by Karl Widerquist | Oct 20, 2013 | News, The Indepentarian
The Occupy Strategy Group has included the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) on its top 10 list of recommended strategic objectives. The group is an email list of over 100 people who have met to craft strategy for the Occupy Movement. The group reviewed surveys, research, emails, articles, and other sources. After intense deliberations—and with the desire to be as inclusive as possible—the group chose 10 recommendations based on urgency, doability, and degree of impact.
- InterOccupy
BIG is included not once but twice on the list. Item 5 is “Replace all entitlements with a Basic Income Guarantee.” Item 10 is “Institute a carbon and other natural resource use tax based on ‘full resource use accounting’ and allocate the revenue derived from it for a Basic Income Guarantee.” The group quotes the USBIG network for a definition of BIG, “‘The Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is a government ensured guarantee that no one’s income will fall below the level necessary to meet their most basic needs for any reason.’ – The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, https://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.php”
Other items on the list include the following: Abolish Corporate Personhood. Nationalize health care. Establish a strong “commons” to protect the Earth and nourish community. Enact a sustainable large scale energy, jobs, and environmental recovery program. Stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Discontinue the practice of using federal reserve notes to back US currency and replace them with U.S. notes. Dismantle the CIA; end private military forces and prohibit private intelligence agencies. Stop the Patriot Act, NDAA and Drones.
The group invites individuals to join their ongoing conversation about current and future studies of strategic objectives by going to the following website: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/occupy-strategy
For more information see the following web page: “Occupy Strategy Group’s Top 10 Recommended Strategic Objectives,” InterOccupy, first published October 11, 2013: https://interoccupy.net/occupystrategy/2013/10/occupy-strategy-groups-top-10-recommended-strategic-objectives/
Or contact the Occupy Strategy Group at: OccupyStrategy@interoccupy.net
by Yannick Vanderborght | Oct 20, 2013 | Research
This blog shows how basic income has been dismissed both for being utopian and for being not utopian enough. The author, Peter Frase, is an editor at Jacobin and a Ph.D. student in sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Peter Frase, “Curious Utopias,” Jacobin, May 14, 2013.
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 19, 2013 | Research
Getty Images
[Craig Axford]
Arguing the current safety net is a “messed up” tangle of confusing and poorly managed programs, Rich Smith endorses the basic income guarantee (BIG) as a means of both starting over and eliminating poverty. Citing Alan Sheahen’s recent book on the subject, Basic Income Guarantee: Your Right to Economic Security, Smith agrees it’s an idea whose time has come.
Rich Smith, “A Radical Fix for the Social Safety Net: Replace It All With One BIG Idea,” Daily Finance, October 3, 2013-10-12.
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 18, 2013 | Research
Cobe Nelson, 7, and his mother, Nikki Gray, at their townhouse in Victoria. Ms. Gray is hoping the government will help low-income households struggling to make ends meet. (ARNOLD LIM FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL/ARNOLD LIM FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
[Craig Axford]
In 2010, a Canadian House of Commons committee on poverty released a report recommending a guaranteed basic income for every Canadian with disabilities. In Quebec, a task force also recommended a basic income guarantee of $12,000 for each of the province’s citizens. In Canada, home of the Dauphin, Manitoba experiment, the BIG idea has receives some support from across the political spectrum.
Erin Anderssen, “To end poverty, guarantee everyone in Canada $20,000 a year. But are you willing to trust the poor?”The Globe and Mail, November 19, 2010 (updated August 23, 2012).
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 17, 2013 | News
Robert W. Lester, a blogger who specialized in debunking cults, has accused the Equal Life Foundation (ELF) of deceptively using the term “Basic Income Guaranteed”—BIG with a “D” added at the end. For a while, ELF was using the term BIG with a D for a program that had some similarities to the Basic Income Guarantee as usually defined by groups such as the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network. Although ELF’s proposal was substantially different from most BIG proposals (for example, it was means tested and included a temporary work requirement), ELF not only used a similar term but also referred to BIEN- and USBIG-affiliated researchers. These efforts was the basis for Lester’s claim of deception. Lester also accused ELF for being a cult because it is affiliated with a questionable money-making effort called Desteni. According to Lester, ELF had hoped to fool people into believing that giving money to Desteni would support research done by BIEN-affiliated researchers.
Since the release of a video by Lester earlier this year, ELF has reduced its use of the term BIG with a D, replacing it with the term Living Income Guaranteed (LIG). People at ELF might simply have made an honest mistaking, thinking their proposal was closer to BIG than it actually is. However, one Cult-debunking website claims that ELF still uses BIG with a D occasionally, still uses the domain name basicincome.me, and still refers to some BIEN-affiliated work without nothing the difference between LIG and BIG. Some argue that ELF’s overall program, of which LIG is only a small part, is totalitarian.
Several links on the confusion between LIG and BIG are below.
VIDEO: Robert W. Lester, “Desteni Basic Income – Scam?,” YouTube. This article claims ELS is a cult deceptively using the term BIG.
The Desteni Cult, “Equal Life Foundation & Living Income Guaranteed,” October 2013. This article, on a website entirely dedicated to examining Desteni as a cult accuses ELF of misusing BIG and LIG.
Robin Ketelaars, “You can also abuse the term Basic Income for personal gain” Orthelius.info, July 4, 2013. In this article, Robin Ketelaars, of BIEN’s affiliate in the Netherlands and of the European Citizens’ Initiative for Basic Income, discusses Desteni as a cult and outlines differences between LIG and BIG.
Karsten Lieberkind, “OPINION: Living Income Guaranteed – A proposal for a Basic Income from Equal Life Foundation,” BI News, September 23, 2013. In an earlier opinion piece on BI News, Karsten Lieberkind, of BIEN’s Danish affiliate discusses the LIG as an proposal related to Basic Income, without discussing the cult accusations.
The Living Income Guaranteed. A website run by ELF/Desteni has links to many articles related to their LIG proposal.
