by Karl Widerquist | Dec 1, 2014 | News, The Indepentarian
Alanna Hartzok, a long-time support of Basic Income, received 37% of the vote in the Congressional election for 9th Congressional District in Pennsylvania. She received the Democratic Party nomination for Congress earlier this year, and finished second in voting to the Republican incumbent, Bill Shuster.
Hartzok is Founder and Co-Director, Earth Rights Institute and author of The Earth Belongs to Everyone. She is a researcher, an activist, a prominent supporter of land value taxation. She has been a regular contributor to the North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress for the last decade, and she has written about basic income, usually using the term “Citizens Dividend,” which is a basic income financed by resource and rent taxes.
Hartzok’s campaign website lists 14 fundamental policies and guidelines to help us establish economic democracy, including, “7. Establish a PA Sovereign Wealth Fund similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund and like in Alaska distribute “citizen dividends” to directly share natural resource super profits from our commonwealth of natural resources.”
For more information about Hartzok and her campaign see:
David Wenner. “Alanna Hartzok, Bill Shuster: Results are in from 9th Congressional District in Franklin County.” PennLive, November 04, 2014.
Alanna Hartzok. “Citizen Dividends and Oil Resource Rents: A Focus on Alaska, Norway and Nigeria.” Wealth and Want, February 2004.
See also her campaign website.
The Alanna Hartzok Campaign
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 10, 2014 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
Unconditional Basic Income is a movement. Five or ten years ago the idea was little discussed outside of a few limited—mostly academic—circles. Now activists are campaigning for it all over the world. The mainstream media is writing about it. It is becoming a part of the political debate.
When I agreed to write the USBIG NewsFlash in 1999, Basic Income was so far out of the popular mindset, I didn’t think there would be enough news to fill a newsletter every two months, but even in those pre-Great-Recession days, there was always something to report. The expansion of worldwide attention to basic income has been great for the movement, but it’s created a difficult task for BI News. There is so much Basic Income-related news that Basic Income News (the website) and its accompanying NewsFlashes (email newsletters) will have to expand along with the movement. With this issue, both the BIEN and the USBIG NewsFlashes will become monthly (instead of bi-monthly) publications.
Basic Income News—once mostly written by one or two people—is now written by a growing team of volunteer reporters. Toby Rane and Jenna van Draanen have recently completed training to join Josh Martin, Craig Axford, F. H. Pitts, and me as members of the group of rotating volunteers who keep up with all the BIG news—as best we can—making sure Basic Income News is updated daily. Four others (Pablo E. Yanes Rizo, Andrea Fumagalli, Jason Burke Murphy, and Toru Yamamori) are currently in the training process. Yanes and Fumagalli are far enough in the process that they have already contributed pieces to the website and the accompanying NewsFlashes.
We have found that a rotating team of about five or six people can keep up with most of the English-language news leads that come up. Usually a different reporter takes full responsibility for the news section of the website each week. We now have a functioning, rotating English-language team, and we hope to have similar teams in Spanish, French, German, and other languages. We hope also to expand our features section as well to include regular blogs, interviews, and opinion pieces.
Since the retirement of two past editors, Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, both of whom had great multi-lingual skills, Basic Income News has fallen behind in our coverage of news from non-English-language sources. We hope that to expand the team in ways that will also allow us to cover many more languages. We have currently have a few volunteers with knowledge of Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Japanese. We could certainly use more volunteers with skills in those and other languages (including English). If you would like to volunteer for Basic Income News, please send me an email: Karl@Widerquist.com.
-Karl Widerquist, Mojo Coffee House, October 7; revised the Rook Café, Freret Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 8, 2014
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 7, 2014 | News, The Indepentarian
Eduardo Suplicy -Wikipedia
Eduardo Suplicy, long-term advocate of Unconditional Basic Income, was defeated in his bid for reelection to the Brazilian Senate. Suplicy is a former co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and an honorary co-President of BIEN. Of any high-level elected official in the world, Suplicy is possibly the strongest advocate of Basic Income. He was one of the architects of the 2005 law that created Brazil’s Bosla Familia program, and it was at his insistence that the law included language making the Bosla Familia the first step in a transition to a full-fledge Basic Income program.
