by Karl Widerquist | Oct 27, 2014 | Research
Book Cover
Citizen’s income is one of the main topics of political moment today. Many people think that the state should take responsibility for the poor and unemployed, and that citizen’s income can be the right tool for this purpose. But the citizen’s income, properly understood, is a monetary transfer to all citizens, to give to those who are able to work and choose not to do it, and even those who are rich and already has money in abundance. Citizen’s income means to give money to everybody without conditions. But it is possible to defend the idea of an income given to everybody, riches and poors, workaholics and lazybones? The ebook, which it is possible to read in a lunch break, seeks to clarify the essential terms of the issue, it presents arguments in support, it answers some of the most frequent criticisms, giving order in a debate in which citizen’s income is confused with other measures, from guaranteed income to the minimum wage. A text that, in an era of general restyling of systems of social protection, help the readers to get sense of the proposal beyond simplifications and shouted slogans”.
Language: Italian
Corrado Del Bò and Emanuele Murra, Per un Reddito di Cittadinanza: Perché dare soldi a Homer Simpson e ad altri fannulloni [For Citizens Basic Income: Why give money to Homer Simpson and other slackers], GoWare, eBook, 4,99€
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 25, 2014 | News
Manuel Rubey, photo by Manfred Werner
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Franz Adrian Wenzl, photo by Manfred Werner
During or around the Seventh Basic Income week, several prominent Austrians endorsed Basic Income. Singer, actor and cabaret artist Manuel Rubey, who played the leading role in the movie “Falco – Verdammt, wir leben noch!” (2007), unconditionally supports the idea of introducing basic income.
Franz Adrian Wenzl, band member of KREISKY, says that unconditional basic income is one of his favorite utopian ideas, which will hopefully also be put in practice. Kurt Palm, author of “Bad F-cking” (a bizarre thriller, which is set in an Austrian village that attracts tourists due to its fancy name), demands the introduction of unconditional basic income. Writer Franzobel was already involved in the Basic Income Conference in Vienna in 2005. He also supported our European Citizen Initiative “Unconditional Basic Income”. He has one word for the Seventh Basic Income Week on Facebook: “Like!”
Kurt Palm, photo by Manfred Werner
More about these endorsements can be found online in German at: https://www.pro-grundeinkommen.at/?p=2033
Franzobel, photo by Harald Krichel
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 10, 2014 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
Unconditional Basic Income is a movement. Five or ten years ago the idea was little discussed outside of a few limited—mostly academic—circles. Now activists are campaigning for it all over the world. The mainstream media is writing about it. It is becoming a part of the political debate.
When I agreed to write the USBIG NewsFlash in 1999, Basic Income was so far out of the popular mindset, I didn’t think there would be enough news to fill a newsletter every two months, but even in those pre-Great-Recession days, there was always something to report. The expansion of worldwide attention to basic income has been great for the movement, but it’s created a difficult task for BI News. There is so much Basic Income-related news that Basic Income News (the website) and its accompanying NewsFlashes (email newsletters) will have to expand along with the movement. With this issue, both the BIEN and the USBIG NewsFlashes will become monthly (instead of bi-monthly) publications.
Basic Income News—once mostly written by one or two people—is now written by a growing team of volunteer reporters. Toby Rane and Jenna van Draanen have recently completed training to join Josh Martin, Craig Axford, F. H. Pitts, and me as members of the group of rotating volunteers who keep up with all the BIG news—as best we can—making sure Basic Income News is updated daily. Four others (Pablo E. Yanes Rizo, Andrea Fumagalli, Jason Burke Murphy, and Toru Yamamori) are currently in the training process. Yanes and Fumagalli are far enough in the process that they have already contributed pieces to the website and the accompanying NewsFlashes.
We have found that a rotating team of about five or six people can keep up with most of the English-language news leads that come up. Usually a different reporter takes full responsibility for the news section of the website each week. We now have a functioning, rotating English-language team, and we hope to have similar teams in Spanish, French, German, and other languages. We hope also to expand our features section as well to include regular blogs, interviews, and opinion pieces.
Since the retirement of two past editors, Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, both of whom had great multi-lingual skills, Basic Income News has fallen behind in our coverage of news from non-English-language sources. We hope that to expand the team in ways that will also allow us to cover many more languages. We have currently have a few volunteers with knowledge of Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Japanese. We could certainly use more volunteers with skills in those and other languages (including English). If you would like to volunteer for Basic Income News, please send me an email: Karl@Widerquist.com.
-Karl Widerquist, Mojo Coffee House, October 7; revised the Rook Café, Freret Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 8, 2014
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 8, 2014 | News
Ian Schlakman -Maryland Green Party
Ian Schlakman, Green Party candidate for Congress in Maryland’s Second Congressional District, has made the Basic Income Guarantee a major issue in his campaign. The Green Party has included Basic Income on its platform since 2004, but most candidates have not made it such a central issue as Schlakman has.
He uses the term Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) and describes it as “Social Security for all,” arguing that the young need as much security for the old and that we need to “Think BIG.” He also supports internet freedom, a $15-per-hour minimum wage, and universal health care.
Schlakman discusses BIG:
More information about his candidacy is available:
Ian Schlakman
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 7, 2014 | News, The Indepentarian
Eduardo Suplicy -Wikipedia
Eduardo Suplicy, long-term advocate of Unconditional Basic Income, was defeated in his bid for reelection to the Brazilian Senate. Suplicy is a former co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and an honorary co-President of BIEN. Of any high-level elected official in the world, Suplicy is possibly the strongest advocate of Basic Income. He was one of the architects of the 2005 law that created Brazil’s Bosla Familia program, and it was at his insistence that the law included language making the Bosla Familia the first step in a transition to a full-fledge Basic Income program.
According to the Globe, José Serra, of Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB—the Brazilian Social Democracy Party) defeat Eduardo Suplicy of Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT – the Brazilian Labor Party) by a vote of 58.72% to 32.28% of the vote, with Gilberto Kassab in third place with 5.95%. These results after 89.75% of the votes counted.
Eduardo Suplicy (Photo: Kleber Tomaz/G1 via Globo.com)
Suplicy was Senator for 24 years, and he remains personally popular. Some analysts say his defeat has more to do with recent decline in support for the PT than for his personal job approval. Suplicy has not yet announced what he plans to do next, but he is very likely to continue his advocacy of Basic Income from another platform.
For more information on the election see:
The Globe, “José Serra (PSDB) defeat Eduardo Suplicy (PT) and is elected senator in Sao Paulo.” The Globe, October 5, 2014.
