está justificada? [Voices on basic income (II): Is it justified?]” by Pablo Magaña, Libertalia, February 28, 2019

Carbon Tax and Dividend Endorsed by Irish Prime Minister

Carbon Tax and Dividend Endorsed by Irish Prime Minister

The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, has just endorsed a carbon tax in which all funds go to a direct cash dividend. This came in a letter to the Green Party of Ireland and has been confirmed by the press. Varadkar was responding to questions posed by Eamon Ryan during a session of the Dáil (Parliament). Ryan calls for “an increase in [the] carbon tax in which every single cent would go back to the Irish people—a dividend.” Eamon Ryan is the Green Party’s leader in the Dáil (Parliament).

Ryan considers Varadkar’s response to be an endorsement of the Green proposal. The Green Party has issued a press release. In it, they express pleasure to hear that the government likes combining a carbon tax with a cash dividend but stress that they consider alternative energy and transportation to be their highest priority in addressing climate change.

In his address to the Dáil and in an interview on the Irish Times’ “Inside Politics” podcast, Ryan calls for an increase of €20 per ton in the carbon tax, with an increase of €5 per ton each year until it reaches €90 per ton. The tax revenue would be entirely returned to the public as a dividend. (If you consult the podcast, discussion of the carbon tax and dividend begins at 20 minutes and forty seconds).

Illustration posted by Eamon Ryan on his Twitter feed.

“Every single cent that will be raised will be returned with a check in the post.” In the podcast, journalist Hugh Linehan makes it clear that this would be cash that goes directly to everyone in Ireland. Ryan points out that those with lower incomes would come out with more cash than they have to pay in increased taxes. He sees this as a way to avoid a popular revolt against a carbon tax like the one Emmanuel Macron has seen in France. He hopes that this will retire the debate over the carbon tax and achieve larger changes in energy and agriculture. “[The carbon tax and dividend] will deliver maybe five, ten, fifteen, or twenty percent of the change we need.”

The Irish Times is considered the paper of record in Ireland.

The Green Party (Camhaontas Glas) has two members of the Dáil Éireann. If they gain more seats in the next election, they are considered a likely coalition partner in a future government.

The current government is run by Fine Gael, a party that caucuses with Conservative parties in Europe but seeks to be seen as pragmatically responsive to poverty and ecological issues. Ireland has seen campaigns to prevent increased water charges and to promote public action on housing.

The Irish Times has surveyed government leaders in Ireland who seek to emphasize that carbon tax increases would be “revenue neutral”, returning all funds to citizens as a dividend. The dividend is seen as a way to meet the climate change obligations set by the European Union without harming lower-income people.

In the discussion of the carbon tax and dividend, there is no discussion from the government or the opposition parties of the carbon tax and dividend as a basic income. Green Party Leader Eamon Ryan is very careful to stress that the dividend is just a small part of a plan to make Ireland ecologically responsible.

A year ago, the Irish Times ran an opinion piece in which Ian Goldin presumes a basic income would be financial destructive and would replace existing programs. Basic Income News columns have demonstrated the method Goldin uses to make his calculation is flawed. The mistake here is to calculate gross costs instead of net costs. This means that basic income can be implemented without cuts in other social provisions. Calculations show that the poverty rate could be brought down to zero if three to four percent of a country’s GDP is dedicated to a basic income.

The idea that a carbon dividend is a basic income has not arisen in the Times or in the debate in the Dáil. The term “basic income” has not come up in the discussion of the carbon tax. This reflects a pattern found elsewhere. If a dividend is debated as an answer to poverty, it faces more scrutiny than if it is debated as a repair for the regressive effect of another policy.

Basic Income Ireland and Social Justice Ireland promote the idea that basic income has emancipatory potential. The idea that three to four percent of a country’s GDP could fund a dividend that abolishes poverty is still not being debated by any of the parties currently in the Dáil.

