The basic income is known for cutting across ideological lines. Libertarians, who have had a long history supporting the basic income, are also giving the idea a fresh look as a way to replace the current welfare system.
Many libertarians, though, remain skeptical of whether a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is in line with libertarian ethics, and other libertarians believe it would cause economic damage.
Daniel Eth, a PhD student at UCLA studying computational nanotechnology, argued in Thinking of Utils that strict libertarianism, particularly without UBI, “enables oppressive systems to emerge, even when no one is acting in bad faith and all agreements are consensual.”
Eth joined the UBI Podcast to discuss the problems of libertarianism that does not endorse basic income.
One of the primary issues with strict libertarianism, Eth argued, is that without a social safety net, workers are not truly volunteering for work, because they are agreeing to work simply to survive.
“There is an uneven power dynamic and that contracts are almost inherently exploitative, at least for those that are living hand to mouth,” Eth said.
At least with a basic income system in place, Eth said, the workers could decide to walk away from unreasonable working conditions.
“if a basic income is large enough to satisfy people’s basic needs, it goes a long way to correcting for that (power dynamic),” he said.
One area of agreement between Eth and libertarians is that market-based solutions “tend to be much more effective than the alternative of central planning.”
That is to say, without appropriate taxes to account for things like pollution, then the market outcome will not reflect these costs to society and the environment.
From this framework, Eth said something like a carbon tax would be a “great way to pay” for a basic income because it would account for pollution, but also allow the market to solve.
“The market is almost like an algorithm, like what a computer might use to solve a problem and I think it tends to be better at finding solutions than central planning. But you have to ask it the right question. You have to make sure you are solving the problem you want to solve,” Eth said.
People often ask whether a country has to reach a certain stage of development before a basic income can become viable. A new documentary series will help answer that question.
Village One is a new series that follows a village in Uganda, Busibi, where each villager is receiving an unconditional basic income of around $18.25 USD per month for adults and $9.13 USD for children. There are 56 adults and 88 children who are receiving the basic income in the village for at least two years.
Steven Janssens, the director of Village One and the founder of Eight, discussed this project with the UBI Podcast. The series can be viewed now and will have a new episode premier each Saturday.
Eight is partnering with Ghent University to conduct research on the effects of the basic income on the village. The project has only been running since January, and Janssens said he already has seen dramatic results.
“Every child is going to school in that village now, whereas before it was around 50 percent,” he said.
The positive results on education were not just for children. One 18 year old was able to go back to school after he started receiving the basic income, Janssens said.
So far, Janssens said they have seen an improvement in health care access, increased entrepreneurship, and democratic organization, even though it has only been around three months since the basic income was started.
According to Janssens, villagers have created “saving circles” where they pool together their funds so that they can invest in larger expenditures, even for the benefit of the entire village.
“They are more social with each other. They talk more, they get involved more. They also make plans to make the water distribution better, to make the roads better,” Janssens said. “They are really talking a lot with each other to make improvements for the whole village, not only the individual.”
As for negative effects, Janssens said he has not yet seen anyone change their behavior for the worse because of the basic income, including harming the environment or spending it on “temptation goods,” such as alcohol.
“People who were already boozing before, continue to (do so), but they don’t (consume) booze more or less. People don’t start boozing or using alcohol. There is no change in that type of consumption,” he said.
GiveDirectly, which is also running a basic income program in Africa, has run into some issues with individuals skeptical of the organization refusing the basic income. Janssens said they have also had some similar instances in their case.
“There is one family that refused our project because they believe that we are going to take over the land, or they don’t believe the money is really for free,” Janssens said.
For Janssens, he said he hopes that his project can help people see the effects of basic income for themselves.
“We see a lot of inequality and it is so unfair. In all of my travels I see the same. You see so many people with so much potential, so many talents and they are actually in a lot of cases just wasted. A basic income is one of the instruments that can improve it,” Janssens said.
The views expressed below and in the UBI Podcast do not necessarily express those of Basic Income Earth Network, or BI News.
While school choice and basic income advocates may not always see eye to eye, they may have more in common than they realize.
