by Kate McFarland | May 7, 2017 | News
Author Jeffery J. Smith has published a science fiction novel, Perfect Timing, which explores the potential of a universal basic income to improve the lot of humanity.
Smith has been an advocate of basic income for over 20 years, promoting a Georgist-inspired approach to a citizen’s dividend. Explaining the influence of his views on his novel, he states:
As a lifelong activist, I’ve concluded that our most fundamental and wide-reaching solution is to get an extra income to everyone from society’s surplus. Doing that would topple hierarchy and all its attendant ills, it’d liberate us from conformist labor, it’d leave very little for people to haggle over in the political arena, and — coming from “rents” — it’d automatically spur us to do more with less. We could live our lives as the human beings we were meant to be.
In his words, Perfect Timing “conveys the tone of Hitchhiker’s Guide, offers insights like Stranger in a Strange Land, and presents an upbeat alternative, unlike Brave New World.”
The book’s publisher, Rogue Phoenix, provides the following summary (with a longer excerpt available on its website):
Accidentally transported to the future, caterer Crik escapes house-arrest with Tepper, his possible distant descendant. While pursued by volunteer vigilante Voltak, goofball Crik explores Geotopia—where buildings grow, people incorporate animal powers, smart phones know it all, and vehicles defy gravity—seeking clues. If he can discover, understand, and articulate the future’s public policy that works right for everybody, he can prove he was their founder, the lone agent of change who put society on its path toward universal prosperity and harmony with nature. If he fails to convince the Futurite Authorities, they wouldn’t return their unexpected visitor to the exact second he left—something their law requires—to the moment when a hail of gunfire was bearing down on the luckless caterer and college dropout…would they?
The novel was published on April 18, 2017, and is currently available at Amazon.com.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
by Kate McFarland | May 6, 2017 | News
California State Senators have introduced a bill that would establish a carbon “cap-and-trade” system and distribute a large portion of the revenues as a dividend to all state residents, that is, as a type of basic income.
California State Senator Bob Wieckowski and Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León (both members of the Democratic Party) have introduced the proposed legislation SB 775, which would establish a floor and ceiling on the price of carbon in the state. The policy would go into effect in 2020, with the price floor and ceiling increasing incrementally each year.
Among US states, California has been ambitious in its efforts to reduce carbon emissions, passing a law in 2006 that established a goal of reducing emissions to 1990-levels by 2020. This has been easier to keep track of in more recent times as many businesses are now required to report their carbon emissions, and many do so using carbon emissions software. So far, however, the state has primarily relied on regulation of emissions levels as a way to meet its targets. Legislators like Wieckowski and de León believe that pricing regulations will be more effective at reaching longer-term goals in limiting carbon emissions.
One specific feature of SB 775, however, is relevant to those with an interest in basic income: the establishment of the California Climate Dividend Program, which would distribute a portion of the program’s revenue in the form of quarterly cash payments, distributed in equal amount to all residents of California on an individual basis. The dividend is, then, a form of basic income, although the amount of the dividend is not yet known and presumably would remain far below a livable income.
If SB 775 becomes law, the California Climate Dividend Program is likely receive the majority of the new state revenue (around 90 percent according to MIT Technology Review, and between 50 to 90 percent according to Vox). Other revenue would be directed towards public infrastructure, disadvantaged communities, and research and development in clean energy. It is possible now to get cheaper energy suppliers for renewable energy solutions from companies like Pulse Power Texas. States are starting to fund these kinds of sustainable energy projects but if people are able to afford it, then they should try to get things like wind energy or solar panels onto their house.
The legislation would also establish a Climate Dividend Access Board, which would work with state tax officials to develop a mechanism for delivering the quarterly dividends to residents, and to “maximize the ease with which residents of the state may enroll in the program.”
Environmental advocates often endorse per capita dividends in conjunction with taxes or fees on carbon as a way to offset the cost to consumers of higher energy prices. In the words of SB 775, the dividend is introduced “for the public purpose of mitigating the costs of transitioning to a low-carbon economy.” Carbon dividends have gained cross-party support in the United States, with a group of prominent Republicans issuing a proposal for a carbon tax and dividend earlier in the year. Correspondingly, many American basic income supporters see a carbon dividend as a practically and politically feasible way to introduce a small basic income in the country.
To become law, SB 775 needs to pass both houses of California’s legislature with a two-thirds majority.
References
“SB-775 California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006: market-based compliance mechanisms,” California Legislative Information, May 1, 2017.
James Temple, “California Proposes Ambitious New Cap-and-Trade Program,” MIT Technology Review, May 1, 2017.
David Roberts, “California is about to revolutionize climate policy … again,” Vox, May 3, 2017.
Reviewed by Russell Ingram
Photo: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Kim Seng
by Kate McFarland | May 5, 2017 | News
Two University of Oxford researchers, Max Harris and Alexander E. Kentikelenis, have written a short piece on some of the possible social effects of basic income for The Conversation. Specifically, they consider the question of how a basic income would affect “people’s sense of community and togetherness” — describing ways in which the policy could increase either solidarity or erode it.