According to the Globe, José Serra, of Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB—the Brazilian Social Democracy Party) defeat Eduardo Suplicy of Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT – the Brazilian Labor Party) by a vote of 58.72% to 32.28% of the vote, with Gilberto Kassab in third place with 5.95%. These results after 89.75% of the votes counted.
Eduardo Suplicy (Photo: Kleber Tomaz/G1 via Globo.com)
Suplicy was Senator for 24 years, and he remains personally popular. Some analysts say his defeat has more to do with recent decline in support for the PT than for his personal job approval. Suplicy has not yet announced what he plans to do next, but he is very likely to continue his advocacy of Basic Income from another platform.
For more information on the election see:
The Globe, “José Serra (PSDB) defeat Eduardo Suplicy (PT) and is elected senator in Sao Paulo.” The Globe, October 5, 2014.
by Karl Widerquist | Sep 4, 2014 | News, The Indepentarian
The Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), Alaska’s small yearly Basic Income, is likely to double this year over last year’s value. The dividend is paid every fall from the returns to the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF), a pool of financial assets accumulated from savings from the state’s oil revenue. The formula for converting returns into dividends is complex. It depends on the average returns over the previous five years and the number of Alaskan residents who apply for it. The exact figure will be released soon, and direct deposits will be delivered by early October.
A BP oil field facility in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Photo by BP via Getty Images, via Slate
Mike Burns, the executive director of Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, was quoted by the Alaska Dispatch saying, “I think the punchline is that the dividend is going to be right about doubling from last year.” The reason for the big increase in the dividend this year has to do with the five-year average used to calculate dividends. The enormous downturn of the 2008-2009 fiscal year have finally dropped out of the calculation. Since then the APF has had a very good run, rising to a total value of $53 billion—an all time record—and its assets returned more than 15% for the 2013-2014 fiscal year.
Last year’s value was $900. So, a doubling would put it the PFD the neighborhood of $1,800 per person or $7,200 for a family of four. The Alaska Dispatch estimates the number will be $1,930.49, “give or take $100.” This would put the dividend near it’s all-time high of $2069, paid in 2008, at the height of the market bubble. Even the record-high amount was far below the livable income that most Basic Income supporters want to see. Yet some of the affects supporters hope to see from a larger dividend are present in Alaska. It has increase economic equality and reduced poverty, and employers have complained that workers are more likely to quit when they receive the dividend.
The APF and PFD are enormously popular in Alaska, but they are not immune to attack. Several years ago the state voted to give the notional dividends that prisoners would have received had they been allowed to apply for the dividend to the prison system. Just this year the state voted to reduce taxes on oil companies, which will ultimately mean less money going into the APF, and therefore, small dividends in the future.
For more information see:
Daniel Gross, “Alaska Is a Petrol State: But it doesn’t act like one.” Slate, August 28, 2014
Alex DeMarban and Sean Doogan, “Estimated at $1,930, Alaska PFD big but no record.” The Alaska Dispatch, August 27, 2014
Dermot Cole, “Permanent Fund principal, not oil royalties, drives most of its growth.” The Alaska Dispatch, August 15, 2014
Trilbe Wynne, “Alaska Permanent Fund tops $50 billion mark, returns 15.5% for year.” Pensions and Investments, August 11, 2014
Associated Press, “Alaska Permanent Fund tops $50B threshold.” Fairbanks News-Miner, August 8, 2014
Sean Doogan, “Size of 2014 PFD checks may double from 2013’s $900.” The Alaska Dispatch, July 30, 2014.
KTVA, “This year’s PFD checks could double the 2013 amount.” KTVA-TV, July 30, 2014
Images_of_Money photo, cc Flickr via the Alaska Dispatch
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 23, 2014 | News, The Indepentarian
Macau, the former Portuguese possession, now a semi-autonomous region of China, is in the process of distributing a temporary Basic Income of more than $1000 to all residents. According to a government press release dated 1 July, 2014, “In order to share the fruits of economic development with the general public, the Macao SAR government had announced the Wealth Partaking Scheme 2014’, under which, local permanent residents would receive 9,000 patacas [US $1,127.46], whereas non-permanent residents 5,400 patacas [US $676.48].” At $1,127, this year’s effective Basic Income in Macau larger than last year’s Alaska Dividend ($900).
