by BIEN | Mar 25, 2017 | News
From March 4 to May 7, 2017, a novel program will begin under the auspices of ‘Beyond Growth’ (“Oltre La Crescita”), which is a school of training open to all circa 2011, entitled ‘Need to work or work without? Automation, future of work, the basic income.’ Beyond Growth is an event intended to be a debate and a reflection.
There will be examination of a variety of issues, including the “relationship between automation and work, the effects of neoliberal policies and wage labor, and rethinking the current paradigm,” among other topics. Program here.
These topics will be debated and reflected upon in their cultural, economic, ethical, social, and technological dimensions. The ‘Beyond Growth’ conference will include four events for broad-based debate, followed by a concluding event offering results and a final discussion.
Further details can be found here and here (in Italian).
Image credit to Basic Income Network Italia
by BIEN | Mar 9, 2017 | News
The issue of the basic income, its pros and cons and the feasibility of its implementation have occupied space in media outlets in recent years, mainly due to the visibility it gained after the referendum in Switzerland and the experiment started this year by the Finnish government. However, this discussion has not reached all corners of the planet. Or at least not until recently.
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On February 1st of this year, the Argentine conservative-leaning newspaper La Nación published an opinion piece entitled “An universal income that compensates for poverty and unemployment”. The author of the article, Eduardo Levy Yeyati, is an economist, writer, and civil engineer, with a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Yeyati introduces the concept of universal income and describes the historical dimensions of this idea, as its discussion has spanned the centuries, from Thomas More, to Martin Luther King, to its contemporary promoters such as the British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the French presidential candidate Benoît Hamon.
However, the text mainly discusses three fundamental complications surrounding the idea of basic income. First, despite having multiple detractors and defenders, the basic income is still an idea in search of a design. According to Yeyati, there is a rather classic proposal such as an unconditional basic income (the model advocated by the most ardent supporters of the initiative), a conservative proposal that would be represented by the negative income tax defended by Milton Friedman and a compromise third-way between these more extreme positions that seeks to guarantee a basic salary floor for those who already receive some type of income.
Second, the author identifies two moral dilemmas that must be addressed and answered by any definition and operationalization of the basic income. First, should it be paid only to those who have a registered job, in the style of an addendum and prize to effort, or should it be paid to everybody, even to those who have no intention of working? Second, should the person who has a lower income receive more money, should everybody receive the same amount or should the person who works the most receive more? For many advocates of this initiative, a basic income basically implies answering these dilemmas in the most “generous” way: it should be paid to everybody and everyone should receive the same. In this sense, it seems that Yeyati uses the term more broadly than a lot of speakers in other countries, not compromising to any of the possibilities.
Finally, the author ventures one last idea in which he discusses the feasibility of thinking and discussing the implementation of a basic income in Argentina today. And despite some pessimism on his behalf and considering that it would take several years of political maturation to reach the appropriate level of discussion, Yeyati does believe that it is possible to move towards the realization of a basic income today through the design and implementation of a Finnish-style pilot in Argentina. Basically, the author argues that this would not be very costly, that the twin challenges of poverty and unemployment will dominate the development agenda in the coming years and that, in order to move forward, this debate needs information that we do not currently have. In this sense, despite the fact that this issue it not yet in the agenda in the Latin American and Argentine context, at least there are people who are encouraged to discuss its implications and there are media outlets, however conservative they may be, willing to publish them.
Featured Image CC Mike Ramsey (via flickr, Scott Santens)
by BIEN | Mar 6, 2017 | News
Sarah Gardner, a reporter for Marketplace, published three articles in December 2016 on the topic of universal basic income (UBI): How to support yourself after the robot revolution, Finland to test a basic income for the unemployed, and On the Canadian prairie, a basic income experiment.
In How to support yourself after the robot revolution, Gardner describes the prediction of Lawrence Summers, Former Undersecretary of International Affairs, that by the middle of the 21st century, one third of men between the ages of 25 and 54 will be out of work. The reason is automation.
Sam Altman, Gardner says, also sees automation, including software automation, as a factor for future unemployment. Altman and others are raising millions of dollars for a basic income experiment in Oakland, California.
In Finland to test a basic income for the unemployed, Gardner talks about the “buzz” around UBI in Silicon Valley, the Netherlands, and Finland. Finland, specifically, is facing a hard time with high youth unemployment. — general unemployment is at 8%, while young adults have a 20% unemployment rate. Olli Kangas, the director of government and community relations for KELA (the government agency responsible for public benefits), said, “In the present system they are a little bit afraid of accepting job offers, say, for two months or three months, because they think that, okay, how much would I benefit, in terms of money?”
In On the Canadian prairie, a basic income experiment, Gardner notes, as in the other articles, that automation and temp work are modern issues. Previously, however, there were the Mincome experiments in Manitoba, which trialled a payment similar to UBI.
While these trials were conducted in several parts of Manitoba, “the most interesting pilot was in Dauphin, a small farming town more than three hours northwest of Winnipeg,” Gardner says. Dauphin was a tight-knit Ukrainian community, and the Canadian government gave money, through the program, to ensure families “would never fall below a basic amount.”
Read the full articles here:
Sarah Gardner, “How to support yourself after the robot revolution“, Marketplace, December 7, 2016.
