by Karl Widerquist | Sep 5, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This blog was originally published at the USBIG NewsFlash in January 2001. It’s a good example of the way Basic Income was treated by major media outlets before the recent wave of support took off.
On Saturday, December 9th, just after the ruling Liberal Party won a
decisive victory in the Canadian Parliamentary election, the basic income
guarantee suddenly and surprisingly appeared on the front pages of
Canadian Newspapers. Under a banner headline, the National Post (one of
the most conservative national dailies in Canada) reported that Prime
Minister "Jean Chretien assembled a top-level committee in hopes of
creating a cradle-to-grave guaranteed annual income program that he hopes
will be his political legacy. This news was very exciting to basic income
supporters because the Liberal Party has the strength in Parliament to
pass any such proposal even over the objections of all the other major
parties. Several in the Post articles over three days claimed that
high-level sources had confirmed that the government was looking into the
idea, but one could easily miss the disclaimer in the first article
saying, "The prime minister's office refused comment and refused to
confirm the existence of the special committee."
Although readers of the USBIG newsletter last April will remember that
Anthony Westell, of the Globe and Mail called for the Liberals to take up
Basic Income as an issue for the coming campaign, the Liberals ignored the
call and the issue was not discussed before the election. It was
surprising that the issue would then be brought up shortly after the
afterword, but a guaranteed income would help the Liberals fulfill
promises made during the campaign to use half of Canada's federal budget
surplus to restore funding to social programs and to attack child poverty.
Chretien was quoted as saying, "The fact is that our prosperity is not
shared by all. … As a Liberal, I believe that the government has the
responsibility to promote social justice." Such as speech would be
shocking in the United States, because he used the phrase, "As a Liberal."
Over the following four days, the National Post followed with more
front-page articles including one with the headline, "Foes slam
'Socialistic Experiment.'" All of the other major parties managed to say
something negative about either the idea or the timing of the action. The
Conservative Party leader criticized both the timing and the idea although
his party seriously looked into an income guarantee in the 1970s. A
prominent member of the liberal NDP slammed the timing of the proposal
saying, "It makes a farce of our democratic system." Then, surprisingly,
he went on to say that the NDP supports it in principle and he bragged
that the NDP had pushed the Liberals to endorse the idea back in the
1960s. Similarly, a member the Quebec separatist party criticized the
timing and said that income support is a matter of provincial
jurisdiction, but did say that the idea was worth further study. The
harshest criticism came from Stockwell Day, the leader of Canada's
Alliance Party, which is known for being
more-conservative-than-the-Conservative Party. He accused the Liberals of
misleading the Canadians during the election and said that Chretien should
name a mountain after himself if he wants to leave a lasting legacy rather
than spend billions to fund a cradle-to-grave welfare program. Such harsh
criticism is surprising coming from the leader of the Alliance party
because the Reform Party (as Mr. Day's party was known before it
restructured two years ago) endorsed the guaranteed income in its election
platform in 1993 as a way to streamline Canada's convoluted
income-security programs.
On December 13th, the basic income guarantee disappeared from Canadian
front pages as quickly it had appeared, when the Globe and Mail reported
in a small article on page 12 that Chretien denied any part in suggesting
the idea. Chretien said, "I don't know where that idea comes from. I
haven't said a word about it." While he was at it, he also denied any
desire to do anything to ensure that he has a lasting political legacy.
Apparently what we witnessed was a trial balloon that was quickly shot
down. Still, there is apparently a high level committee looking into how
to fulfill the Liberals promise to use half of the budget surplus to fight
poverty. It is possible that the committee will consider the guaranteed
income as a way of achieving that goal. Chretien is not expected to say
how he will attack poverty until his Throne Speech next month. If the
committee endorses the idea, conceivably it could still happen. Given that
all five of the major parties have either endorsed or seriously considered
some form of income guarantee at one time or another, there is some hope
that a broad coalition in favor of the idea could develop: Although they
will differ about the amount of income redistribution that should be done,
the various Canadian politicians could conceivably agree that an income
guarantee is the best way to redistribute income. But, such an agreement
does not seem likely. Nor does it seem likely that Chretien will make such
a proposal or make the needed effort to create such a coalition.
If the basic income guarantee is to succeed in Canada--or anywhere
else--it will need strong political leadership that will do more than
float a trial balloon. Leaders will need to convince the public of the
need for an income guarantee and build up a constituency in favor of it.
As is, the trial balloon was only an exciting piece of good news to the
tiny minority of people in Canada who already knew of and supported the
idea. Most likely, the Liberals did not make the guaranteed income an
issue in the campaign because they did not believe it was a political
winner and they didn't believe enough in the idea to risk their nearly
certain electoral victory to promote it. However, if the leadership in
Canada's Liberal Party decides to make such a bold move, the enactment of
a basic income guarantee could be closer than most supporters would have
thought possible.
-Karl Widerquist, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, 2001
Jean Chretien
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 29, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This essay was originally published on Basic Income News in March 2014.
Basic Income is suddenly the subject of much more discussion around the world. Political movements are growing. The media, social networks, and blogs have suddenly devoted more attention to basic income. Basic Income News (BI News) suddenly has much more news to report. The website is running two-to-five stories a day, and its accompanying NewsFlashes have more news than they can fit. This is a good time to talk about the goals of BI News and the accompanying NewsFlashes.
BIEN
BI News has three main goals. Most importantly, it keeps readers informed about all the news directly relevant to the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) around the word. Secondly, it keeps readers informed about events organized about BIG and publications written about BIG. Thirdly, it includes features providing a mouthpiece for members of BIEN and its affiliates to write blogs, opinion pieces, and book reviews about BIG.
