BIEN | Testimonies
Testimonies
To celebrate BIEN’s thirtieth anniversary, a number of interviews were carried out with Executive Committee members and a variety of other people involved in the global Basic Income debate. The Executive Committee is planning to repeat the exercise at some point in the future.
An Interview with Tim Dunlop (Part Two)
Interview by Scott Jacobsen *Conducted via email with minor edits.* The economy has shifted into high gear for knowledge and ability, the currently labeled Knowledge Economy concomitant with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. How has this affected inequality based on...
An Interview with Tim Dunlop (Part One)
Interview by Scott Jacobsen *Conducted via email with minor edits.* You write on the future of work. What is the future of work? Where will humans find meaningful and fulfilling lives with or without work? The future of work will see continued...
BIEN Stories: Louise Haagh
Louise Haagh (BIEN Co-Chair) I first came across basic income in summer of 2001 when instructed about it by Workers’ Party Senator Eduardo Suplicy, at his home in São Paulo. I was doing research on workers’ rights, at the same time undertaking a survey of economic...
Looking Back on 30 Years of BIEN: Stories from Life Members
At the end of 2016, the year in which BIEN turned 30, Life Members recount their personal journeys with BIEN and the basic income movement.
BIEN Stories: Karl Widerquist
(photo credit: Enno Schmidt) Karl Widerquist (Co-Chair) When I first attended a BIEN Congress in 1998, I'd already been a Basic Income supporter for 18 years, but it was exhilarating for me just to find out that there were enough dedicated Basic Income...
BIEN Stories: Jenna van Draanen
Jenna van Draanen (News Editor and Outreach Coordinator) Working with BIEN has been a wonderful experience for me. Not only are there extremely dedicated people here, but they are also talented and kind. With BIEN, I get to talk to people all over the world who are...
BIEN Stories: André Coelho
André Coelho (News Editor-in-Chief) For me to contribute to BIEN, particularly to Basic Income News, was kind of a natural progression in my personal activism, after the Zeitgeist Movement. I naturally accepted the basic income concept, after defending a resource...
BIEN Stories: Jan Otto Andersson
Jan Otto Andersson (Åbo Akademi University) Several texts were momentous at the start of my BI journey, even though they did not always fit a strict definition of an unconditional basic income. The first text was a pamphlet written by my acquaintance Gunnar...
BIEN Stories: Julio Linares
Julio Linares - "My Short Journey in BIEN" I first heard about BIEN at a conference in Switzerland about the future of work and basic income. I went to that conference because of a hunch. I had finished reading Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation and was in the...
BIEN Stories: Steven Shafarman
"Toward Basic Income and a Peaceful Democratic Revolution" By Steven Shafarman My drive to enact a basic income – and most of my ideas about how to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize allies – arose from exploring the way young children learn to walk and talk. I...
BIEN Stories: Christopher Balfour
Christopher Balfour (BIEN Life Member) In the early 1960s I worked as a Youth Employment Officer in the English Midlands. We were then an education-based service concerned with guidance and placement but also responsible for trying to assist those without work and...
BIEN Stories: Malcolm Torry
Malcolm Torry - "My Basic Income Story" Almost exactly forty years ago, I left university, got married, and started work in Brixton, in South London, administering means-tested benefits. I spent two years on the public counter: and it didn’t take long to understand...
