by Dejan Tachevski | Jan 11, 2016 | News
Barb Jacobson and David Jenkins of Basic Income UK spoke at a meeting of the London Futurists at Birkbeck College in February 2015. The speakers present the case for a universal basic income as a response to societal changes such as increasing automation and technological unemployment, and answer questions about the pros and cons of a UBI.
From the event description, “Accelerating technological unemployment, with increasing numbers of people being displaced from the workforce by automation, is likely to cause growing social disruption and increased social inequality and alienation. These developments strengthen the case for a new social contract, with appropriate social, educational, and economic support for those who are left with no viable option of ‘earning a living’ due to unprecedented technological change.”
A video recording of the event is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHG1h2IEwBQ
by Stanislas Jourdan | Jan 7, 2016 | News
A report written by a government agency dedicated to Digital Affairs for the French Ministry of Labor recommends experimenting with an unconditional basic income to cope with the fundamental transformations of work in the context of the growing digital economy.
How do automation and digitalization of activities impact working conditions? This was one of the key questions the National Digital Council was tasked to address in a report sponsored by the French Ministry of Labor and Social Dialogue. The Digital Council is a public agency created in 2012 to advise the French government on matters related to the digital world.
The report was released earlier this week – see the full report here. It makes an important case for basic income, and calls for a thorough appraisal of “the various proposals and experiments around basic income”. Basic income is part of the twenty main recommendations contained in the report.
Minister of Labour is sceptical but does not reject the proposal
The Minister of Labor Myriam El Khomri was not so enthusiastic but did not close the door on the idea: “I do not want to dismiss it, but at first sight I am not sure about its cost,” she said.
According to the report, the existing social protection model has been pushed to its limits, and the labor market has failed to reward many different forms of activities, and thus provide an income to everyone.
These phenomena are not new, but technology is accelerating the trends. Automation is displacing jobs and killing aggregate demand in the economy. The development of invisible forms of production on the internet – what is commonly referred to as ‘digital labor’ – is leading to new forms of production that do not remunerate people for their work. As a consequence, there is a need for new kinds of redistribution systems, such as a basic income.
The report reviews many common arguments for introducing an unconditional and universal basic income, and quickly sketches different proposals on how to implement it. These include a reform of the tax-benefit system, various forms of money creation (such as quantitative easing for people), and raising corporate taxes to remunerate invisible and unpaid labor.
Although the report does not express a preference for a specific proposal, it calls for two concrete steps:
- A feasibility study on basic income to be conducted by a team of economists, statisticians, fiscal and legal experts. The aim would be to develop a simulation tool of the transition to a basic income, and carry out an impact assessment of each proposal in the public debate.
- Local basic income experiments that complement the feasibility study and consider various scenarios.
“We cannot ignore this movement.”
“This is the first time a report of a public agency discusses a basic income linked to digital transformations” Benoit Thieulin, one of the report authors, said. “Governments need to seize the opportunity and help with the reform of our solidarity and redistribution models. Experiments are conducted in several countries, we cannot ignore this movement.”
Basic income was only the last of 20 recommendations, yet it made most of the headlines in French media.
“For a long time I have also been sceptical about basic income … I wasn’t too convinced,” Thieulin explained in an interview. “But today this idea puts everything into question. Especially now that the welfare system is cracking everywhere. Half of the people don’t claim their benefits! Administration costs are enormous! … At some point one has to ask if it would not be simpler, less expensive and more beneficial for all if we had a universal safety net.”
The French Movement for Basic Income, a BIEN affiliate, was among the organisations consulted during the writing process and welcomed the release of the report. “It is a timely report that opens the debate in the best possible terms,” International Coordinator Nicole Teke said to BIEN.
The French government has commissioned another report to review all social benefits, with special attention to be paid to the existing minimum income scheme. The French Movement for Basic Income announced that it will submit proposals to pave the way for the introduction of a basic income.
by Jenna van Draanen | Jan 6, 2016 | News
Federico Pistono at TEDx Haarlem
In this TEDx talk, Federico Pistono describes some of the challenges of capitalism and how these challenges are matched by the tenets of basic income.
According to the video description, “Federico Pistono is a futurist, social entrepreneur, hacktivist, public speaker, founder and CEO of konoz – a startup that curates and organizes educational videos, whose mission is to become the largest online community for free learning in the world – and he’s author of the best-selling book ‘Robots Will Steal Your Job, But That’s OK: How to Survive the Economic Collapse and Be Happy’, which has been translated into Spanish, German, and Italian. He lectures regularly at Universities and Fortune 500 companies about the future of humanity.”
This video is from a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.
See the video at:
Federico Pistono, “Basic Income and Other Ways to Fix Capitalism.” TEDx Haarlem, September 16, 2015.
by Dejan Tachevski | Jan 5, 2016 | News
Credits to Sandrine Landrix
From Eric Kirschbaum, writing in the Los Angeles Times (27th December 2015) comes news of a privately operated project held in Germany, financed by crowdfunding, that has rejuvenated Basic Income discussions. This small-scale experiment is called “Mein Grundeinkommen” (My Basic Income). Up to now 26 people have been paid a $1,100 per month stipend, with no strings attached.
Recipients are chosen randomly through a lottery, which is streamed live online. They are selected from a pool of more than 66,000 applicants, with draws being held whenever enough donations are collected. 31,449 people have made donations thus far.
The experiment is supplying valuable information about how people behave when they have some level of financial security, and has caught the attention of German politicians such as Katja Kipping, co-leader of the hard left party Die Linke, and long-time advocate for a universal basic income. Die Linke, according to Kirschbaum, “discussed the issue intensively at its last congress in Bielefeld, although many party members were sceptical”.
Erik Kirschbaum, “If you were handed $1,100 a month, would you amount to anything?” , Los Angeles Times, 27 December, 2015
by Dejan Tachevski | Jan 4, 2016 | News
The Basic Income library is getting another book for its shelves: Mark Walker, Associate Professor of Philosophy at New Mexico State University has written a new book, Free Money for All, in which he proposes a Basic Income Guarantee of $10,000 for all adult US citizens.
According to the publisher’s description, Walker argues that “BIG promotes three positive outcomes — social stability, gross national happiness, and gross national freedom — unlike alternate proposals such as socialism, laissez-faire capitalism, and the traditional welfare state.”
For more info on the book click on the following links:
https://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/free-money-for-all-mark-walker/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1137471328/
by Dejan Tachevski | Jan 3, 2016 | News
Basic income is knocking on the door in Ireland too. Fianna Fáil, an Irish republican party, will pledge to introduce a basic income in their new election manifesto, as reported by John Downing in the Irish Independent:
“Fianna Fáil will promise every citizen of the country – from the richest to the poorest – a minimum welfare income in excess of current basic welfare rates which average €188 per week.”
They plan to establish “an expert group to report within six months on matters like how much the minimum payment would be and what kind of taxation changes would be needed to fund it.” Their main argument for the inclusion of the basic income pledge is that it would be “major protection against poverty in an era where few will be guaranteed work throughout their lives.”
Additionally, Fianna Fáil “will also argue that many sections of the population already receive considerable welfare payments, such as pensions or child benefit, which would be factored into the minimum income – making the final cost not vastly greater than current welfare spending.
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For the full article, click here.
Credit picture: CC Lee Jordan
