by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 19, 2012 | News
The Basic Income European Network (BIEN) was founded in Belgium in 1986. But until now Belgium itself had no national basic income network. This could change, thanks to the initiative of Dutch-, French- and German-speaking activists, who have organized a meeting in Brussels in order to launch a national network. An invitation has been circulated through social networks, and a provisional website has been launched. All Belgian residents are welcome to take part in this first meeting (prior registration avalaible online).
Website: https://www.basicincome.be/
Practical details: June 27, 2012 at 6PM, at the Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis, Building Rue du Marais, n°119, Room 2100, 1000 Brussels
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 16, 2012 | News
In the springtime 2011 Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, started to talk with experts, practitioners, citizens and representatives of the civil society on how to deal with the challenges of the future.
During these meetings several times people wanted to know Merkel’s position on Basic Income. At 8th June 2012 Deutsche Welle, a German media concern, reported in English:
Chancellor Merkel used her answer to make a point against the unconditional basic income that some in Germany have called for. Everyone had to try and live off their work, she said, pointing out that generally, there was a lot of flexibility on today’s job market.
Already on 15th April 2012 the collection and election of topics for another meeting concluded. Among all of the 11,618 suggestions received, about 2 percent (approximately 270) demanded Basic Income in different descriptions. Susanne Wiest, who already submitted in 2009 a petition on Basic Income and who spoke at the German petition committee, also submitted her idea of Basic Income. Her suggestion came among the top-ten.
On 8th June 2012 Susanne Wiest wrote in her blog, that she received a letter from the organisation team who invited her to present on 3rd July 2012 her suggestion directly to Angela Merkel and to talk about it.
Link to the initiative “Dialogue on the Future” (in German): https://www.dialog-ueber-deutschland.de
Link to the article of Deutsche Welle (in English): https://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16007820,00.html
Blog of Susanne Wiest and her post about the invitation (in German): https://grundeinkommenimbundestag.blogspot.de/2012/06/grundeinkommen-im-kanzleramt.html
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 15, 2012 | Research
In her this column, Anne B. Ryan, of BIEN Ireland, argues that the current welfare system is not applicable anymore and it needs to be replaced by new system, Universal Basic Income (UBI). UBI is a regular and unconditional income whether one is employed or not. The current welfare system was designed to benefit small number of people that became temporarily unemployed. We need a new system, argues Ryan, UBI, which can benefit everybody and allow one to live up to the decent living standards. Ryan believes that UBI will give people power over decisions in their work life. People with low income, or socially or environmentally hazardous work can have a power of decision whether to leave or stay in their workplace. UBI would also benefit small business entrepreneurs, young people, and volunteers. UBI can be founded by social resource payment paid by employers and the rest can come from increase in income tax. The article stresses that this system can help in combating inequalities and divisiveness persisting in society due to differences in current levels of security.
Ryan, A. B. (2010). “Column: Our Welfare System is Broken. We Can Fix it… By Paying Everybody.” In The Journal. Retrieved June 7, 2012 from https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/column-our-welfare-system-is-broken-we-can-fix-it%E2%80%A6-by-paying-everybody/
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 13, 2012 | News
In a column for the Canadian daily newspaper National Post (June 10, 2012), long-time basic income advocate and Conservative Senator from Ontario Hugh Segal writes:
“(…) It is reasonable to have an employment insurance system, funded by contributions from Canadian workers, that provides a financial bridge to those who have lost their jobs and cannot immediately find a replacement. When mildly tightening the eligibility to those who really cannot find work is controversial, however, this shows that EI stands for Extra Income, not Employment Insurance. That the income may be vital to communities, regions and lifestyles tied to seasonal jobs is not in question. But such a system is no longer insurance. It is a basic income floor unrelated to whether or when work was available.
(…) Except for Newfoundland and Labrador, all provinces pay welfare rates well beneath the poverty line, helping to feed the costly pathologies of poverty that fill our hospitals, our homeless shelters, our prisons and the tragedies of family violence and substance abuse. A frank discussion about income security, poverty and the kind of income floor that could obviate other programs that are unbalanced, expensive to operate, wasteful and disconnected from reality, is long overdue.”
Full opinion piece is at:
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 11, 2012 | Opinion
Some might know the tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen. The story is about how betrayers sell new clothes to a vain Emperor. As the betrayers insist, the specific qualities of the clothes are such that they could only be seen by the cleverest and bravest people.
Today, the times of Emperors and Kings are almost gone, rather the nation became the sovereign in democracies. Hence, some know the term “Leviathan” used by Thomas Hobbes referring to the biblical-mythological lake monster: A polity in the form of a state as a super organism whose almighty is invincible.
But the old clothes of Leviathan often seem like a tight suffocating corset of a relation web made by lobbies. That is why the relatively new Pirate Party in Europe demands politics be made more transparent. They claim to tie a new dress for Leviathan. Thus, a new web of relations and power emerges, but in contradiction to other parties, it should show sympathies and antipathies more transparently.
Before the Pirates also other parties appeared more or less successful with the same desire to make politics more different and better. The common purpose is to care for the welfare of Leviathan. In principle the whole political dispute turns out to be how and under which framework to reach this goal.
Obviously, the Pirates want to give the population a share to define this aim. Other parties, however, often leave this, figuratively spoken with Adam Smith, to the invisible hand of the market.
In my view, the popularity of the Pirates is based on the feeling expressed by a growing number of people that this invisible hand prevents them from participating in the common wealth. But this relates to the participation in the achievements generated by the whole society rather than to defining the welfare itself. Hence, it is for example comprehensible, why the Pirates demand for an Unconditional Basic Income: to enable an almost bureaucratic-free economic participation for all.
However, only a minority is interested in the wealth of Leviathan. The majority is rather engaged in dealing with their own well-being. As long as Leviathan does not prevent them from doing so, the wealth of this only abstractly imagined being is indifferent for them. Eventually they elected, in a representative democracy, deputies who should care about Leviathan.
The new clothes, designed by the Pirates, are not really an attempted fraud. Further they are an offer for the cleverest in the state to participate in finding solutions for existing problems. As long as the new relation web of the Pirates has no negative impact on the decision making process, it could help to cure Leviathan.