International: Basic Income Earth Conference 2019 announcement (update)

International: Basic Income Earth Conference 2019 announcement (update)

The structure of the Conference has been updated.

BIEN Civic Forum will be held on the 22nd of August. On this day, having been called “India Day”, two major plenary discussions will be held: one that focuses on the Indian state of Telangana and its policy initiatives related to basic income, and a second one about the more general debate at the Indian national level.

As for the Thematic Areas for Plenary Sessions, these have been improved and detailed, as follows:

  1. Ideological Perspectives and Diverse Worldviews on Basic Income

Exploring different ideological perspectives and worldviews that see an unconditional Basic Income as a desirable component of a more equitable and inclusive society

  1. Women’s Care and Unpaid Work: Is Basic Income an essential component of a new paradigm of Equity?

What implications and impact would basic income have on the lives women who constitute more than half of the global population? Can we talk of a sustainable society as long as we steal labor from women? Can an unconditional basic income remedy this structural inequity?

  1. Is Basic Income the Foundation of a Caring Economy and Society?

Is it possible to build an economy and a society that is based on values of caring, sharing and partnering rather than power, domination and control? Is an unconditional basic income an essential ingredient of such a society?

  1. The Emancipatory Potential: What forms of Freedom and what kind of Community Life does Basic Income promote?

Basic Income experiments across the world have demonstrated repeatedly that an unconditional basic income has a strong emancipatory effect of its recipients.  It loosens the constraints of existence and liberates the mind to seek a life and a community better than what we have now. What implications does this freedom and emancipation have on us and the communities that we dwell in?

  1. Basic Income, the Commons and Sovereign Wealth Funds

Our society privileges and celebrates private inheritance, but it equally turns invisible what can be called our public inheritance, and the fact that it is people who own natural resources and the state is just a custodian. This perspective if implemented can radically transform the way we view, manage and account for our natural wealth and endowments.

  1. BI Pilots: Opportunities and Limits of Evidence

In both the low-income countries and in high-income countries, there have been basic income pilot studies. While we already have the results of some of the studies, by mid-2019, we are likely to have more results. The Congress will deliberate both the results and also what they can achieve in terms of policy change

  1. Basic Income and Political Action: What does it take to transform and idea into policy?

It is one thing to have strong evidence from pilot studies and something else to get the acceptance of the policy makers and persuade them to act on it. There have been some pioneers among politicians and policy-makers across continents who have taken the plunge and implemented different versions unconditional income transfers, inspired by the spirit of the idea of basic income. Do we see them as first steps towards a full UBI? Or as distortions of the idea?

  1. Development Aid and Corporate Philanthropy: Is Basic Income a Better Paradigm and Way Forward?

In recent years, there has been a great deal of rethinking about the effectiveness of the current paradigms of giving aid either to countries or to communities. Unconditional Basic Income is increasingly emerging as a radical alternative to conventional notions of giving aid. We witness this shift as much within the UN think-tanks as that of corporate philanthropy.

As for thematic areas for concurrent sessions have been updated and completed:

  1. Ideological Perspectives on Basic Income
  2. Women’s Care and Unpaid Work: Is Basic Income the new paradigm of Equity?
  3. Basic Income in Development Aid Debate: Is there a Paradigm-shift?
  4. Religious Perspectives on Basic Income
  5. Basic Income as a Foundation of a Caring Economy and Society?
  6. What forms of Freedom and What kind of Community Life does Basic Income promote?
  7. Basic Income and Blockchain Technology: Are there Synergies?
  8. Basic Income, Poverty and Rural Livelihoods
  9. Basic Income, the Commons, and Sovereign Wealth Funds: Is Public Inheritance an emerging issue?
  10. Basic Income Pilots: Opportunities and Limits
  11. Basic Income and Political Action: What does it take to transform an Idea into Policy?
  12. Basic Income and Corporate Philanthropy: Is Basic Income a better paradigm and way forward?
  13. Basic Income and Children
  14. Basic Income and Mental Health
  15. Basic Income and Intentional Communities: What does this Experience Teach us?

