Karl Widerquist’s Speaking Engagements Summer-Fall 2018

Karl Widerquist’s Speaking Engagements Summer-Fall 2018

This summer and fall I’ll give at least ten talks in seven cities in six countries including the United States, Canada, France, Scotland, Finland, and Lithuania. Here’s the information I have on each talk so far:

Friday, May 18, to Sunday, May 20, 2018, keynote speaker at “New Directions in Basic Income Workshop,” the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, presenting “The Devil’s in the Caveats: A Critical Discussion of Basic Income Experiments,” Sunday1:00 – 2:30pm.

Thursday, May 24, to Sunday, May 27, 2018, participant at “North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress,” McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, presenting “The Devil’s in the Caveats: A Critical Discussion of Basic Income Experiments,” Saturday 10:30 – 12:00pm, Room 1305/07.

Wednesday, June 13, Paris, France. Guest speaker at Science Po, presenting “Freedom as the Power to Say No.” Details TBA

Thursday, June 14, to Saturday, June 16, 2018, participant at “The Economic Ethics Network Conference.” Invitation only. University of Paris, presenting “Justice as the Pursuit of Accord.”

Sunday, June 17, Talk to Basic Income Activists on “Basic Income’s Third Wave,” Paris, France, details TBA

Monday, June 18, 3 to 5pm, guest speaker presenting “Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy,” Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France

Friday, July 20, 2018, presenting “A Critical Discussion of Basic Income Experiments: The Devil’s in the Caveats,” Glasgow, Scotland

Friday, August 24 to Sunday, August 26, 2018, participant at Basic Income Earth Network Congress, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland, presenting “Microsimulation Analysis of the Cost of Basic Income in the United Kingdom” (joint presentation with Georg Arndt).

Thursday, August 30, to Saturday, September 1, 2018, participant European Network for Social Policy Analysis Conference, Institute of Sociology and Social Work, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania, presenting “Basic Income’s Third Wave.”

Thursday, October 18, to Saturday, October 20, 2018, participant at Association for Political Theory, Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges, Pennsylvania, presenting, “The Prehistory of Private Property, Part 1: The Myth of Appropriation.”

France: The Gironde region’s path to a basic income experiment

France: The Gironde region’s path to a basic income experiment

Since the beginning of 2017 that basic income has been on the political agenda in Gironde, a southwestern region in France. At that time, several Administration task groups worked together, from December 2016 up to February 2017 to reflect on the possibility of implementing a basic income policy in Gironde. Those groups included social network representatives, entrepreneurs, social workers and volunteers, and have deliberated (on the 15th of February 2017), as a “citizen jury”, that basic income should be implemented in France, and adapted locally, in this case for the Gironde region.

 

Jean-Luc Gleyze, the President of Gironde’s Council Department and of its Permanent Commission has been behind this initiative since early 2017, and a strong supporter of launching a basic income experiment in Gironde. Many press references and a video were produced since that moment, motivated by this initiative, which was praised by former French prime-minister Manuel Valls. A motion proposal “for the experimentation with basic income in Gironde” was presented to government after it had already been reflected upon a French Parliament report (with its synthesis document), undersigned by Daniel Percheron, senator and former President of (French region) Nord Pas-de-Calais Regional Council. This report recommended the experimentation with the concept for 3-year periods, in each voluntary department (region), especially targeting young (18-25 years of age) and pre-retirement adults (50-65 years of age).

 

Jean-Luc Gleyse. Credit to Alban Gilbert.

Jean-Luc Gleyse. Credit to Alban Gilbert.

At the moment, the basic income pilot project in Gironde is being planned for 2019, after President Emmanuel Macron has also shown his will to authorize and support local experiments. In a first step, this could mean co-financing in the order of 100 000 € to support feasibility studies, in preparation for actual experiments. These feasibility studies are thought to last for four to six months, and define the experimental parameters, such as population segments, duration and basic income level.

 

According to Jean-Luc Gleyse, basic income has the potential to respond positively to poverty and insecurity situations, adequately assist people as instability in the job market deepens due to automation, can provide choices in the present ever-changing lifestyle and also decrease the non-uptake of social benefits, “which reach 34% in Gironde and almost 40% nationally”.