In my new UBI Podcast series, I interviewed Emily Runge, an education policy researcher for the Show-Me Institute. Runge advocates that the government provide parents more choice in how their children is educated, including providing families cash grants for education.
UBI Podcast tinyurl.com/UBIpodcast
The way Runge described her advocacy for school choice parallels much of the rhetoric that basic income advocates use.
“The overlap that I see, is there’s a recognition that there are vulnerable populations and the status quo is working against them. And the way the government treats them, for example the public school system, is not always the best.”
The intention of school choice, Runge said, is to allow individuals to decide what is best for their families and children.
“With the school choice movement, and the Universal Basic Income movement, is we are empowering individuals, giving them more agency, and this is a more innovative way to deal with problems that we see,” she said.
Arizona recently signed into law America’s first ever universal education savings account (ESA) program. This system will eventually allow any student to apply for a state-funded savings account that can be spent on education services, including tuition, online services, tutoring, and education materials. In theory, this will unlock a host of degree paths and careers for low-income families.
High school students can receive up to $5,000 per year in their ESA, and $4,600 is available for K-8.
For now, the number of students that can enroll in an ESA is capped at 5,500. Children with disabilities can receive a higher cash grant, depending on the services needed.
Runge said a universal ESA may be the ultimate goal, and other school choice offerings should also be pursued. In the meantime, Runge said that there are many good public schools that should be allowed to continue to operate.
The choice, she said, should be given to the parents not the government.
“Instead of children being assigned to a particular school, we advocate that money should follow the child,” she said.
As it stands, Runge said those with a lot of wealth can afford school choice, it is vulnerable and low-income populations that do not have the choice.
The intersection between poverty and education disparities is well known. And children of wealthy parents certainly have more opportunities for a superior education, simply because they have the cash to pay for these services.
Like basic income, an ESA has the potential to shift power from bureaucrats to individuals. There would still be conditions on the money, as ESA cash would necessarily be ear-marked for education, although the choices would be infinitely more for poor families in the status quo.
However, there are likely many basic income advocates that are skeptical of a cash-grant system when it comes to education. And there are likely many school choice advocates that are skeptical of no-strings attached cash grants to families.
Nonetheless, there should be more discussions between movements, such as basic income and school choice, on the areas that they overlap and how both can achieve their goal of empowering all families regardless of their background and situation.
As the debate about basic income heats up around the world, two documentary filmmakers are trying to bring the human element to the forefront.
Deia Schlosberg and Conrad Shaw are producing an ambitious documentary, “Bootstraps – A Basic Income Film”, that will follow a group of real people around the United States who will receive a basic income for two years.
I recently interviewed Schlosberg and Shaw as part of the new BI News Podcast series. Schlosberg said she wanted to do something different from existing basic income documentaries.
“I didn’t want to make another film that was just describing it and talking about the theory, I wanted to follow individual people and tell stories about individuals, and connect with the audience that way,” Schlosberg said.
Shaw said this project will be distinct from existing basic income trials, and will fund a basic income for around 15 to 20 individuals selected for the documentary.
From those a “handful” will be selected with the most “compelling stories,” Schlosberg said. Their intention is to stop the “othering” that takes place in society, they said.
“The problem we see with the pilots that are going on…is that they are very localized,” Shaw said. While this will allow the research to be more rigorous, he said, it makes it more difficult to present an inclusive ‘American pitch’ with people from all over the country.
The team is in the process of fundraising and is in the early stages of selecting participants for the basic income. Those that are part of the mailing list for the film will be eligible for a drawing that will allow them to nominate someone to be part of the film and receive a basic income.
As of now, they hope to start handing out the basic income this summer and release the documentary in time to be “part of the election discussion” in 2020.
Schlosberg has worked on films in the past, including “Backyard” and “How to Let Go of the World and Love all the Things Climate Can’t Change,” but she said this documentary will be a unique experience following individuals for two years.
Already, Shaw and Schlosberg have found potential participants for the film including a homeless man from the east coast who was released from prison, and a man in Boston who is still in prison and declined parole because he is “afraid” of not being able to reintegrate into society.
“With those we are exploring recidivism and how basic income could ameliorate that issue on a huge scale,” Schlosberg said.
