Revenu de base Québec (RBQ) and the Mouvement Français pour un Revenu de Base (MFRB) have teamed up to organize a series of initiatives spanning this years World Social Forum, to be held from August 9th – 14th in Montreal.
Various activities will be organized to help people learn, create and exchange views on a number of issues relating to basic income. Hoping to advance the idea during one of the largest global gatherings of civil society.
In the style of a “hackathon” this creative marathon will be held over two and a half days and bringing together creators from different backgrounds: art, activism, technology, etc., who share an interest in basic income.
Wednesday, August 10th: 13h-18h
Thursday, August 11th: 9h-18h
Friday, August 12th: 9h-17h
Location: UQAM – Pavillon Hubert-Aquin, rooms A-1824 and A-1825
Ğeconomicus game
Ğeconomicus is an economic simulation game to discover the influence of money creation on trade. Players will buy and sell economic values in order to create new ones. There will be two sessions.
Convergence Assembly: “Basic income: From realistic utopia to public policy”
The goal of this convergence meeting is to bring together activists from all backgrounds to reflect on methods and actions to be taken at all different levels when it comes to turning the ideas of a realistic utopia into public policy. The scope extends from municipal politics to international politics, through experiments, and creating synergies between the various actors of civil society.
Wednesday, August 10th: 16h-18h
UQAM – Room A 1824 (Pavillon Hubert-Aquin)
Convergence Assembly: “Income, a non-medical remedy?”
An assembly of healthcare workers, people active in helping the poor, activists of basic income and anyone interested in the link between income and health, in order to find common ground and ways to work together.
Thursday, August 11th: 16h-18h
UQAM – Room A 1824 (Pavillon Hubert-Aquin)
Debate: “The universal allowance and the maximum wealth”
Can a basic income be implemented without its corollary, maximum wealth? With the explosion of inequality and tax competition between states that threaten social achievements, market regulation through a “floor” and “ceiling” of income and individual capital seems like a promising idea in the direction of greater social and economic justice.
Thursday, August 11th: 13h-15h
UQÀM – (Pavillon Hubert-Aquin, room A-1825)
Grand Conference “Basic income: social innovation for the 21st century”
Friday, August 12th: 18h- 7:30 p.m.
Concordia University (Hall Building, room H-110)
For the Grand Conference, we will welcome the participation of stakeholders from various backgrounds who will paint a picture of the situation of basic income around the world:
Karl Widerquist
Associate professor at SFS-Qatar Georgetown University (Washington DC). He holds a PhD in Economics from the City University of New York and a doctorate in political theory from Oxford University. He participated in six books. Many relate to basic income, including his latest: Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). He is a founder and editor of the journal Basic Income Studies. His articles have also appeared in several magazines including: Political Studies; The Eastern Economic Journal; Politics and Society; and Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He is co-chair of Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), the leading global network of research and action on the basis of income.
Marcus Brancaglione
He describes himself as a “libertarian activist of basic income and direct democracy.” He is the president of ReCivitas, coordinating a basic income guarantee project in the city of Quatinga Velho, in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is the creator of the digital platform for direct democracy Governe-se.com and alternative IP site RobinRight.org. He has published articles and books and is regularly invited to give lectures on these subjects.
Rutger Bregman
Historian and opinion shaper, he is the author of several books, he is best known as one of the editors of the permanent media platform online De Correspondent, created in 2013, when his book De geschiedenis van de vooruitgang was named by the Dutch to be the brightest non-fiction book of the year. In 2015, he co-wrote with Jesse Frederik the philosophical essay Waarom vuilnismannen meer dan verdien Bankiers. The English translation of his latest book, Utopia for Realists, gave him a far reaching international reputation.
Nicole Teke
Coordinator of Public Relations for MFRB and secretary of the European network UBIE, she will also participate in the Main Conference as the host and a speaker to present the progress of basic income in Europe.
Pre-registration to the activities on basis income come from all continents, it will be a truly global forum on the subject.
Armando F. Sanchez, CEO, broadcaster and writer hosted this 35-minute webcast “Jobless Future: Fact or Fiction?”, from Los Angeles, transmitted live in April 2016. Armando’s guests were Basic Income News editors André Coelho, Dario Figueria and Kate McFarland, invited to this webcast, which is a part of the series entitled “The Future of Today”. In this short and informal conversation, the central debated issues were permanent unemployment, industrial robots, AI in white collar professions and basic income initiatives around the world.
