Due to the recent skyrocketing of basic income chatter on the internet (interest has quadrupled in the last 3 months) the prolific writer and basic income advocate Scott Santens has helpfully brought together all that is going on around basic income in one short article.
He begins by demonstrating that the increasing interest in different nations on the rise with the “the addition of Canada…This was followed soon after by Scotland’s SNP party’s decision to consider basic income in an independent Scotland, and New Zealand’s Labor Party after that. Nigeria also had some rumblings, as did Namibia. Finally, Finland completed its preliminary report for its basic income experiment plans, with the final report due in November.”
In addition to the increased interest from these countries there were also some key figures that came out in support of the idea including Yanis Varoufakis, Owen Jones, Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens, and Silicon Valley billionaire Tim Draper. There were also some key news organisations talking about a basic income including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Smithsonian magazine, The Guardian and Gawker.
Santens also mentions other related events such as the success of Google’s AlphaGo AI beating the 18-time world champion Go player Lee Sedol. An advancement that is demonstrating the real speed at which AI is developing which will inevitably lead to a reduction in jobs and an increase in the necessity for the basic income.
All these events, articles and shows of support are just part of an increasing trend in the idea of the basic income. It has been a big year so far in terms of the growth of interest in the idea, it will be interesting to see where it goes.
For more information, see the following source:
Scott Santens, “Basic Income on the March (a month in review)”, April 7th , 2016