There will also be a Short Films Exhibition, organized in partnership with Grundeinkommen Television (Gtv), which a is part of the Initiative Grundeinkommen, a pioneering civil society initiative established in 2008. Guidelines for submission:

  1. The length of the Film should be below 15 minutes;
  2. Your film should be made in 2018 or 2019 and be shown for the first time to a wider audience at the Congress;
  3. The film should be in English or with English subtitles;
  4. Entries should reach latest by 1st June 2019;
  5. A committee appointed by INBI will select the entries for exhibition at the Congress;
  6. Two of these selected films will be jointly rewarded INBI Short Film Prize of 500 US Dollars each.

For further information and to submit films, please contact Enno Schmidt, Chair of the Committee. ennoschmidt@me.com.

General registrations can be made here. For paper abstract submission (in MS Word document between 300 and 500 words), please email to: 19biencongress.india@gmail.com.

The Congress is supported by:

LocalHi – travel and logistics

NALSAR University of Law

SEWA Madhya Pradesh

WiseCoLab

Mustardseed Trust

Everyday.earth

OpenDemocracy

CEPS, Center for Ethics, Politics and Society

Gtv, Grundeinkommen Television

International: Free Lunch Society film finished and soon to be released

International: Free Lunch Society film finished and soon to be released

Milton Friedman once gave a lecture in which he demonstrated, in a very particular logic, that the so-called “free lunch” was a myth. The origin of the term is unknown, but in early twentieth century it was already in use. Since then it has been so frequently employed that people have been explaining and rationalizing over it up to the present. In physics, to do something – which is called “work” – is to spend energy, and so, physically speaking, there is nothing ever for “free” (free from some energy usage). However, in economics, “free”, and particularly the “free lunch” term refers to an opportunity cost that always exists, because the human imagination is infinite (at least in possibilities), and the Earth resources are limited. So, Friedman’s logic is that there will never be a “free lunch” because spending money somewhere always takes money away from something else (the opportunity cost). Others believe, however, that these “costs” and the inability to provide “free lunch” is only a reflex of a scarcity mentality that, for instance, considers that money – an imaginary construct – is finite and that its management amounts to a zero-sum game (if I win, you lose). An alternative belief is that, while acknowledging that physical resources are scarce (Earth is a finite planet), their distribution can be made available to everyone, and we could be living in a “free lunch society”, if only we shifted our mentality of scarcity to one of abundance, and generously shared those resources among every human being on Earth.

Given this introduction of the “free lunch” dilemma and what could be the transformation of our way of life into a “free lunch society”, Christian Tod, an Austrian economist and filmmaker intelligently used the term to name his most recent production: “Free lunch society”. The film is due to come out on iTunes on January 22th 2019 and on DVD on February 5th 2019. Previously, a short version of the film (50 min.) had already been presented at the Basic Income Earth Network’s (BIEN) Conference at Tampere, Finland, last August 2018.

The movie is composed as a documentary, featuring interviews, animation and film footage from all over the world, and announces itself as follows:

“What would you do if your income were taken care of? Just a few years ago, an unconditional basic income was considered a pipe dream. Today, this utopia is more imaginable than ever before. FREE LUNCH SOCIETY provides background information about this idea and searches for explanations, possibilities and experiences regarding its implementation.

Globalization, automation, Donald Trump. The middle class is falling apart, but we hear more talk about the causes than about solutions. From Alaska’s oil fields to the Canadian prairie, from Washington’s think tanks to Namibian steppes, FREE LUNCH SOCIETY takes us on a grand journey to answer one of the most crucial questions of our times.”