The goal, they said, is to get people from all different backgrounds, locations, and occupations so “they can watch the film and relate.”
In administering the basic income, they said they are currently looking for an outside organization to partner with on this aspect.
In making this documentary, they want to discover whether critics are correct in that basic income will make recipients lazy, or if it will encourage positive change.
“How does it change someone’s day to day with a little extra security and a little extra power over their lives?” Schlosberg asked.
The Universal Basic Income in the Asia Pacific international conference was held at National Chengchi University (NCCU) on March 18. This was the first conference dedicated to universal basic income (UBI) focused on the Asia Pacific region. Scholars, activists, officials, and guests traveled from all over the world to participate in the event.
All livestream videos are available on the UBI Taiwan Facebook page, and a HD version will be available shortly on UBI Taiwan’s YouTube page.
Around 100 people participated in the event in person, including participants who flew from America, Switzerland, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, and mainland China. There were nearly 1,000 streams of the Chinese-translation broadcast of the event, and there were over 1,200 views of the livestream videos on Facebook. A total of 16 different sessions were held, with over 100 questions posed to the UBI experts in-person and online. Furthermore, the event page has reached 35,000 unique viewers to date.
Enno Schmidt, leader of the Swiss referendum campaign, gave the keynote speech for the event: “Basic Income and Democracy.”
“The Asia Pacific UBI conference undoubtedly has been one of the historical steps in furthering the worldwide UBI movement, focused on the recognition of Asia Pacific, as well as unity and collaboration,” Schmidt said.
The event has been in preparation since November, when organizer Tyler Prochazka, an NCCU International Master’s Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IMAS) student and features editor of Basic Income News, received a grant from the US State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship Alumni Development Fund along with James Davis, a junior from Columbia University. NCCU’s College of Social Sciences (CSS) later agreed to sponsor the event, and NCCU’s IMAS department provided additional assistance.
NCCU CSS Professor Ping-Yin Kuan provided the welcome speech for the event, where he discussed how he first learned about the idea of UBI while he was studying in the United States. His master’s thesis advisor was involved in the “Income Maintenance Experiment” in New Jersey, which tested a form of negative income tax in the 1960s and 1970s.
“As a student who came from Taiwan – at that time Taiwan was a relatively poor country – I was amazed by such a crazy idea. And I thought that only the US, a rich country, would come up with such a scheme,” Kuan said.
“After I became more familiar with issues of social inequality, I could see that it was not a crazy idea at all. The question that should have been asked then, and I believe should still be asked now, is why a country as rich as the US allows a significant proportion of its people to live below a basic decent condition,” Kuan expanded.
“Now Taiwan is considered a rich county, and we can certainly ask the same question here.”
Conference co-organizer James Davis prepared a documentary for the conference, meeting with prominent figures in finance, technology, and politics to discuss basic income.
“Universal basic income is the future of redistribution and welfare policy. It has the potential to alleviate global poverty and unleash an entrepreneurial spirit unlike anything we’ve seen before. These interviews explore the practical and ideological grounds of universal basic income, debunking the critics, and anticipating its challenges,” Davis said.
Sarath Davala, a researcher on the Indian basic income trial, presented on the “Transformative Power of Basic Income for India” via Skype.
“Universal basic income is the most radical idea of our contemporary times. It takes the discourses of democracy and poverty to the next level,” Davala said. He noted that UBI Taiwan “has created history by organizing the first regional activity in Taipei.”
“This conference is the foundation for future cooperation at the regional level, which is very much needed to take forward the basic income movement in each of the countries in the Asia Pacific region,” Davala said.
Ping Xu, coordinator for UBI Taiwan and co-organizer of the conference, presented on the feasibility of basic income for Taiwan.
“This is the first step for basic income in the Asia Pacific. It represents an awakening of human evolution toward traditional Asian culture and away from our current inhumane working standards,” Xu said.
Joffre Balce, secretary of the Association for Good Government in Australia, presented on “Rewriting the Textbook to Deliver Universal Human Dignity.”
