by Andre Coelho | Nov 9, 2016 | News
University of the Basque Country (in Wikipedia)
The XVI Basic Income Symposium at the Faculty of Economics and Business will take place on November 18-19. This event will be held at the Sarriko-Aula Magna, at this Faculty in Bilbao.
Presentations and debates will start at 9 am on Friday (the 18th) and close at 2 pm on Saturday (the19th). The event will start with a debate about the future of employment, job guarantees and basic income. Later in the afternoon on first day, the film “In the same boat” will be shown in the presence of its director, Rudy Gnutti. Basic Income experiments will be discussed at the end of the first day. On the next day, the annual meeting of BIEN’s affiliate Red Renta Básica will take place during the morning, followed by a discussion of the social, economic and political viability of basic income.
Longtime basic income activists, researchers and politicians will speak and debate at this conference, such as Lluis Torrens, Daniel Raventós, Pablo Yanes and Juan Carlos Monedero.
More information at:
In Spanish
Red Renta Básica, “XVI Simposio de la Renta Básica”, 14th September 2016
In Spanish and Catalan
Program of the XVI Simposio de la Renta Básica
by Andre Coelho | Nov 3, 2016 | News
Dedicating its XVIII Autumn Conference to Thomas Morus’s 500 year anniversary of his work Utopia, the Political Science group from the University of Minho (through its center of humanistic studies) has organized an event to be held in the 17th and 18th of November.
This Conference, titled “A utopia de um rendimento básico incondicional” (“The utopia of a universal basic income”), aims at fueling the reflection upon basic income as a political and social project for a globalized world in constant technological change. Three keynote speakers have been invited: Martim Avillez Figueiredo, Jorge Silva and Raquel Varela.
More information at:
University of Minho XVIII Autumn Conference webpage
by Andre Coelho | Oct 28, 2016 | News
Romanian Orthodox Cathedral in Timisoara
The last thematic meeting of the CO-ACTE project was held in Timisoara, Romania, on the 16th and 17th of September. This international meeting, titled “Democratic governance of common goods for the well-being of all today and in the future”, was attended by Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Executive Committee member André Coelho, as well as individuals from several other organizations, such as the Community Land Trust, Giuseppe Mastruzzo, Mairie de Saillans Municipality and the School of Peace. Members of local Romanian organizations were also present.
Like previous CO-ACTE meetings, the event was organized by the Together association, in collaboration with a local partner based in Timisoara, a beautiful historical city at the southeast edge of the Banat plain.
This meeting was an important step towards the final presentation of the project, which has been reported on before, to be held in Braine-l’Alleud (Belgium), November 2-4. At this event, project participants will present CO-ACTE’s 10-year development results to political actors, including top officials at the European Commission. The CO-ACTE project focuses on societal developments and public policies for the well-being of all, using the results from a large popular consultation effort (an application of a technique called the SPIRAL method).
Basic income is one of the policies defended within the CO-ACTE project, where it is considered central to achieving a balanced state of economic activity which aligns with the well-being of all, both now and for future generations. This relates perfectly with the aforementioned meeting on democratic governance, since it has long been realized that there is no real freedom, hence the shared management of common goods and direct forms of democracy, without economic security.
More information at:
CO-ACTE website
by Andre Coelho | Oct 17, 2016 | News
(photo: credit to Mundiventos Club)
The call for papers for the next Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress has been released.
This 17th BIEN Congress will be held in Lisboa, Portugal, at the Portuguese National Parliament, from the 25th through the 27th of September, 2017. It will take place as part of the Portuguese Basic Income Week, which lasts from the 25th through the 30th of September. The Basic Income Week, which has been scheduled in parallel to the Congress as a way to widen the event’s impact, will include concerts, film-screenings, performances, campaigns and other special features.
The Congress will have the general theme “Implementing a Basic Income”, and nine keynote speakers havebeen invited, including Evelyn L. Forget, Louise Haagh, Philippe van Parijs, Jurgen De Wispelaere and Yanis Varoufakis, Sara Bizarro, Y Combinator’s Elizabeth Rhodes, Give Directly’s Joe Houston, and Guy Standing.
All those interested in submitting papers or proposals for either the Congress or the Basic Income Week (or both) can do so by submitting a proposal (an abstract of up to 300 words) to the organizing committee at bien2017.callforpapers@gmail.com. Proposals must be submitted no later than March 31st, 2017.
The final programs for the Congress and Basic Income Week will be released by April 20th, 2017.
More information at:
BIEN website (also in Portuguese)
by Andre Coelho | Oct 16, 2016 | News
Daniel Raventós
This TEDx talk, at Sant Cugat, Barcelona, features Daniel Raventós, president of the Spanish Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) affiliate and professor at the Economics and Enterprise department of the Barcelona University.
In this short presentation, Raventós defines basic income in a general sense, and addresses the usual arguments against the implementation of this idea. He recalls the predictions that John Maynard Keynes made for society in the 1930’s, and he talks about how Keynes failed to predict the actual workload people endure nowadays despite all the productivity gains, technological developments and work flexibility. In his concluding remarks, he cites Arthur C. Clarke‘s famous words about great ideas: that they all go through three phases, the first being “It’s Madness!”, the second “It’s OK, but we have other priorities at the moment” and the third “I’ve been defending that idea for many years now.” Raventós thinks we’re somewhere between the second and third phases regarding basic income.
More information at:
In Spanish:
Youtube, “Renta Básica Incondicional: una propuesta racional y justa [Basic Income: a rational and just proposition]”, TEDx SantCugat, 20th September 2016
