by Karl Widerquist | Jun 18, 2012 | Research
The West Australian, April 10, 2012
Larry Graham, a form member of the Western Australian State Parliament, states in this opinion piece that the burning political question facing Western Australia right now is how to share the benefits of the coming resource boom. He argues that Western Australia could do no better than to imitate Alaska by creating a sovereign wealth fund to finance a yearly dividend for everyone in the state.
The piece is online at:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/13382710/we-should-get-a-direct-dividend-from-boom/
by Karl Widerquist | Jun 17, 2012 | Research
Co.Exist, March 8, 2012
This opinion piece argues for a resource dividend on the grounds that even the poorest among us own a share of the Earth’s resources, which are commonly claimed as private wealth. The article cites Peter Barnes’s work on this issue.
It’s online at:
https://www.fastcoexist.com/1679424/should-companies-pay-to-use-our-common-resources
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 Karl Widerquist | Jun 14, 2012 | Research
This newspaper article reports on the Swiss effort to raise enough signatures to trigger a referendum on basic income. The effort is supported by high-level politicians as well as by BIEN-Switzerland. The movement needs 100,000 signatures to put the referendum on the ballot.
The article is online at:
https://www.thelocal.ch/national/20120412_3074
by BIEN Ireland | Jun 10, 2012 | Research
In this essay, Richard Swift – a former co-editor of The New Internationalist – answers the question, “In some Western countries, right-wing populism has been able to channel much of the anger caused by the financial crisis and its effect. Why has the Left been marginalized? How can this be overcome?”
“It might help”, Swift writes, “to offer some simple programmatic ideas that have some chance of gaining popular traction. What is particularly needed is a way to address people’s sense of insecurity in a meaningful way. One of these, simple and easy to understand, is the notion of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) to provide for the basic needs of every person in the world”. Swift mentions several arguments in favour of basic income, and refers to basic income supporters Andrew Glyn and André Gorz.
The essay won the Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation, which annually recognizes an original essay that helps further socialist ideas in the tradition of Daniel Singer.
Full references: SWIFT, Richard (2012), ‘Preparing the ground: Left strategy beyond the apocalypse’, New Internationalist, June 2012, pp.29-35. See: https://www.exacteditions.com/exact/browse/386/1287
Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation: https://www.danielsinger.org/
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 6, 2012 | Research
In Chapter 7 of his book Cognitive Capitalism (translation of Le Capitalisme cognitif, Paris: Editions Amsterdam, 2007), French economist Yann Moulier-Boutang argues for an unconditionally guaranteed social income as a central component of a “real revolutionary reformism” in the context of “cognitive capitalism”, the form of capitalism that constitutes our new horizon.
Full references: MOULIER-BOUTANG, Yann (2012), Cognitive Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Publisher’s page: https://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745647326