Sarah Gardner, “Finland to test a basic income for the unemployed“, Marketplace, December 13, 2016.
Sarah Gardner, “On the Canadian prairie, a basic income experiment“, Marketplace, December 20, 2016.
by BIEN | Mar 5, 2017 | News
Credit to France24
France24 hosted a 45-minute debate, moderated by François Picard, on the topic of automation and the labour market. In the context of the Brexit vote and the Donald Trump election, the programme claims, some have “blamed immigrants [for] stealing jobs and undercutting wages.” An alternative explanation is that automation is the major factor, and whether or not automation will “destroy the labour market” was the main subject of the debate.
The discussion covered the Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiment in Finland, and some debaters saw the merits of a UBI. When asked by the moderator why this idea of a UBI is “taking off”, some saw the idea as liberal and good, but requiring proper implementation to be successful.
The debate is available in two parts, the first
here and the second, with a focus on UBI from 7:22, here.
Read more here:
François Picard et al., “Rage against the machines: Is automation destroying the labour market? (part 2)“, France24, December 27th, 2016.
by BIEN | Feb 20, 2017 | News
(Image Credit to University of Toronto)
You are a family doctor, with unique insights into the Canadian health care system. Your new book, Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians, poses, as per the title, six big ideas to improve the Canadian health care system. What inspired you to write this book?
Each chapter in the book was named after a patient in my practice who I was inspired by and this is a book about their stories. I think that when people pick up a copy of Better Now, they will see themselves in the stories, or a friend or a family member. Many of us have had similar experiences in the doctor’s office, or we know of someone who has. As a family doctor, I see the challenges my patients face because of problems in the system. These problems often feel outside the control of both individual patients and providers. But as someone who studies health system issues, I know that a lot of those problems can be fixed, and importantly we can fix them in ways that build on the value of fairness that is so important to Canadians. I felt a book was a good way to give voice to these issues and to try to get people like my patients and your readers more engaged in pushing for improvements.
Big idea 1 is the return to relationships. What does this mean for Canadian health care?
We know that around 85% of Canadians have a family doctor, so that’s a great place to start. But having a good relationship with your doctor comes next. This relationship should be one where there is open communication, so that we as doctors have the chance to really understand what patients need when they come in to see us. In my book, I say that the notion of being seen by “someone who knows you” is central to primary care. The best place to integrate all your health needs is a place where, like the bar in Cheers, everybody knows your name. So, for example, if you come in to see me for a cold, I would help you with that, but while you were there, we might also sit and talk about other concerns you may be having, discuss your family history with a disease, talk about screening and what we need to better manage your health. This relationship can also help to guard against overtreatment or over-doctoring. For example, in my book, I talk about my patient Abida and how we’ve worked to reduce the number of medications she takes and the specialists she meets with over the years, to her benefit. We’ve also tried to limit the number of times she goes in to the emergency room by making sure that she sees me more often, vs. other healthcare providers who many not know about as much about her health history.
Big idea 2 is a nation with a drug problem. What is our drug problem in Canada? What is the remedy or the solution for it?
Drugs have always been an issue, whether legal or illegal. For example, lots of families have seen their loved ones experience horrible side effects because of prescription drugs that have been through rigorous trials. You can visit website to find out more about how they seek compensation for this. Anway, a bigger issue with drugs is that some people just can’t afford them. We know that one in five Canadian households report that someone in that household is not taking their medicine out of concerns about costs. We need a public drug plan that covers all Canadians and does not have high co-payments so that patients can afford to take their life-saving medications. A strong national pharmacare program would solve our access problems and save Canadians billions of dollars. If done right, a pharmacare program could also help to reduce overmedication and inappropriate prescribing – problems that affect too many Canadians, especially seniors. Canadians believe in the principle that access to health care should be based on need, not ability to pay. That principle needs to be extended beyond doctors and hospitals to include universal access to a publicly-funded formulary of essential medicines.
Big idea 5 is a basic income for basic health. That is important to BIEN. It is, specifically, a basic income guarantee. What is the specific definition of a basic income guarantee in big idea 5? How would this impact the Canadian health care system?
A basic income guarantee means that if your income falls below a certain level, you would be topped up to a level sufficient to meet your basic needs. It’s a departure from our current social assistance program in two ways:
- A basic income would ensure that everyone in Canada has income above the “poverty line.”
- It would work through the tax system and be easier to administer with the only eligibility requirement being a person’s income. Who you live with or whether you were searching for work or attending a training program wouldn’t be factored into whether you are eligible to receive support.
Medicine isn’t the only thing that makes us healthy. If you can’t afford good food, your rent or safe housing, it’s harder to be healthy, so we need a basic income for basic health. By ensuring that everyone has access to a basic income, we can improve health and decrease costs in the health care system by reducing or eliminating poverty. For example, in Manitoba in the 1970s, a small income top-up for people in poverty reduced hospitalizations by 8.5%. If we could find a drug as effective as that, we would put it in the water supply!
About the Author
Danielle Martin is a family physician in Toronto and Vice President, Medical Affairs and Health System Solutions at Women’s College Hospital. Her book, Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians, was released by Penguin Random House in January 2017. For more information on her current book tour watch here and follow @docdanielle on Twitter.
