by Claire Bott | Sep 14, 2017 | News
In a recent video released by the BBC, anthropologist Dr Jason Hickel argues for a form of planned de-growth which includes the provision of basic income.
Hickel is employed by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), which for several years has been ranked second in the world for social sciences by the QS World University Rankings. In the video, he argues that modern society is harmfully addicted to economic growth, and that this is destroying the planet. He also states “Introducing a basic income and a shorter working week would allow us to get rid of unnecessary jobs and redistribute labour.”
The video is part of the BBC’s “Viewsnight” series, which is released on Facebook and YouTube with the intention of stimulating debate.
Jason Hickel, “Our addiction to economic growth is killing us”, 10th August 2017
by Claire Bott | Sep 5, 2017 | News
Common Weal, a Scottish think tank and activist organisation, has released a policy paper suggesting that universal basic income (UBI) could be the best option for an independent Scotland.
Dr Craig Dalzell, the Head of Research for Common Weal, argues that “the anxiety and stress caused by the pressure to conform to the constantly shifting rules around claiming welfare can itself have deleterious effects on the health and well-being of citizens,” and goes on to conclude that UBI “provides a powerful means of enacting the kind of wealth redistribution which promotes the kind of fairer, more equitable society which has been shown to best fulfil the needs of the greatest number of citizens.”
Dr Dalzell states that, as an independent Scotland would have to organise its own welfare system in any case, this would provide an opportunity to move to a different and more equitable means of providing welfare. He also argues that, by using UBI to replace current means-tested benefits, it would be possible to introduce basic income in Scotland without a significant level of increased taxation.
The question of whether Scotland will become independent from Britain is one that has come up a number of times in recent years, most notably in the Scottish referendum which took place in 2014. While this ended in a narrow victory for those who wanted to remain with Britain, the current plans for Britain’s exit from the EU have meant that the issue has arisen again, as the vast majority of Scots voted to stay in the EU. While there are no current plans for immediate Scottish independence, there are many who argue that it must take place eventually, particularly if Britain goes ahead with EU withdrawal.
More information at:
Craig Dalzell, “Social Security For All Of Us”, August 2017
by Claire Bott | Aug 25, 2017 | News
Successful entrepreneur Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of online photo-sharing application Flickr and creator of the popular business communications system Slack, has spoken out on Twitter in favour of universal basic income.
On 4 August 2017, Butterfield stated that “giving people even a very small safety net would unlock a huge amount of entrepreneurialism”. He was responding to Austen Allred, the founder of crowdsourced news website Grasswire, who had tweeted “If you look at giant tech cos [companies], almost all had founders that were financially supported by parents while they started,” and “That’s the universal basic income argument that’s compelling to me. How many more billion dollar cos would be started w tiny bit of help.”
Butterfield’s tweet was reported by a number of news sources, including CNBC, right-wing site Breitbart, and Business Insider.
Butterfield has received a significant number of awards and accolades for his business skills, including being named as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2006. Slack, which he set up in 2013, became the fastest-growing start-up in history, reaching a valuation of two billion dollars early in 2015. His comments come shortly after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also publicly supported the concept of UBI, stating in his Harvard commencement address in late May:- “We should explore ideas like universal basic income, to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.”
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
by Claire Bott | Aug 19, 2017 | News
The Futurism blog, which describes itself as reporting on “the breakthrough technologies and scientific discoveries that will shape humanity’s future”, has published a post on basic income as a response to increasing automation of the workplace.
Although universal basic income (UBI) is neither a technology nor a scientific discovery, Futurism’s FAQ page lists UBI as one of the topics that it is “particularly interested in.”
The article sets out the nature of basic income, explores arguments for and against it, lists a number of recent and upcoming experiments, and provides quotes from a number of supporters of UBI throughout history. It is written by Luke Kingma, Futurism’s Head of Creative and a former copywriter for companies such as Hasbro, Toyota and Warner Brothers.
Futurism has appeared in a list of top futurist blogs on Quora, a popular question-and-answer site. It states that it has approximately 200,000 subscribers to its regular newsletter.
More information at:
Luke Kingma, “Universal Basic Income: The Answer to Automation?,” Futurism, 22th April 2016
by Claire Bott | Aug 18, 2017 | News
Richard Branson. Credit to: Wikipedia.
Multi-billionaire Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, recently became the latest wealthy entrepreneur to publicly support universal basic income (UBI), following similar public statements by Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook and Stewart Butterfield, the co-founder of Flickr.
Writing on his personal blog on the Virgin website, Branson said: “In the modern world, everybody should have the opportunity to work and to thrive. Most countries can afford to make sure that everybody has their basic needs covered. One idea that could help make this a reality is a universal basic income. This concept should be further explored to see how it can work practically.”
He went on to discuss the UBI experiments currently taking place in Finland, and stated that: “A key point is that the money will be paid even if the people find work. The initiative aims to reduce unemployment and poverty while cutting red tape, allowing people to pursue the dignity and purpose of work without the fear of losing their benefits by taking a low-paid job.”
Branson also indicated that he had discussed this with The Elders, a group he helped to create which aims to be the “village elders” of the new “global village”. The Elders include members such as Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moon. He reported: “What I took away from the talks was the sense of self-esteem that universal basic income could provide to people.”
More information at:
Richard Branson, “Experimenting with Universal Basic Income”, Richard Branson’s blog, 14th August 2017
Edited by Genevieve Shanahan
