by Andre Coelho | Oct 29, 2019 | News
Gergely Karácsony. Picture credit to: Magyar Hang
It’s Budapest, October 2019, and there’s a new mayor in town. Gergely Karácsony is his name, and has physically taken office on October 17th, arriving at Budapest City Hall on a simple city bike, instead of a couched high-end car used by other famous politicians. More relevant still, Karácsony is known for his progressive, left-wing ideas, contrasting with the Hungarian government far-right policies at the moment, under the iron grip of Viktor Orbán, the country’s Prime Minister.
Karácsony has been elected to lead the Hungarian capital, having run against István Tarlós, the incumbent supported by the ruling coalition Fidesz–KDNP. The former’s coalition comprises several liberal and left-wing parties, including his own Dialogue for Hungary. This united opposition has also gained momentum in other Hungarian urban centers, while Orbán’s Fidesz party still controls rural areas (and part of the urban areas, as far as local elections are concerned). This opposition, however, still looks more like a resolute stand against the Prime Minister autocratic regime, rather than a consistent left-wing progressive movement across the country.
Under his time in office, Karácsony will try to fulfill his campaign promises, namely easing the housing crisis, stop evictions and provide care for the most vulnerable. He also intends to “build a free and green twenty-first-century European city”, which means slashing carbon emissions, investing in public transportation, cycling infrastructure and closing the circle on corruption. On income policy, he has favored the implementation of a universal basic income (UBI) in Hungary, which is the exact opposite of where Viktor Orbán stands, on that issue. The latter has referred to UBI, in fact, as “an utterly unthinkable approach”.
The term “iliberal democracy” has been coined by Orbán himself, as a compact description of his own regime. Over this background, Karácsony’s policies and the left-wing progressive movement he represents couldn’t be more in opposition to the politics that have swept the country for almost a decade now. It remains to be seen if this movement can stand a chance of taking hold of Hungary in the next few years, along with the promise of a more just and humane social system, probably involving something like a UBI. In any case, Gergely Karácsony is a man to be followed closely at the moment.
More information at:
Imre Szijarto, “Hungarians can’t be bought with potatoes”, Jacobin, 27th October 2019
André Coelho, “HUNGARY: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán speaks harshly against basic income”, Basic Income News, March 21st 2017
by Andre Coelho | Oct 23, 2019 | News
It seems that it is no longer just Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang who is speaking about basic income (his version of it) at Democratic Party Debates. And although basic income is still a minor issue debated at these events, it is relevant to acknowledge that other candidates are also casting their support for the idea. That has been the case of Tulsi Gabbard, and Julián Castro, both present at the latest forth debate. Gabbard has stated that “I think universal basic income is a good idea (…) Universal basic income is a good idea to help provide that security so people can make choices that they want to see”, and Castro has shown openness to conducting basic income pilots in the United States territory.
Meanwhile, Andrew Yang’s campaign has been rising exponentially, even though being actively ignored by major news outlets. The list of public figure endorsements has been gaining weight, including names such as Elon Musk (Tesla, Space X), Sam Altman (Y Combinator), Scott Santens, Andy Stern (ESP, SEIU ex-president) and even Nicholas Cage. Fundraising has also been rising steeply, from 1,7 million US$ up to 10 million US$ within 2019 alone (almost a 6-fold increase), 99% of which comes from small donors (200 US$ or less, averaging 30 US$). Also, Yang has qualified for all four Democratic Party Presidential debates so far, and is already setup for the fifth one (on November 20th 2019), and has been attributed the responsibility for introducing basic income into the American wider political discussion.
More information at:
Delia Paunescu, “The fourth 2020 Democratic presidential debate, explained in under 25 minutes”, Vox, October 16th 2019
“Universal Basic Income Gains Momentum Beyond Yang at Fourth Debate as Gabbard and Castro Add Their Support”, Basic Income Today, October 16th 2019
by Andre Coelho | Oct 18, 2019 | News
Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee. Picture credit: dailyO
Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer were awarded the Economics Nobel Prize this year. That alone would not represent a huge novelty, given the standard these professionals and scholars have set in the last few years. However, in an article as far back as June 2016, Banerjee had already defended the basic income policy for India, as a way to reduce poverty, cut through corruption and minimize bureaucracy. Later on, already in 2019, Indian voters got not to elect the party (Congress Party) which was more serious about implementing (a version of) basic income in India, favoring the BJP ruling party. That, however, did not end the discussion about basic income in the Indian continent, in part because Banerjee, Duflo and other respectable scholars like Thomas Piketty, have been thinking, writing and speaking about the issue at the highest levels.
This award comes right before the release of Banerjee and Duflo new book, entitled “Good Economics for Hard Times”, a forward-looking elaboration on society, economic problems and creative social solutions. In it, basic income features as an important, if not crucial policy, for reducing poverty, simplifying governmental aid programs and increasing universality in cash transfers. In the authors’ own words:
Immigration and inequality, globalization and technological disruption, slowing growth and accelerating climate change–these are sources of great anxiety across the world, from New Delhi and Dakar to Paris and Washington, DC. The resources to address these challenges are there–what we lack are ideas that will help us jump the wall of disagreement and distrust that divides us. If we succeed, history will remember our era with gratitude; if we fail, the potential losses are incalculable.