Macau has distributed temporary Basic Income’s each year since for the last four years. In 2011, permanent residents received 4,000 patacas [US $501—at August 2014 exchange rates] at the beginning of the year, and a further supplement of 3,000 patacas [US $376] in August. In 2012, permanent residents received $7,000 patacas [US $877] all at once. In 2013, permanent residents received 8,000 patacas [US $1,002]. Non-permanent residents received proportionately smaller figures this year. Thus, permanent residents of Macau for the last four years have received a total of $3883 since 2011. This amount is clearly not enough to live on in an expensive place such as Macao (it cannot be a full basic income, only partial), but it is a significant figure for Macao residents at the low end of the income distribution.
This scheme is a Basic Income in the sense that it distributes an income unconditionally, on an individual basis to all citizens (at least all resident citizens), but it is not a Basic Income in the sense that it is not distributed on a regular basis. The government has now set the president that the Wealth Partaking Scheme will be in effect every year, but each year it has been created with one-time legislation without a promise of renewal. The amount, timing, and existence of the redistribution have to be renegotiated each year. People cannot count on it. Yet, it is something that is already close to a Basic Income and that could develop into a Basic Income in the future.
For more information about the Wealth partaking scheme, see the government websites from the last four years:
2014: https://www.planocp.gov.mo/2014/default_e.html
2013: https://www.planocp.gov.mo/2013/default_e.html
2012: https://www.planocp.gov.mo/2012/default_e.html
2011, supplement: https://www.ap.gov.mo/2011/default_e.html
2011: https://www.planocp.gov.mo/2011/index_e.html
See also the following articles and commentaries form Macao newspapers:
Macau Daily Times, “Cash handout starts in July.” Macau Daily Times, 01/07/2014
Business Daily Editorial Board, “Smoke and mirrors.” Business Daily [Macao], 2014
by Karl Widerquist | Jul 24, 2014 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
Heidi Laura, of Danish Weekendavisen, conducted this interview (by email) with Karl Widerquist in late February 2014. She used only parts of the interview for her article in Weekendavisen, and she gave BI News permission to use the interview in its entirety. Karl Widerquist is the editor of BI News, co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network, and an Associate Professor at SFS-Qatar, Georgetown University. He is the author of Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No.
Heidi Laura: There are several models for a basic income; could you comment on those most commonly promoted and to what extent each of them would increase the equality and freedom of the citizens?
Karl Widerquist: It’s better to say that there are two main models of the Basic Income Guarantee, (BIG) rather than several models of Basic Income (BI). We’re dealing with terms used in very different ways by many different people. So, it’s not really possible to say what definitions are definitive, but let me explain the most commonly used definitions. BIG is the government ensured guaranteed that no citizen’s income will fall below a certain level for any reason—including the refusal to work. Usually that level is defined as enough to meet basic needs, and a guaranteed income below that level is usually considered a partial BIG.
There are two ways to guarantee no one’s income falls below a certain level: through a BI and/or through a negative income tax (NIT). Basic Income gives a regular unconditional income to all citizens on an individual basis without either a means test or a work requirement. This means everyone gets the income whether or not they have other income. But it does not mean everyone’s income goes up. If we introduced a BI, high-income earners would receive it, but they’d also pay more taxes, so on balance they would have lower income. Like the BI, the NIT has no work requirement, but it is means tested. It ensures that no citizen’s income falls below a certain level by paying only the citizens who need it. Under most plans the NIT is gradually phased out so that an individual always has a financial incentive to earn more.
Heidi Laura -Weekendavisen
Within the BI alone, in one sense there is only one model: a universal grant to all citizens without exception. It can be higher or lower, but it always follows that model. To the extent that there are different models of BI, they could be defined by the financing of if. Some people link BI to income taxes, others to sales or VAT taxes, and others to land, natural resource, and rent taxes. This third model links BI to assets over which citizens have a claim of joint ownership. You want to live on our land? Pay into our BI fund. You want to drill or mine our resources? Pay into our BI fund.
Laura: Can the current social systems in the Western world be called distributively unjust?