 

Although the basic income experiment envisioned for Gironde has not been deployed yet, an online basic income simulator has been made available to citizens. This tool allows people to look at the possibilities for a basic income in France, and its consequences as far as financing is concerned.

 

More information at:

(in French)

Daniel Percheron, “Le revenue de base en France: de l’utopie à l’expérimentation [Basic Income in France: from utopia to experimentation]”, Sénat Francais, October 13th 201

Pierre Cheminade, “Vers un revenue universel en Gironde dés 2019 [Towards an universal basic income for  Gironde in 2019]”, La Tribune Bordeaux, November 27th 2017

How Alaska Can Avoid the Third Stage of the Resource Curse (from 2012)

This essay was originally published on Basic Income News in February 2012.

The resource curse, as I see it, comes in three different forms. Alaska has avoided the first two, but whether it avoids the third remains to be seen. The first-stage resource curse occurs when resource exports drive up the nation’s exchange rate and drive other industries out of business. The phrase “Dutch Disease” was coined to refer to this kind of resource curse. The second-stage resource curse occurs when the influx of cash from resource exports fosters corruption, graft, and sometimes dictatorship, so that all or most of the oil revenue is used against the people rather than for their benefit.

The third stage of the resource curse occurs when the resource windfall creates temporary prosperity for all or most of the people, only to lead to depression and economic deprivation as soon as the resource revenue disappears. A large number of factors can contribute to the third-stage resource curse. It can happen if the resource-exporting community invests in an infrastructure suited only to resource exports and is either too large or the wrong kind of infrastructure for the economy that will need to be in place when the resources are gone. Probably the most important reason for a third-stage resource curse is too much spending on immediate needs and not enough savings.

The first two forms of the resource curse will be apparent during the boom, and clearly Alaska has escaped them. But we cannot know for sure whether it has escaped the third stage until the resource is gone. How well is it doing to avoid the third-stage resource curse?

Three strategies to avoid this third kind of resource curse are savings, investment, and the hope that resource revenue will never end. Although Alaska oil production has been slowly and steadily declining for twenty years, the hope remains that natural gas, newly discovered oil reserves, or some other resource discovery will replace what is being lost. This hope will never die, but it can substitute for cautious preparation.

Alaska has made some good investment spending on schools and infrastructure, and it has managed to save some money. According to Commonwealth North, Alaska has saved $66 billion dollars: about $40 billion in the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF), $10 billion in the Constitutional Budget Reserve (CBR) and the rest in other funds and saving mechanisms. Compared to most other U.S. states, struggling with budget deficits, these saving figures are impressive, but they’re not as impressive compared to other resource exporters. After exporting similar amounts of oil, Norway has amassed a fund of $560 billion dollars.

Instead of saving the bulk of its oil revenue, Alaska has devoted almost all of it to current spending. This decision has put Alaskans at risk of the third kind of resource curse. If the state government had to draw on the interest of its savings to make up for a shortfall in oil revenues, all the funds together could not be counted on to cover even one-fourth of the state’s annual budget, and most of the interest on Alaska’s savings (after inflation-proofing and reinvestment) is already rightly dedicated to paying dividends. If and when oil exports come to an end, Alaskans will need and deserve the returns to their savings more than ever.

The Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) and Dividend are working just as intended. They are Alaska’s best savings plan. They constitute a model that other places should be following. When savings are most needed, the state shouldn’t abandon that model; it should build on it. If the fund was large enough, the interest on it could support both a substantial dividend and some or all of the state’s regular spending. The solution for Alaska is to save more money now, while oil prices are high and production is healthy and to treat more of its resources the way it treats oil. The state can’t save more for the future without making some sacrifices in the present, but I want to show you that a much larger fund is feasible.