The film’s trailer can be watched here:

More information at:

Free Lunch Society website

Free Lunch Society Twitter account

International: Basic Income Earth Conference 2019 announcement (call for papers)

International: Basic Income Earth Conference 2019 announcement (call for papers)

The Call for Papers for the 19th Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress, in Hyderabad, India, has been released. From the 22nd through the 25th of August 2019, scholars, community organizers and artists are invited to make presentations pertaining to any of the following thematic areas. The abstracts (maximum 500 words) must reach the Local Organizing Committee by February 25th 2019. Please mail your abstracts (in MS Word document between 300 and 500 words) to: 19biencongress.india@gmail.com.

Thematic areas:

1.  Ideological Perspectives on Basic Income

2. Basic Income, Unpaid Work and Women in the Informal Economy

3. Basic Income in Development Aid Debate: Is there a Paradigm-shift?

4. Religious Perspectives on Basic Income

5. Basic Income as a Foundation of a Caring Economy and Society?

6. What forms of Freedom and What kind of Community Life does Basic Income promote?

7. Basic Income and Blockchain Technology: Are there Synergies?

8. Basic Income, Poverty and Rural Livelihoods

9. Basic Income, the Commons, and Sovereign Wealth Funds: Is Public Inheritance an emerging issue?

10. Basic Income Pilots: Opportunities and Limits

11. Basic Income and Political Action: What does it take to transform an Idea into Policy?

12. Basic Income and Corporate Philanthropy: Is Basic Income a better paradigm and way forward?

13. Basic Income and Children

14. Basic Income and Mental Health

15. Basic Income and Intentional Communities: What does this Experience Teach us?

Congress Theme: Basic Income as Freedom and Development

The theme of the Congress is ‘Basic Income as Freedom and Development’. Basic Income is an idea that is evoking curiosity and attention of people from a wide variety of national and cultural contexts, from leaders of different socio-political domains. Irrespective of the generic meaning that we attempt to give it, the groundswell that we witness today is producing its own local meanings. Each of these meanings seems to emerge from its own unique contextual starting point. The year 2019 is virtually being declared as the ‘Year of the Basic Income’, because the idea is reverberating across the world.

In this chaotic multiple renderings and interpretations, we observe that Basic Income is being seen both as Freedom and Development. These two notions are not mutually exclusive or distinctively apart, as often they are made out to be. Development ideally ought to lead to Freedom, and equally so the other way round.  In certain contexts, the immediate appeal of the idea of Basic Income seems to be ‘Development’ in terms of addressing hunger and other forms of deprivation, access to education and healthcare. In other contexts, the immediacy may be felt as Freedom from alienating jobs that most of us are forced to do for a living. In either case, what emerges is that an unconditional Basic Income is seen as having tremendous potential to liberate us from the new forms of slavery that the current phase of capitalist economy subjects us to.

BIEN Civic Forum

The Congress will be held for four days. The first day, on the 22nd August, will be India Day which is being organised under the new BIEN initiative Civic Forum. The deliberations of this day will focus on the Basic Income debate and policy initiatives and the ground level experience in India. All the delegates are encouraged to attend the India Day. The main Congress will be inaugurated on 23rd morning and will conclude at 2:45 pm on 25th August 2019. The General assembly of BIEN will be convened at 3 pm on the 25th August 2019.

Registration of Delegates Those who wish to attend the Congress, please register by filling out the online form. The Delegate Fee structure is as follows:

Type of FeeIn EuroIn US Dollars
Solidarity Fee200 and above 229
Regular Fee125143
Delegates from low-income countries5057

Delegates from low-income countries are encouraged to attend the Congress, and this fee is at a highly subsidized rate. Those who can afford to pay, please consider opting for Solidarity Fee of 200 Euros and above. Those who have institutional support, please opt for Regular Fee even if from low-income countries.

The Congress is supported by:

LocalHi – travel and logistics

NALSAR University of Law

SEWA Madhya Pradesh

WiseCoLab

Mustardseed Trust

Everyday.earth

OpenDemocracy