On the one hand, a basic income could decrease social connection for certain individuals, if they use the financial freedom and security to pursue individual projects rather than collective ones, while also losing social ties in the workplace. On the other hand, the freedom provided by basic income could allow individuals to become more socially connected — permitting more time away from jobs that might isolate them from family, friends, and potential collaborators on shared projects.
In the end, Harris and Kentikelenis contend, “Ultimately, whether we think basic income will be solidarity-eroding or solidarity-enhancing depends on how deeply embedded we think individualism is in society.”
Kentikelenis is a research fellow in politics and sociology at Oxford, whose interests include political economy, organization studies, public health, and international development.
Harris is an Examination Fellow in Law at Oxford’s All Souls College. He has coauthored (with Victoria University postgraduate student Sebastiaan Bierema) a discussion paper on the possibility of a universal basic income in New Zealand for the New Zealand Labour Party’s Future of Work Commission. His new book The New Zealand Project, published by Bridget Williams Books in April 2017, considers UBI among other policy solutions for the nation.
Read the article here
Max Harris and Alexander E. Kentikelenis, “How a basic income could help build community in an age of individualism,” The Conversation, April 5, 2017.
Reviewed by Cameron McLeod
Photo: “Solitude” CC BY-ND 2.0 rich_f28
by Kate McFarland | May 4, 2017 | News
Malcolm Torry (Director of the UK BIEN affiliate Citizen’s Income Trust, Co-Secretary of BIEN, and Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics) has published a recent defense of basic income in the online periodical Social Europe.
Focusing on the example of the UK, Torry argues that a basic income can be afforded by adjusting current systems of taxation and benefits. On the scheme that Torry recommends, means-tested benefits would remain in place, but the amount received by each household or individual would be recalculated to account for the amount of basic income. Citing work by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, Torry maintains that a 3% increase in income tax is sufficient to fund a basic income for the UK that would reduce poverty and inequality at zero net cost, while also allowing many households to move off means-tested programs.
In the past few months, Social Europe has seen a volley of publications on the topic of basic income, including a defense by BIEN Co-Chair Louise Haagh, and varied critical perspectives from Kemal Dervis, Anke Hassel, Francine Mestrum, and Social Europe Editor-in-Chief Henning Meyer.
Full Article:
Malcolm Torry, “Citizen’s Income: Both Feasible And Useful“, Social Europe, April 10, 2017.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo CC BY-SA 2.0 Ken Teegardin
by Kate McFarland | May 1, 2017 | Opinion
I have some ambivalence about the attempt to rebrand May Day as “Basic Income Day”. I have some ambivalence also, however, about the “modernization” of May Day as a time to demand higher wages for workers but give no attention to another historically important demand: the demand for reduced working hours. It was the latter, after all, that was at issue in the fateful demonstrations at Haymarket Square in May 1886.
That specific demand, of course, was the eight-hour workday. Over 130 years ago, it was widely accepted that society would not cease to function if workers clocked only eight hours per day. In light of such astronomical increases in productivity over the past 130 years, why, pray tell, is the eight-hour workday still considered standard? Why have demands for reduced work hours been all but absent from the US labor movement for over 80 years? Why has technological advancement not translated to increased leisure? Where is the 15-hour week prophesied by John Maynard Keynes? Where is this “fight for 15” campaign? It seems that a 40-hour work week has become all we can envision; we have lost our imagination.
I used to support a renewal of the demand for reduced work hours–and I still do. But I now recognize that it is insufficient, and insufficiently radical. Given the increasing prevalence of alternative job structures–short-term contract work, freelancing, self-employment–a mandatory reduction in work hours would have little or no effect on a large portion of the economy. And precarious employment, I believe, is something that we should not merely accept as inevitable but indeed welcome and embrace. Although not everyone’s cup of tea, perhaps, the freedom, flexibility, and variety is ideal for many of us–and might well be ideal for many more, if only they had a safety net sufficient to eliminate the constant financial anxiety that too often accompanies the lifestyle.
Rather than merely spending less time in traditional jobs (if they happen to be traditionally employed), individuals could–and should–have the option and opportunity to piece together a livelihood out of part-time and short-term work. Doing so with equanimity, however, requires the reliable financial floor that a basic income could provide. Moreover, a basic income could be considered a subsidy that effectively allows individuals to reduce work hours on their own terms.
Of course, a reduction in work hours is still desirable–and perhaps necessary–for traditional full-time jobs which, after all, still predominate in our society (and this might be joined to other reforms, such as legislation mandating that employers allow job-sharing or permit employees to trade income for time). However, with the rise of the “gig” or “1099” economy, an increasing number of individuals find their time not evenly and consistently distributed between work hours and non-work hours but, instead, erratically and inconsistently divided between times of employment (sometimes at multiple “gigs” at once) and times of underemployment or unemployment. For those of us in precariat, the most suitable analogue to work-hour reduction is the provision of an economic safety net that is not contingent on employment, such as a stakeholder grant or basic income, allowing us to seek fewer part-time jobs or short-term contracts.
In the end, then, insofar as May Day recognizes and commemorates not only the demonstrators at Haymarket Square but also the validity of their demand, it might just be that advocating a basic income is the best way to honor the spirit of the day.
Reviewed by Tyler Prochazka
