by Malcolm Torry | Sep 13, 2020 | News
On Tuesday 13th October, a debate on ‘Is it time for Universal Basic Income’ will take place as part of the Bristol Festival of Ideas.
At this conference, organised by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath and Bristol Festival of Ideas, leading thinkers, politicians and policymakers come together with the public to debate these issues and to explore new approaches to macro-economic policy-making, the prospects for UBI, and the political economy of social and economic change.
For further details of the event, click here.
by Malcolm Torry | Sep 8, 2020 | Featured, News
From 2008 to 2009 Namibia hosted a globally significant Basic Income pilot project. The coalition behind the project relaunched today to ask for a Basic Income for Namibia.
For details of the launch event click here.
Speakers at the event included Uhuru Dempers (Desk for Social Development of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (NAM)), Dr. Andre September (Council of Churches in Namibia), Rinaani Musutua (Economic and Social Justice Trust), and Julia Ndaponah Shikangalah, who received a BIG in 2008-09.
To read the coalition’s website, click here.
by Malcolm Torry | Sep 7, 2020 | News
Philippe Van Parijs, ‘Godfather of the UBI movement’ as Prospect magazine has called him, has been voted number 8 in the magazine’s poll.
Dreams of “incomes for all” trace way back—Thomas Paine proposed one scheme. But even before the government picked up the wage bill for millions of furloughed workers, Universal Basic Income was an ambition coming of age. The rapid automation of labour switches the question from how national income can be earned, to how it might be distributed. Today’s young UBI enthusiasts draw on the books and tap the networks of this Belgian polymath, who championed it before it was fashionable. For decades, he has warned that our proclaimed freedoms to start businesses or raise children count for nothing without the real freedom that comes with a basic income.
The full list of the fifty thinkers nominated for the poll, and the list of the top ten, can be found here. The winner was KK Shailaja, Kerala’s Health Minister.
by Malcolm Torry | Sep 6, 2020 | News
BIEN joins with many people around the world in mourning the sudden death of David Graeber, Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics, at the age of 59.
Obituaries
by Malcolm Torry | Aug 6, 2020 | Research
Katrin Oemmelen has written an article, ‘Using poverty reduction policies in the fight against COVID-19’, which is a summary of her dissertation.
The results of a six-year research project in Namibia shows that access to financial tools such as universal
basic income and microcredit, in combination with financial literacy, can have a measurable impact in
Namibia, especially during the COVID-19 crisis and corresponding economic shutdown.
The article can be found here.
And the dissertation (in German) here.