The Government of Ontario is moving to undertake a basic income pilot project. In recent weeks it has been receiving expert information and advice, for example from Jurgen De Wispelaere (formerly on the Board of Basic Income Canada Network and now a member of its new Advisory Council). On May 26th De Wispelaere presented to the government’s Deputy Ministers Social Policy Committee.
Two of the most knowledgeable experts concerning the Manitoba Mincome experiment of the 1970s are its former executive director, Dr. Ron Hikel, and University of Manitoba economist and researcher Dr. Evelyn Forget. At the recent North American Basic Income Congress in Winnipeg, Dr. Hikel spoke about Mincome and lessons learned that could be applied to the Ontario pilot. I also recommend watching Dr. Forget’s appearance on June 13th on Steve Paikin’s program, The Agenda: the 17 minute video reflects Evelyn’s sweeping knowledge of the history and results of Mincome.
Another encouraging sign of the Ontario government’s seriousness behind giving basic income a try was its appointment last month of the Hon. Hugh Segal as the pilot’s special advisor. A trailblazer for basic income in Canada over the past 40 years, Mr. Segal will now “deliver a discussion paper to the province by the fall to help inform the design and implementation of the pilot….The discussion paper will include advice about potential criteria for selecting target populations and/or locations, delivery models and advice about how the province could evaluate the results of the basic income pilot” (source).
Ontario’s Premier, the Hon. Kathleen Wynne, has publicly recognized that Ontario needs to investigate basic income as an alternative to welfare. Among welfare’s many problems: its profound stigmatization of “clients” of the system. And on that, I recommend David Calnitsky’s fine academic paper exploring the non-stigmatizing effects of Manitoba Mincome.
by Rob Rainer
Basic Income Advocate and Member, Advisory Council of Basic Income Canada Network
The Republican Party convention is over, and I’m feeling hopeful. Trump’s triumph may be a big step forward in our campaign to enact a basic income in the United States.
With Trump’s speech, and the convention’s overall tone, the party has completed its transition and come out of the closet. It’s now the Repugnant Party.
Our best hope is a landslide defeat, leaving Trump and the Repugnant Party in the dust. That will also leave Republicans with the task of rebuilding, seeking to reunite their Pro-Trump, Never-Trump, and Stuck-with-Trump factions. They’ll need a platform that’s positive, uplifting, and optimistic, something like a new version of Reagan’s “morning in America” — and they’ll have that, if the reborn Republican Party endorses a version of basic income.
Republicans might call it a “negative income tax,” quoting Milton Friedman, who strongly endorsed it in several books and many articles. Perhaps they’ll favor “Citizen Dividends,” to underscore the fact that the basic income is for citizens only, not immigrants. During their convention, they loudly denounced Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party as the establishment status quo, and the cause of everything that’s wrong in America today. Republicans can reinforce those arguments by touting basic income as a way to cut taxes, end corporate welfare, and achieve many of their other goals and values.
Democrats will be pressing hard to bring rapid progress, and President Hillary Clinton will be eager to prove that she is much more than a third term for Barack Obama. She can do that by talking about basic income, even if she only floats it as an idea, stopping short of full-on support. They might like UBI, universal or unconditional basic income, using the “U” to emphasize liberal values. If Clinton doesn’t act, Bernie Sanders and his supporters may became our champions, running with this issue and taking over the Democratic Party.
We Americans will have a basic income within the next ten years, I predict, possibly within two to three years.
Steven Shafarman is a co-founder of Basic Income Action, a life member of BIEN, and on the coordinating committee of USBIG. His forthcoming book is The Basic Income Imperative: for peace, justice, liberty, and personal dignity. (If you are or know a literary agent or publisher, please contact him through www.basicincomeaction.org.)
It was a remarkable moment in 1969 when President Nixon offered universal basic income (UBI) legislation that was passed twice by the US House of Representatives, but failed to garner enough votes in a Democratic controlled Senate on both occasions. It was defeated despite the intellectual clout of 1200 bi-partisan economists, including Milton Friedman who designed the “guaranteed income” bill, and John Kenneth Galbraith who publicly supported the bill. The irony: a public welfare program proposed by Republicans was stalled by Democrats, who viewed the suggested $1,600 ($10,000 in today’s dollars) per year for each recipient as insufficient. [1] While Europe maintained a broad network of intellectuals, publications, and conferences promoting the idea, UBI policy has been largely absent from American political discourse ever since, other than among a committed following on Reddit, some forward thinking academics, and US affiliates of BIEN.
