Audio-Interview: Basic Income and the elections in Germany
On 22. September 2013 the German citizens elected a new parliament. What does this mean for Basic Income? Olga Bobkova spoke with Joerg Drescher about this topic.
IRELAND: Green Party Endorses Basic Income
The Green Party of Ireland has released its budget plan and it includes the endorsement of a basic income. Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said, “We believe this budget should provide the first phase in the move towards a basic income system. This would do more than anything else to get people out of the social welfare traps that exist and to value the massive amount of voluntary and caring work that goes on in our society.”
For more info, see Green Party Communications September 27, 2013: https://greenparty.ie/news.html?n=263
Linda Raven, “Basic Income Grant in Namibia”
Linda with her free gifts for attending the Bank of Namibia symposium -CGE-Southern Africa
Linda Raven, an American who works in Namibia teaching visiting university students, uses this blog to discuss Karl Widerquist’s two talks on BIG in Namibia in September. Raven contrasts the two talks—one given at a symposium hosted by the central bank, the other given at a community center in a poorer area of Windhoek—and connects these contrasts to the need for BIG in Namibia.
Linda Raven, “Basic Income Grant in Namibia,” Center For Global Education-Southern Africa, Tuesday, October 1, 2013:
See also the following related stories on BI News:
Windhoek, Namibia, “Basic Income Grant: A remedy for poverty and inequality in Namibia?” 24 September 2013.
WINDHOEK, Namibia, “Social safety nets in Namibia: Assessing current programmes and future options,” September 26, 2013.
Elvis Muraranganda, “US academic wants Namibia to go BIG”
SWITZERLAND: National Referendum will be held on Basic Income
Following a successful campaign aiming at collecting more than 100,000 signatures, Switzerland will hold national referendum to vote on basic income.
On October 4, 2013 activists delivered more than the necessary 100,000 to call for the vote. The organizing committee for the initiative has been collecting signatures for months in preparation for this event. The proposal is for a substantial basic income of 2,500 francs ($2,756US) per month for every adult legal resident of Switzerland.
Along with the signatures, supporters held a large demonstration outside the Federal Palace in Bern. At the demonstration they dropped a dump truck load of 8 million five-rappen coins, one for each person living in Switzerland (see video below). Assuming the signatures are valid, the government is now obliged to schedule a vote in the near future.
For more on the initiative see:
Alice Baghdjian (author) Denis Balibouse (reporter), and Gareth Jones (editor), “Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult,” Reuters, October 4, 2013. Reposted by MSN: https://news.msn.com/world/swiss-to-vote-on-dollar2800-monthly-income-for-all-adults?stay=1
VIDEO: “Switzerland: Parliament forced to debate basic income for nationals” Ruptly TV, Oct 3, 2013: Enno Schmidt, founder of Generation Basic Income Initiative, talks through the aims of the unconditional basic income initiative.
Max Rivlin-Nadler, “Swiss to Vote on Guaranteed $2800 Monthly Income for All Adults,” Gawker, October 5, 2013.
Common Dreams staff, “Swiss Showing the World How to Take on Pay Inequality” Common Dreams, Saturday, October 5, 2013. This story includes photos and embedded video.
Ivan Botoucharov, “The Abolition of Poverty in Switzerland: A Template for Europe?” One-Europe, 04 Oct 2013
Anna Edwards, “Streets of Basel paved with gold: 15 TONS of five cent coins are dumped on city’s streets as protesters demand a basic minimum income for every Swiss household,” The Mail Online, 4 October 2013. This story includes pictures of how the coins were assembled to be dropped during the demonstration in Bern.
If you know of other stories on this issue, please leave the full info and link in the comments section. Please note what language the story is in.
Nicholas Vrousalis, "Exploitation, Vulnerability, and Social Domination"
This paper develops and defends an account of exploitation that is based on the kindred ideas of vulnerability and power, and argues against accounts of exploitation based on distributive justice. One strand of the argument consists in showing that a universal basic income will not normally be a sufficient condition for the removal of exploitation thus conceived (whether or not it is a necessary condition).
References:VROUSALIS, Nicholas (2013), ‘Exploitation, Vulnerability, and Social Domination’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 41(2), 131-157. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/papa.12013/abstract