The first goal of BI News is important because activists, researchers, and anyone interested in BIG need a place where they can find out what is happening around the world that is relevant to BIG. No one other website is doing it, and no others are likely to start. You can’t just search Google News for “basic income” and expect to find all the news about BIG. There are more than a dozen, perhaps dozens, of terms for BIG in English alone. There are policies and programs that are forms of BIG or that share some of the characteristics of BIG but that are not discussed in terms of BIG: the Alaska Dividend, some cash transfers, the Earned Income Tax Credit, dividends from casino revenue on U.S. Indian Reservations, the Bolsa Familia in Brazil, GiveDirectly in Uganda, and many, many more. There are also policies that are described in the words “basic income” or words very similar to terms for BIG but aren’t BIG or aren’t very closely related to it. The news section of BI News shows readers what proposals, policies, and social activism around the world related to BIG and explains that connection.
USBIG
This effort requires consistent monitoring of mainstream news, social media, blogs, and other sources of information. It involves original reporting to make the necessary connections to BIG as well as meta-reporting—reporting about reporting. Articles in this section of BI News are written from a neutral perspective, because the goal of this section is not to persuade but to inform. There are many arguments going around about BIG, but only one news source dedicated to informing people about BIG. This service is valuable to activists, researchers, and anyone interested in BIG.
This section reports only on issues directly relating to BIG. It doesn’t report on other social policies or on the economic and social conditions that create a need for BIG unless there is some direct connection to BIG in the news on these issues. The reason is that news indirectly relating to BIG outnumbers the news about BIG by orders of magnitude. If BI News reported on all these other things, its focus on BIG would be lost.
Stories from the news section of BI News can be found at this link: https://binews.org/category/latest-news/.
CIT (UK)
The second goal of BI News is to keep people informed about events being held and literature being written about BIG around the world. The goal of publicizing events is obvious. It helps our members, our affiliates, other networks, and hosting institutions to publicize events related to BIG. The goal of keeping up with the literature is important because of the dispersion and the diversity of the BIG literature today. So many different terms for BIG are used that there simply is no easy way to find it on a search. As far as we know, no other group is keeping a comprehensive bibliography of the literature on BIG as BI News attempts to do.
BI News posts summaries of the more important publications and attempts to post at least the publication information and a link to all publications, even the less important ones. We do this because, even if one individual publication is not terribly importantly by itself, the dialogue as a whole is important. If you want to know what is being said about BIG at a given time or what has been said over a given period, BI News has collected and organized that information. We’re doing a fairly good job of that for English-language publications right now, and hopefully, as we expand we will do it for more and more languages.
Articles in these sections are also written from a neutral perspective, because as with the goal of reporting the news, the goal of reporting on events and publications is also to inform, not to persuade. The literature and events in this section also must directly relate to BIG, again because reporting on wider literature would sacrifice our focus on BIG.
The BI literature posts on BI News are here: https://binews.org/category/bi-literature/.
Events posts are here: https://binews.org/category/events/. Links are here: https://binews.org/category/links/.
BIN Italia
Persuasion is the third goal of BI News. The features section, which includes blogs, opinion pieces, book reviews, and occasional podcasts and interviews, performs this function. This section provides an outlet for BIEN members to write their opinions about BIG, sometimes directed at other supporters, sometimes directed at a wider audience. Arguing for the cause of BIG has obvious value, but there are several reasons why this goal ranks third. The readership of BI News is overwhelmingly made up of people who already support BIG. They’re already convinced; their primary need is for information. Another reason this is a lesser important goal is that there are many places around the world where people can publish features having to do with BIG, but only BI News is pursuing the first two goals. However, making the case for BIG is valuable. BI News provides a place for BIEN members and supporters to become a part of that dialogue. Right now we’re running an average of about one feature per week, but we are hoping to increase that substantially, perhaps eventually to one feature per day.
A list of and links to the latest features can be found on the homepage of BI News: https://binews.org/. Blogs can be found by going to the Features dropdown list and selecting blogs.
To keep up with these goals, BI News maintains a website, updated at least once a day, and a regular newsletter, collecting the recent stories from the website. As we expand our volunteer base, we will expand what we do.
-Karl Widerquist, Doha, Qatar, March 2014
Volunteers needed for BI News
If you’d like to help, we need volunteers. Primarily we need people with one of two skills. We need writers to help us report the news and we need people with website-design skills to help us improve how we present it. Among our writers, we need people with language skills. The languages we need most are English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian, but if news is happening in any language, we need writers to report on it. If you would like to help spread the word about BIG, please contact the editor of BI News, Karl Widerquist <Karl@widerquist.com>.
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 15, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
Apparently I was one of the few people from Cass County, Michigan living in New York City at the time of 9/11 attacks of 2001. Partly because I couldn’t get into my office for a few weeks, I volunteered for the clean-up efforts. Newspapers from my hometown and two nearby towns took the opportunity to do a story with a local tie-in. Images of it are below.
“Widerquist Volunteers in New York” by John Eby, the Dowagiac Daily News, October 11, 2001
“Cass Grad’s New View of New York,” by John Eby, The Cassopolis Vigilant, October 19, 2011
“Widerquist Volunteers in New York” by John Eby, the Niles Daily Star, October 11, 2001
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 8, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
Do we need a worldwide Coalition of Basic Income Activist Networks to do what BIEN can’t? BIEN is chartered as an “educational charity.” It can educate people about BI and spread news about BI, but it cannot lead or coordinate activism on BI. There are many national and regional BI activist organizations, but no worldwide organization to help coordinate their activities. Do you need a sister organization of BIEN to do this kind of coordination or is activism best conducted at the national and regional level? If you’d like to discuss this issue, please leave a comment and contact information below, contact me at Karl@widerquist.com, or join the Facebook discussion group. If you know anyone else who would like to discuss this issue, please invite them to join this discussion.