“The first Asia Pacific Conference on Basic Income was a glimpse of how society can work together for a common vision — bold, innovative, diverse yet respectful of each other’s noble intentions, united in efforts and determined to realize each other’s vision for a society of equality in rights, the self-determination of the individual and the freedom to cooperate for a better society,” said Balce.
Ted Tan, the coordinator for research and information for UNI Asia and Pacific Regional, flew from Singapore to attend the event. He said he “hopes there will be another conference next year.”
“The conference was very interesting and it could have easily been extended for another half or one day. There is still much to discuss on the possibility of a universal basic income in this region, so I appreciate the inputs and sharing of all the experts in the same room,” Tan said.
Chung Yuan Christian University provided simultaneous Chinese translation for the event. Enzo Guo, a Taiwanese senior at Chung Yuan, led the group of translators.
“I felt so honored to interpret for those brilliant scholars with their ideas and findings. I benefited greatly by their talks. These are important matters that people living in Asia Pacific should know,” Guo said.
Musician Brandy Moore also provided her song “Just Because I’m Alive” for the conference and its promotional videos. Moore wrote the song after hearing about basic income in 2015 and performed it at a basic income conference in 2016 for the first time. In June, Moore will perform the song at NABIG 2017 in New York City.
“Being invited to put my song forward to be part of this recent basic income conference held in Taiwan was a wonderful additional surprise,” she said.
“Music reaches people on a heart level and it’s going to take both heads and hearts to make basic income a reality,” Moore said.
Purchases of Moore’s song will help fund basic income organizations after she recoups the funding to produce it.
Julio Linares, an NCCU student from Guatemala, had met many of the presenters at the BIEN Congress in South Korea, where he also presented.
“I argued how a Basic Income Fund (BIF) could work as a way of creating long-term investments whose profits are redirected back to people in the form of a monthly basic income while at the same time making the fund financially sustainable over time,” Linares said. “The attendees were not only from Taiwan but from different countries and they all showed great interest in the topic as it raised quite a lot of discussion.”
Petra Sevcikova, an NCCU IMAS student from the Czech Republic, organized the NCCU volunteers for the conference.
“After working in event management in Europe, helping to organize the UBI Conference in NCCU in Taipei was a new and extraordinary experience. I believe that the conference was unique and quite important for people interested in the basic income,” Sevcikova said.
Speakers included Gary Flomenhoft (University of Vermont, USA), Sarath Davala (India), Julio Linares (NCCU), Gregory Marston (University of Queensland, Australia), Joffre Balce (Australia), Munly Leong (Australia), Toru Yamamori (Doshisha University, Japan), Ping Xu (Taiwan), Enno Schmidt (Switzerland), Hyosang Ahn (Basic Income Korea Network), Cheng Furui (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), and Tyler Prochazka (NCCU). The abstracts for each presentation can be found here. A compilation of the research will soon be published online.
For Kuan, bringing these scholars to Taiwan will help to highlight the important issue of inequality, as many social welfare systems in the Asia Pacific are “not working effectively.”
“It is important to bring regional scholars to share knowledge about basic income and spark new ways to think about social security. This is particularly important, not just in Taiwan, but the Asia Pacific in general,” Kuan said.
Yamamori presented on “What Can We Learn From a Grassroots Feminist UBI Movement?: Revisiting Keynes’s Prophecy” via Skype.
“While I was able to attend only via Skype, I could still feel positive vibes and energy from the venue. I know Tyler, Ping and others made a huge effort to make this conference successful,” he said.
“Let me show my gratitude to them and participants, and let us go forward for an unconditional basic income together,” Yamamori said.
Guo said he is optimistic that the conference will have a big impact on Taiwanese society.
“By gathering the elites and people from different fields together and discussing with each other, I believe this conference has undoubtedly paved the way for the popularization of UBI in Taiwan,” he said.
When reflecting on the potential of the UBI in the Asia Pacific, Schmidt said it can bring together all people from all backgrounds, both in the Asia Pacific and beyond.
“The idea of an unconditional basic income for everyone must remain clear, which is regardless of any life circumstances, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly. This idea does not exclude anybody, it does not fight against anything. The idea of UBI unites and connects people and restores our forgotten values,” Schmidt said.