First, let’s consider what might have been. When oil revenue started flowing into Alaska, one proposal was to save all of it and spend only the interest. Of course, we can’t change history now, but it is valuable to look back with the benefit of numbers that weren’t available looking forward. According to Gregg Erickson and Cliff Groh’s chapter in Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining Its Suitability as a Model, the state received a total of $103.5 billion in oil revenue by 2010 (adjusted for inflation). It invested $19.1 billion (18.2 percent of its oil revenue) in the APF. Most of the remaining $84.4 billion (81.8 percent) went to the general state budget. Even though the APF has paid 30 years of dividends, the principal has increased by a total of 217 percent to about $40 billion.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Alaska had saved all of its oil revenue into the APF, using half of it for regular revenue and half of it for the PFD. If this larger fund did just as well as the actual fund has over the last 35 years, the APF would now be worth about $225 billion. It would have $9 billion available this year. Suppose it used half dividends and half for spending. If all 700,000 Alaskans applied for the PFD, $4.5 billion would finance a dividend of more than $6,000 per person, or more than $24,000 for a family of four. The remaining $4.5 billion dollars would cover about 43 percent of the current state budget of $10.5 billion.

But this is not all that might have been. According to Erickson and Groh, oil produced in Alaska has generated more than $300 billion in total revenue, two-thirds of which has gone to oil companies. Although fees, royalties, and taxes on Alaska oil have recently been increased, they have historically been very low by world standards. Some nations capture as much as 80 percent of oil revenue. Even though the oil was discovered by state geologists on state land, and the oil companies were brought in only as hired help, the state has let the oil companies walk away with most of the profits. Had the state captured two-thirds of oil revenue instead of only one-third, and saved all of that, Alaska could now have an APF of $434.8 billion. It would have $17.4 billion available this year, $8.7 billion for the general budget and $8.7 billion for dividends. The share going to the state budget would cover 83 percent of state expenditure. The state would only need to raise only $1.8 billion in taxes to cover all other current spending. Assuming the population of Alaska remains unchanged at 700,000 (which is admittedly a very big assumption at such a large dividend level), every Alaskan would receive a dividend of more than $12,000 per year. Poverty would no longer exist in Alaska, and everyone, rich or poor, would have a large springboard for opportunity.

The figures could be even higher if the state had treated more resources the way it treats oil, but I think you get my point. Even if the state needed to spend some of that money as it came in on badly need projects, it has much greater capacity to save than it has taken advantage of. It could have waited to get rid of the income tax until was replaced by permanent returns to the state’s savings (rather than temporary oil revenue). It could have driven a harder bargain with the oil companies. And it could have treated more resources the way it treats oil and mining. It would now little to fear from the coming decline in the oil revenue.

We can’t change the past; where can we go from here? Alaska has increased taxes and fees on oil companies in recent years, and it needs to resist oil company pressure to reduce them. Several proposals on the table right now would increase the APF. Senator Johnny Ellis proposes moving $2 billion from the CBR to the APF, and Representative Mike Doogan proposes $10 billion. These proposals are a start, but it is not enough simply to protect some of the savings Alaska has accumulated. Alaska needs to save more — a lot more.

The state government takes in about $9 billion in oil revenue per year. Suppose the state saved $8 billion of that each year for the next 10 years and its investments do as well over those years as the APF has on average in the past. If so, by 2022, that savings alone would accumulate to more than $90 billion. The APF would grow to $50 billion, or $62 billion dollars with Rep. Doogan’s additional $10 billion were moved from the CBR. Combining that savings would make the APF balance $152 billion. It would produce $6 billion dollars of returns ready for use. If all of that revenue were devoted to the PFD, each Alaskan would receive a dividend of more than $8,000. If half of it were devoted to the PFD, it would have $3 billion dollars per year of permanent income to relieve pressure on the state budget, and it would still be able to pay dividends of more than $4,000 per person per year.

Such an ambitious short-term savings plan is probably not politically possible, but it is possible to move in that direction. Continuing to live off temporary revenue will leave the state vulnerable to the third-stage resource curse. Even $1 billion a year in additional savings would be a good start in protecting Alaska’s future.

Cryptocurrencies and Basic Income: What is SwiftDemand?

Cryptocurrencies and Basic Income: What is SwiftDemand?

