Khannea Suntzu, “ASRI sends out alarming call to US President – please implement a basic income”

by Josh Martin | Aug 2, 2014 | Research

[Josh Martin]

Suntzu’s post is a futuristic sci-fi piece in which the President considers implementing a basic income in 2018.

Khannea Suntzu, “ASRI sends out alarming call to US President – please implement a basic income”, Khannea Suntzu, 26 June 2014. 

Thought Infection, "Lay-Offs Should be Good News"

by Toby | Aug 1, 2014 | Research

SUMMARY: The author argues, layoffs are required for companies to efficiently respond to market conditions, but are seen as bad news due to income being contingent on working. Providing a basic income would ameliorate the difficulties laid-off workers suffer while allowing greater efficiency.

ThoughtInfected, “Lay-Offs Should be Good News“, Thought Infection, 20 July 2014

David Richard Wheeler, “Interview: Basic income heroes: Karl Widerquist edition”

by Josh Martin | Aug 1, 2014 | Research

[Josh Martin]

In this interview, Wheeler questions Karl Widerquist, co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), a few questions related to the current landscape of basic income policies throughout the world.  Widerquist provides a summary of the BIEN International Congress in Montreal in late June and also answers questions on technological unemployment and basic income projects throughout the world.

David Richard Wheeler, “Interview: Basic income heroes: Karl Widerquist edition”, From The Mixed-Up Files of Professor David R. Wheeler, July 13, 2014.

Karl Widerquist

The Philosopher’s Beard, “The looming crisis of Capitalism: Why we need Universal Basic Income”

by Josh Martin | Jul 30, 2014 | Research

Introduction:

“The material prosperity that capitalism has wrought is the product of technology as well as markets (and social norms and state institutions). Markets enhance the efficiency of allocation of resources, such as human labour, between competing projects, while technological innovations enhance the productivity of our use of those resources, the ability to produce more with less. As Keynes prophesised in his famous essay, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930), the seemingly relentless trend of rising productivity promises to finally end the ‘economic problem’: the struggle to overcome scarcity that has characterised the human condition since our beginning. Finally, we can turn as a society to considering what our enormous wealth can do for us, rather than what we must do to get it.

Yet this is not a time for complacency. Unless we intervene, the same economic system that has produced this astonishing prosperity will return us to the Dickensian world of winners and losers that characterised the beginning of capitalism, or worse. The problem is this, how will ordinary people earn a claim on the material prosperity of the capitalist economy if that economy doesn’t need our labour anymore?”

The Philosopher’s Beard, “The looming crisis of Capitalism: Why we need Universal Basic Income”, The Philosopher’s Beard, 30 May 2014.

(Source: The Philosopher's Beard)