Meanwhile, also, other heavy-weight economists like Angus Deaton, also a recent Economics Nobel Prize laureate, have come forward in defense of basic income-like type of policies.
More information at:
Abhijit V. Banerjee, “The best way to welfare”, The Indian Express, June 18th 2016
Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, “Excerpt: Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo on Which Kind of UBI Could Work in India”, October 15th 2019
André Coelho, “India: The stars were not aligned in 2019, for basic income in the Indian continent”, Basic Income News, May 29th 2019
by Andre Coelho | Oct 16, 2019 | News
Basic Income seems to be a hot issue to debate at the local elections run in Thunder Bay (Ontario, Canada). Ever since the cancellation of the Ontario basic income pilot project, by the Doug Administration, discussions over basic income type of policies have been growing in number and intensity. Thunder Bay was one of the localities over which the pilot was being run.
At Thunder Bay’s Chamber of Commerce, last week on October 9th, political candidates from all six colors (Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Greens, People’s Party and Liberatarians) agreed, at least in principle, on the necessity of implementing a basic income over time. Although differences existed between the candidate’s approach to it, all agreed that something needed be done about poverty in Canada, and that people needed assistance to cope with the ever-changing nature of work and life challenges. The Libertarian candidate, though, underlined that, according to him, basic income was unlikely to be implemented in Canada within the next four years. The Ontario interrupted basic income pilot project was mentioned several times over the event, since it represents the most palpable reference as a basic income experiment within Thunder Bay’s territory.
More information at:
Leith Dunick, “Candidates argue merits of basic-income guarantee”, tbnewswatch, October 9th 2019
André Coelho, “Canada: Report “Signposts to Success” shows how beneficial the cancelled Ontario basic income experiment was being”, Basic Income News, June 5th 2019
Kate McFarland, “ONTARIO, CANADA: New Government Declares Early End of Guaranteed Income Experiment”, Basic Income News, August 2nd 2018
by Andre Coelho | Oct 13, 2019 | News
Elisabeth May. Picture credit to: Mission City Record.
Elisabeth May, Canada’s Green Party leader has spoken about a “robot tax” which, according to the party’s Platform, focuses on large companies (exempting slam businesses) laying off employees due to investments in artificial intelligence (AI). In this scheme, these companies would pay the equivalent amount of income tax which would be due from the displaced workers. However, funds collected this way would be used not to finance a universal basic income (UBI) – also called a Guaranteed Livable Income in the Platform document – but to backup educational and retraining programs.
This is line with the Party’s professed uncertainty – as expressed in their Platform 2019 Costing – about how to finance and administer a UBI in Canada, although the Party supports UBI as an idea and has pleaded the Federal Government to restart the Ontario basic income pilot project.
More information at:
“Green party proposes a ‘robot tax’ when companies replace workers with machines”, CBC, 29th September 2019
by Andre Coelho | Oct 9, 2019 | News
The Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu)
As reported before, an Estonian collective of basic income activists, led by Jaanus Nurmoja, delivered a petition to the Social Affairs Committee (SAC) of the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu), calling for the investigation of a universal basic income (UBI) implementation in Estonia, on March 29th 2019. Five months later – three months passed from the excepted date of reply – the SAC decides not to study the issue, although that apparently contradicts the initiative expressed text, and Estonian Law. In the words of SAC’s spokesman (Tõnis Mölder), pronounced at the committee meeting on Tuesday, 17th of September 2019: “At the moment, however, the implementation of such a system in Estonia does not seem reasonable, as there is no financial analysis and no assurance that the current social system could be replaced by something more efficient”.
According to the activists, this decision is not consistent with Estonian Law, since the Working Rules Act is not being observed. Abiding to these rules would imply only rejecting proposals submitted “less than two years earlier or obviously [violating] constitutional principles of Estonia and international agreements”. Also, these argue that the rejection is based on a self-referring (circular) argumentation: that the proposal of investigating UBI in Estonia cannot be accepted, because there has not been any investigation on UBI in Estonia. This led the activists to question if the proposal text had even been read in full by the SAC members.
Jannus Nurmonia and the other co-signatories of the “Investigating the Feasibility and Impact of Unconditional Basic Income (Civic Salary) in Estonia” petition are now calling for a withdrawal of this decision, postponing the actual discussion of the proposal for the next SAC meeting. They are convinced a UBI will eventually be unavoidable in Estonia, and so starting feasibility studies over it should start as soon as possible.
More information at:
“Committee: Universal basic income will not be introduced anytime soon”, ERR, September 18th 2019
“Public letter: the reason for rejecting a research initiative doesn’t correspond to the initiative’s content and laws, neither”, Kodanikupalga Teataja, October 2nd 2019
André Coelho, “Estonia: Estonian Parliament examines possibility of testing basic income in the country”, Basic Income News, June 28th 2019