Cryptocurrencies have taken over the news in recent years and I’m sure some readers have even looked at a Bitcoin Trader review, looking to see if it’s something they should invest in. But outside of trading, not many people understand the potential applications of Bitcoin and blockchain. This is why today, we’re going to be talking about Swiftdemand. SwiftDemand is a basic income blockchain experiment in which each user who is signed up daily receives a certain number of Swift tokens. The project’s white paper gives a clear understanding of the implementation of this Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) providing Universal Basic Income and how the Swift Protocol works.

The concept of SwiftDemand is to create a transactional currency that provides basic income. Hence, four types of accounts are required to ensure that the ecosystem works:

  • Citizens – The registration to become a Swift Citizen is open to anyone and is for free. However, a unique individual should only be allowed to have one account that receives the basic income and is validated by an Identity Provider.
  • Entities – There are accounts not tied to individuals and are allowed to exist for business or privacy purposes. However, these do not receive any basic income.
  • Delegated Nodes – these are responsible for maintaining full nodes, containing every single transaction that has occurred on the blockchain, and for creating new blocks for the tokens. Delegated nodes are elected by Swift Citizens, and the elections occur every 6 months.
  • Identity Providers – These ensure the validation of the Swift Citizens identity, create new citizens by generating a key pair, i.e. a public and a private key allowing to encrypt information that ensures data is protected during a transaction, and include the identity on the blockchain.

As specified by SwiftDemand creators, the goal of the Swift protocol income distribution is to provide a faire method of providing Swifts to all Swift Citizens. Swifts are distributed on a daily basis under the form of a basic income and, today, the grant is set at 100 tokens. However, it is subject to change as the amount of tokens distributed depends on the number of Swift Citizens that exist in the ecosystem.

It can be said that SwiftDemand is on the verge of becoming a cryptocurrency for basic income distribution. It depends on the number of new members registering but with the growing popularity of virtual currency, the chances are highly in favor of SwiftDemand. If you are interested in learning more about top crypto to invest in for higher profit probability, you can go through blogs and websites discussing the same.

It is also important to note that the basic income has to be claimed by the Swift Citizens with a maximum of seven unclaimed days of Swifts. For example, it means that if a Swift Citizen claims its basic incomes every four days, he will be granted 400 tokens every four days. Another way to earn Swifts is through referrals program. When any Citizen successfully introduces a new user to SwiftDemand, his/her account is granted with 500 tokens.

This attempt at implementing a universal basic income has the potential to make basic income more visible. Despite a complex protocol, the platform is free and easy to use. Even though the Swift currency does not have any value outside the Swift ecosystem, citizens have the opportunity to sell goods and services, transfer their tokens or make purchases, creating a parallel economy ruled by basic income values.

More information at:

Swift Protocol White Paper (Draft)

One Pager – SwiftDemand

Swift Demand: Swifts Token Attempt At Basic Income Project?“, Bitcoin Exchange Guide

Article reviewed by André Coelho.

Spain: Red Renta Básica offers two scholarships for the Interuniversity Postgraduate course in Analysis of Capitalism and Transformative Policies

Spain: Red Renta Básica offers two scholarships for the Interuniversity Postgraduate course in Analysis of Capitalism and Transformative Policies

The Red Renta Básica association (official section of the Basic Income Earth Network) announces the offer of two scholarships, covering part of the costs to start the Interuniversity Postgraduate course in Analysis of Capitalism and Transformative Policies (from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Universitat de Barcelona). The purpose being to enable access to suitable students who are in a difficult economic situation.

In the Interuniversity Postgraduate course in Analysis of Capitalism and Transformative Policies, the main ideas of republicanism, socialism, anarchism, environmentalism, feminism and the theories of justice and the commons will be discussed. Capitalism, jobs, trade unionism and both traditional and the most recent proposals of social policies will also be analysed. Moreover, there will also be several explanations about the most relevant political and social processes. Several members of the Red Renta Básica association will be teaching in the Postgraduate course and some of its lessons will deal with basic income.

Applications are already opened, and more information can be sought at Red Renta Básica. The deadline for submitting applications ends on June 30th, 2018. The jury in charge of selecting applicants winning the scholarships is composed by three members of the Red Renta Básica board: Julen Bollain, David Casassas and Francisco Ramos.