by Karl Widerquist | May 20, 2011 | Research
Alaska Dispatch
This opinion piece revives the decades-old practice of “red-bating. It red-bates Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend and all of its supporters, including Sarah Palin as “socialist.” The author would prefer that the oil companies operating in Alaska not be changed any fee at all for removing the oil from Alaska. By implication, anyone who thinks oil corporations should pay at least some fee for the benefit of the people of the state is a socialist.
https://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/all-hail-comrade-palin-hero-proletariat
The article is reprint on the following blog: Syrin’s Blog, Wasilla, Alaska
https://aksyrin.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/all-hail-comrade-palin/
by Yannick Vanderborght | May 19, 2011 | News
The Swiss initiative Initiative Grundeinkommen is focusing on preparatory operations for a referendum to launch a nationwide Basic Income. In Switzerland, federal popular initiatives are not subject to judicial review as they amend the federal constitution. Promoters of popular initiatives have 18 months to collect at least 100,000 signatures. If they succeed, the initiative is put before the Swiss citizenry in a national vote. Daniel Häni, Enno Schmidt together with the newly-established foundation Stiftung Kulturimpuls and Agentur[mit]Grundeinkommen hope that a congress on Basic Income will be the next milestone in bringing Basic Income to the mind of a bedrock of people. The congress was held in Zurich on March 19th, 2011. Further information:
https://www.bedingungslos.ch/
https://www.initiative-grundeinkommen.ch/
https://www.agenturmitgrundeinkommen.ch/
https://www.stiftung-kulturimpuls.ch/
Nenad Stojanovic, a Zurich-based Political scientist and member of the Socialist party, also published a short note on the Swiss basic income debate in the Socialist monthly Pages de gauche, issue 96, February 2011. See https://www.pagesdegauche.ch/
by Yannick Vanderborght | May 19, 2011 | News
USBIG reports that the American Political Science Association (APSA) has created a “Task Force on Democracy, Economic Security, and Social Justice in a Volatile World.” This task force is charged to rethink some of the familiar assumptions about democracy, economic security, and social justice in light of recent social and economic trends. In particular, the Task Force will assess recent policy innovations in three broad, related areas: Basic Income, participatory budgeting and planning, and rights-based models of welfare and development. According to the task force’s statement of purpose, Basic Income will fit into the study in the following way. “The task force will focus on the democracy-enhancing elements of the program and assess its potential as a tool for stimulating economic and democratic development [including as a model for foreign aid]. It will also address concerns about cost and implementation.” On completion, the task force will produce a 20-30 page summary report (written for a broad audience,) op-ed pieces, press releases, other public outreach and an interactive web-site featuring in-depth research, working papers, discussion forums, wikis, relevant links, and other resources that will allow for meaningful public input from around the world. Thus the initial findings of the Task Force will mark the beginning rather than the end of its deliberations.
For more information about the task force, go to: https://www.apsanet.org/content_74160.cfm
For questions & comments about the task force, contact: Robert Hauck <rhauck@apsanet.org>, APSA deputy director and liaison to this task force.
by Karl Widerquist | May 19, 2011 | Research
Project Syndicate: a World of Ideas
This opinion piece is written by a member of Britain’s House of Lords and a Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University. In the article, Skidelsky endorses a universal basic income as a solution to the lesser-demand for labor in the post-Great-Recession world.
It’s online at:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky41/English
It is also available as audio at:
https://hw.libsyn.com/p/7/f/8/7f83f0a682806bdc/skidelsky41.mp3?sid=cc90994cb1b3746c3c06a9e33537a98e&l_sid=23419&l_eid=&l_mid=2580263
by Yannick Vanderborght | May 19, 2011 | News
Palgrave-MacMillan Publishers has announced a new book series on the Basic Income Guarantee. They expect to publish two or three books per year starting within the next year or so. Books will be nonfiction monographs and edited volumes. They are currently accepting proposals from authors and editors with ideas for books for the series. The series announcement is repeated in full below:
Basic Income Guarantee Series
Series Editors: Karl Widerquist, Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University-Qatar James Bryan, Professor of Economics at Manhattanville College, Michael A. Lewis, Associate Professor at Hunter College School of Social Work
Basic income is one of the most innovative, powerful, straightforward, and controversial proposals for addressing poverty and growing inequalities. A Basic Income Guarantee is designed to be an unconditional, government-ensured guarantee that all citizens will have enough income to meet their basic needs. The concept of basic, or guaranteed, income is a form of social provision and this series examines the arguments for and against it from an interdisciplinary perspective with special focus on the economic and social factors. There will be contributions from individuals in the fields of economics, philosophy, sociology, history, and social policy studies as well as from activists and practitioners in the field. By systematically connecting abstract philosophical debates over competing principles of basic income guarantee to the empirical analysis of concrete policy proposals, this series contributes to the fields of economics, politics, social policy, and philosophy and establishes a theoretical framework for interdisciplinary research.
The series will publish both high-quality monographs and edited collections. It will bring together international and national scholars and activists to provide a comparative look at the main efforts to date to pass unconditional basic income guarantee legislation across regions of the globe and will identify commonalities and differences across countries, drawing lessons for advancing social policies in general and BIG policies in particular. The series editors additionally are open to considering proposals that address other policy approaches to poverty and income inequality that relate to the Basic Income debate.
Karl Widerquist is a Visiting Associate Professor in philosophy at Georgetown University-Qatar. He is co-editor of The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee and co-author of Economics for Social Workers. He has published more than a dozen scholarly articles in the fields of economics, political theory, and philosophy. He is also an editor of the journal, Basic Income Studies. James Bryan is Associate Professor of Economics at Manhattanville College specializing in Microeconomic analysis of public policy, public finance, and economic education. Michael A. Lewis is Associate Professor at Hunter College School of Social Work with specific expertise in Quantitative Methods, Social Policy, and Civic Engagement. He is co-editor of The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee and co-author of Economics for Social Workers.
We strongly encourage scholars, practitioners, and activists to send us proposals for books to be added to the series. Contact the series editors for the series proposal guidelines.
Karl Widerquist
karl@widerquits.com
Laurie Harting
Executive Editor Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10010 (USA) Laurie.Harting@palgrave-usa.com
Distributor of Berg Publishers, I.B.Tauris, Manchester University Press, Pluto Press and Zed Books