Widerquist: Yes, the current welfare system is stingy and punitive. Even some of the more generous social welfare systems waste a lot of time supervising the poor and making them prove their worth, as if the mere fact of being poor made them morally suspect. We—the voters—need to get over our ridiculous belief that we are the moral superiors of those with less money.
Laura: What do you see as the greatest advantage of a basic income?
Widerquist: The greatest advantage of basic income is freedom. We put the poor and dissatisfied in society in the position where they have few real choices, no real possibility to reject subordination to others. They cannot use the resources of the land directly for their own benefit. Society makes rules to ensure that all the Earth is owned by someone else. If some other group owns a resource essential to your survival, they own you. The only legal way to access the resources of the Earth are to work for—i.e. take orders from, be a subordinate to—someone who owns some of those resources. If you reject that subordinate position you have few options—eat out of a garbage can or beg perhaps. You can try to get money from existing social welfare systems, but as we’ve discussed, you’ll find them punitive and overbearing in their rules.
Laura: An often heard argument against basic income is that it would reduce the incentive to work; what is the scholarly reply to this argument?
Widerquist: The very question reflects the socially unjust assumptions embedded in all or most existing social welfare systems and in the political mentality of many of our leaders. If someone is unwilling to accept a job offer, we jump to the assumption that he or she is a bad or lazy person for refusing to work. But there are too sides to the job-offer coin. Why don’t we assume the employer is bad or stingy for not making a better offer? By framing the question in the way we do, we have sided with the more privileged people in our society. Assuming they treat their inferiors just fine, and if the inferiors refuse to accept whatever their superiors offer, we can judge them as bad people. We thereby put the privileged in the position where they can make very bad job offers and expect to have them accepted. We create poverty wages.
I think we’ve got it exactly wrong. I believe in freedom. If the two parties don’t agree to a price in a setting in which both of them have the power to say no, then it doesn’t mean one of them is a bad person, it means that the deal is bad: it doesn’t work for the two people. We need to make workers free to say no to give employers the incentive to pay good wages and provide good working conditions. If we make our workers so desperate that they have to take any job offered, we should expect job offers to be horrible.
Another problem with that question is that as economists usually define the term, a Basic Income (BI) has no work disincentive at all. It is given to everyone whether or not they work. You don’t have to quit your job to get the BI. It has no marginal incentive against work. If people have a BI, and someone comes along with an attractive job offer, people have nothing to lose by taking that job. If jobs can’t provide enough to encourage that free people to take them, if they’re just barely getting by, they’re probably not productive enough to be worth doing. Everyone has his price. If we as a society want people to work, we have to pay wages high enough and working conditions good enough to attract people to choose work.
Laura: How would you describe the study of basic income as a scholarly field today? Is it growing?
Widerquist: It is growing, but not nearly as much as activism on BI is growing. As the editor of BI News and the USBIG NewsFlash since 1999, I’ve watched developments on BIG closely for more than 13 years, and something very new has happened in the last year or two is amazing. People across Europe and all over the world are suddenly working to get BIG on the political agenda in a wide diversity of countries. The work is going on in different ways in different places, and for me, it’s just great to see.
Laura: Do you see the upcoming vote in Switzerland as a sign of a growing or renewed interest in Basic Income?
Widerquist: Yes, the Swiss movement is the most impressive achievement so far of the new activism for the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG). In a country of only about 8 million people, they managed to get 127,000 people to sign a petition demanding not only BI but a very substantial BI. They helped to jump start a flurry of media interest which has not yet died down. The European Citizens Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income was also an impressive achievement. They didn’t reach the enormous threshold necessary to trigger a response from the European Council, but they helped to create a movement across Europe, including in places such as Hungary and Slovenia, which have never had a movement before.
There are non-governmental organizations attempting to test or employ the BIG model in Africa, Indian, and South America. There’s a new organization promoting a single BIG across the Southern African Development Community. It’s been endorsed by the Occupy Movement in North America. South Korea is looking into hosting the next Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network. The movement is all around the world.
If your readers want to get involved, they can contact me at karl@widerquist.com. If they want to know more they should visit www.binews.org. This website provides daily updated news about BIG from all around the world. They should also go to www.basicincome.org—the website of the Basic Income Earth Network—which has information about BIG, our upcoming Congress, and links to national affiliates around the world.
Basic Income, Weekendavisen