Andrew L. Stern President Emeritus SEIU Columbia University Richman Center Ronald O. Perelman Senior Fellow
Over the past year, though, growing support from an array of thought leaders suggests a rising tide for UBI in the US. President Obama, in an interview with Bloomberg News this June, discussed the need to “build ourselves a runway” to ease the transition into an increasingly automated labor force. [2] Bernie Sanders has, on multiple occasions, expressed his support of UBI, stating in a 2015 interview that he is “absolutely sympathetic to that approach.” [3] Recently, UBI has received full-throated support from leading thinkers like Berkeley’s Robert Reich, Columbia’s Joseph Stiglitz, INET President Rob Johnson, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, former Zipcar CEO Robin Chase, Judith Shulevitz – writing in the New York Times, and Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton. This June past, my book Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream was released, and has helped to expand the discussion of UBI to progressives, unions, and mainstream media outlets like the FT, CNBC, NPR, Fortune, and the New York Times.
Matthew Kessler-Cleary
The interest in UBI is gaining prominence and commentary in mainstream think tanks across the political spectrum, which is an anomaly in our modern, divided political dynamic. From the progressive to libertarian poles, at places like Roosevelt Institute, INET, OSF, CATO, and AEI, basic income is gaining support as a solution to the economic crises of our present, and future. In the fall, the CATO Institute, whose Michael Tanner is a libertarian thought leader and key discussant in my book, is planning to host a forum in Washington, DC including Charles Murray and myself.
Global developments around UBI should also help to bolster UBI’s place in American political discourse. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has incorporated basic income into the Liberal Party’s platform, [4] and Canada is preparing a basic income experiment for residents of the Ontario province.[5] Following the city of Utrecht’s decision, several other Dutch cities will test basic income policies in the coming years. [6] As these trials play out, hopefully with positive results or lessons that allow for improvement, the American public and their elected officials will have solid evidence upon which an American policy, perhaps city or state based experiments, can be built. Already, a small-scale basic income experiment will be carried out by Y-Combinator in Oakland, where unconditional income will be provided to roughly 100 Oakland residents for 6-12 months. [7]
In my book, I state that the American response to the tsunami of job upheaval will look more like the response to the Vietnam, rather than the Iraq War. In the Vietnam era a draft placed the children of middle-class families at risk, as they are again, as present and future technologically motivated job loss does not spare college graduates or white-collar occupations.
During the Vietnam era, the selective service draft mobilized parents from every walk of life to be vocal anti-war activists. Once their own children could be drafted to fight and die, many parents began questioning whether President Johnson had any justification for sending troops there. The draft also mobilized young people: Vietnam did not fit into their college and career plans, nor did the idea of killing people or getting killed in a far-off land.
Job loss has for too long been considered a condition of a more blue-collar, uneducated, and low-skill labor force. Not only is this prejudicial and inaccurate, but it is no longer supported by employment statistics. Unemployment and underemployment among recent college graduates is still significantly higher than pre-Recession levels, indicating that in the New Economy, white-collar jobs are susceptible to job erosion much as blue-collar jobs have been for the past several decades. [8] So while it was easy for legislators, prominent thinkers, and middle and upper class individuals to discuss job loss from the comfort of their personal professional security, as economists still do, they and their children are increasingly affected by the shifting labor paradigm. Job loss and erosion in the white-collar economy has the potential to mobilize a far more diverse and broad political movement to search for solutions to the economic and employment challenges of the future.
While there is a myriad of ideas on how to combat the restructuring of our emerging socio-economic paradigm, none have as of yet enjoyed the broad political support that UBI does. None provide such a simple means of addressing very complex problems: ending poverty; offering stability during any economic transition; or providing for universal assistance as technology creates a tsunami of labor market disruption. In the United States a new conversation has started on UBI, and it is our responsibility to ensure that the momentum does not wane. The time is now, and the solution is simple: make Universal Basic Income an American reality.
