How the queen of country music gave unconditional cash to wildfire survivors — and proved basic income works.
You’ve probably already seen the tributes pouring in, the greatest hits, the rhinestones, the Jolene memes, the Whitney Houston story, and all of that is real, and all of it matters. But I want to honor her by writing about something Dolly did that most people still don’t fully appreciate, something that should reshape how we think about helping people in their greatest time of need.She gave people money. Unconditionally. No bureaucrats deciding what they were allowed to spend it on. No means-testing. No paternalism. Just cash, because she trusted that they knew their own lives better than anyone else.“I always count my blessings more than I count my money,” she once said. “I don’t work for money, never did.” But she understood what money means to people who don’t have enough of it. She understood that when everything you own has burned to the ground, the last thing you need is someone deciding for you what help looks like. What you need is the freedom to decide for yourself. You need money.
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday announced he will soon introduce legislation that would give the American public “a direct ownership stake” in the largest artificial intelligence companies in the US by establishing a sovereign wealth fund, which would ensure everyone benefits from the rapidly advancing technology.
Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a New York Times op-ed that his American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act would create the new fund by imposing a one-time, 50% tax on OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI behemoths, paid in the form of stock. The sovereign wealth fund, a government-owned investment vehicle, would both “give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology” and “guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us—not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer.”
Following several months of hard training (and with some concern an Achilles tendon injury might be getting in the way), our Treasurer Lindsay Stirton last Sunday completed the Rio Marathon. Congratulations for a huge achievement!!
“Basic income is, at heart, about security, dignity and inclusion. Supporting broader participation in the BIEN Congress is one practical way of advancing those same values. A serious global conversation about economic security should itself be open to people from a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances.”
Lindsay has run his race, but our job is not done yet! We are keeping the fundraising open until June 30. Those of you who would like to support BIEN can still do so by donating here: https://bien.enthuse.com/pf/lindsay-stirton.
We still have some way to go to reach our goal of £2500 but every small donation helps the cause!
Help BIEN celebrate our 40th Anniversary by donating.
Authored by Simon Birnbaum (Professor of Political Science, Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden), the two-part contribution offers both a systematic reconstruction and a critical assessment of the eco-social case for basic income.
Part 1 clarifies and develops four distinct lines of argument—drawn from normative theory and policy discourse—suggesting that unconditional basic income may have unique advantages over conditional welfare schemes in promoting sustainable welfare outcomes.
Part 2 complements this by identifying four structural paradoxes that reveal deep tensions between the ecological and social objectives often associated with basic income. These tensions help explain why claims about BI as a transformative green policy may be overstated, while also pointing toward more nuanced and constructive ways of specifying its potential role.
Taken together, the articles provide an analytically rigorous contribution to ongoing debates at the intersection of political philosophy, welfare state research, and environmental politics.
Ontario Basic Income recipient – Photo credit: Jessie Golem
The Basic Income Canada Network (BICN) along with allies including Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) are organizing the 2026 Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress being held in Toronto from August 20 to 22, 2026. The theme of the BIEN Congress is Basic Income & the Polycrisis: The key to unlocking the puzzle.
The Congress will mark BIEN’s 40th anniversary and it is a testament to how the Basic Income movement has grown internationally as well as how people from a wide array of countries have shared their knowledge and findings.
In fact, the Basic Income movement has accumulated so much knowledge that organizing and sustaining institutional capacity may be the greatest challenge it now faces.
On 7 June 2026, BIEN Treasurer Lindsay Stirton is running the Rio Marathon to raise money for the BIEN Congress Solidarity Fund.
The Congress Solidarity Fund exists to help low-income participants attend BIEN’s annual Congress by contributing towards essential costs such as travel, accommodation and visa applications.
BIEN’s annual Congress is the major global meeting for people advocating for, researching debating and putting into practice basic income in all its dimensions, which this year takes place 19–22 August in Toronto, Canada.
Basic income is, at heart, about security, dignity and inclusion. Supporting broader participation in the BIEN Congress is one practical way of advancing those same values. A serious global conversation about economic security should itself be open to people from a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances.
Lindsay is running the Rio Marathon to help make that happen. Every donation, large or small, will support the BIEN Congress Solidarity Fund and help widen access to the most important international gathering devoted to basic income.
