by Peter Vandevanter | Sep 16, 2017 | News
Hillel Steiner. Credit to: Festival 800.
Hillel Steiner, Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Manchester and writing on Know It All says that an unconditional basic income (UBI) funded by land value taxation (LVT) may create consensus among Left and Right political parties.
Steiner, author of the prize-winning book “An Essay on Rights” writes:
“Opportunities to link the demands of justice with those of economic efficiency are rare enough, and it would therefore be a great pity to forgo them when they are found.”
He argues that UBI is a demand for justice because there is no assessment of recipients’ personal circumstances. He also argues that LVT is economically efficient because the levy, unlike property taxes, disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements to the site.
More information at:
Hillel Steiner, “A philosopher’s take on Global Basic Income”, Know It All, July 2017
by Peter Vandevanter | Aug 25, 2017 | News
Guy Standing. Credit to: Lighthouse.
Guy Standing, co-founder of Bien and a University of London professor, in an interview for the Moon magazine says people with a precarious future are preyed upon by right-wing politicians.
Neo-liberal economic policies, “globalization, automation, and outsourcing” have, according to Standing, created a large and rising number of precariats (estimated as 40-50% of world population), who compete for low wages so much so that they can’t “pay off student loans or consumer debt, qualify for mortgages, save for retirement, or make plans for the future.”
The Moon magazine reports that Standing, in his 2011 book The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class “argued that if governments failed to satisfy the precariat class, their societies would witness increasing violence and the rise of far-right politicians – scenarios that appear to be playing out in many countries around the globe,” including the UK and the US.
Standing, whose latest book Basic Income and How We Can Make It Happen is quoted in Moon magazine saying “Right-wing politicians are playing on the fears and insecurities” of precariats by demonizing other groups, such as migrants. In this book, the precariat sits below the 62 richest people in the world (who own as much as the poorest half of the rest of the world). Other population groups are economically divided into an elite (5%, who serve the richest), the salariats (20%, who have long term employment security), the proficians (10%, who don’t necessarily want long term employment, freelancers in the gig economy), the classic proletariat (10%, who a generation ago inhabited unions), and at the bottom an underclass (5%, who are dying in the streets from social diseases).
A universal basic income would eliminate this class breakdown in favor of an economy that works for all.
Standing believes that basically the income distribution system of the 20th century has broken down. He says that societies, if they are to survive, must reduce “the inequalities and insecurities that are the terror of the precariat”.
More information at:
Leslee Goodman, “Guy Standing on an economy that works for everyone”, The Moon Magazine, Interview with Guy Standing, 2017
by Peter Vandevanter | Aug 11, 2017 | News
Despite endorsing a larger carbon footprint for Alaska, the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD payment, according to a survey released last week, of one thousand employees), encouraged only one per cent of recipients to work less.
Perhaps the oldest, continuous, Basic Income-like social program is the Alaska PFD, going since the 1980s and currently paying every adult citizen $2,072 annually. Last year’s report indicated that PFD has kept 2-3 per cent of Alaska’s population – some 15-20,000 people – above the poverty line since 1990.
Wrote Jack Thorold in a blog for RSA (a charity which encourages the release of human potential to address the challenges that society faces):
“…it’s a fair guess that at least for some the PFD frees them to do other valuable activities: caring for relatives or learning new skills, for example.”
Also, according to another survey, Alaskans don’t spend their PFD on frivolous things. Instead, 72 per cent of Alaskans report earmarking their dividends for essentials such as paying off debts, education and saving for retirement or emergencies. Thorold went on in his blog to discuss the disappointing – especially relative to the idea of a universal basic income – recent results of the Trussell Trust report on foodbank usage in the UK, which contain:
– 78 per cent of those referred to foodbanks are severely food insecure, meaning that they had gone without eating, perhaps for multiple consecutive days, in the last twelve months;
– 40 per cent of users are driven to foodbanks as a result of a delayed benefit payment;
– About two thirds of foodbank users had recently been hit by an ‘income shock’, most commonly sharp rises in food or housing costs.
Thorold ended his blog, going back to the Alaska PFD: “Alaska’s PFD provides good evidence that unconditional payments can work, and we should take notice.”
More information at:
Kate McFarland, “Alaska, US: State senator prepares bill to restore full amount of 2016 PFD”, Basic Income News, October 9th 2016
Nathaniel Herz, “Alaska lawmaker stokes Permanent Fund fight with push to add $1,000 to dividends” Alaska Dispatch News, October 6th 2016
Paula Dobbyn, “State senator prepares bill to restore full amount of 2016 Permanent Fund dividend” KTUU, October 5th 2016
Travis Khachatoorian. “With reduced PFDs on the way, protests expected at budget forum” KTUU, September 30th 2016
by Peter Vandevanter | Aug 3, 2017 | Research
Louise Haagh
Louise Haagh, an associate professor at the University of York and chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), argues in the June Nature that the reform is making inroads internationally today.
Nature is one of the world’s top academic journals, claiming an online readership of about 3 million unique readers per month.
At the same time, Haagh says basic income is a pivoting argument, because it helps discussions that bring about changes in individual and public policy. She also argues that basic income should not be viewed in moral terms as a compensation for economic insecurity, that such a moralistic interpretation does not do full justice to the claim that “security is important because it enhances people’s sense of control over their lives”.
At the end of 2016, the year in which BIEN celebrated the 30th anniversary of its birth, Haagh, as a life member, reflected on her own personal journey with the network:
“Basic income appealed to me then primarily as a necessary foundation for consolidating workers’ rights – and in many ways that is still how I see it, but in a broader context of rights to human development… Against this background I was struck by the sanity – the immediately obvious justification for basic income. It seemed to me evident that the most important justification was a basic humanist and democratic one – and I still think that today.”
In the Nature article, Haagh says basic income is a pivoting reform, in two ways, that together may be more important than ever:
“First, it is pivoting in relation to freedom extension because it helps to rebuild individuals’ pivot positions, through re-enabling greater differentiation between different core forms of security. Second, basic income is potentially pivoting for other institutions’ development; it creates a monetary basis and rationale for building new risk-sharing mechanisms and institutions between individuals directly and through public policy.”
More information at:
Louise Haagh, “Basic Income as a pivoting reform“, Nature, June 2017 Vol 1 Article 125
