by Guest Contributor | Aug 15, 2016 | Opinion
From September 19th to 25th, 2016 we celebrate the ninth International Week of Unconditional Basic Income, and you can get involved where you are!
National and local groups and activists everywhere will be on the streets, in cinemas, in universities, on the internet or in the media to spread the word about basic income.
Last year for the eighth International Week we had events and media coverage in 29 countries on all continents.
To show how big and relevant a topic basic income is becoming we collate all events on this website or check out our calendar.
If you are already planning an event, please log it into our contact page to post to our calendar, post it on Twitter with the hashtag #basicincomeweek9 or tell us about it on Facebook.
When you have links to media coverage, photos, videos or links to your website or social media that you want to share with basic income supporters from other countries, please add them! We are also still happy to receive links to articles from last year’s International Week.
If you have events on in September that were not especially planned for basic income week, but fall into that week please add them, too. Anything basic income goes!
If you would like to host an event, but are not sure what to do yet, have a look at last year’s calendar for ideas.
If you want to tell us current basic income news from your country, we would be happy to interview you via Skype.
Enjoy the ninth International Basic Income Week!
by Guest Contributor | Aug 15, 2016 | Opinion
The Unconditional Basic Income has been springing up around the world as a new human rights movement, protecting everyone’s fundamental right to life. In addition to basic human rights, traditional Chinese Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism shows us the fundamental nature of humanity is good, in that all beings originally are Buddhas, all are endowed with Buddha nature (1), so each human being deserves equal respect and care. The Unconditional Basic Income is a manifestation of this ideology of benevolence.
Around 2,300 years ago, China’s Mencius wrote in King Hui of Liang, due to a lack of constant property, the common people also lack unwavering perseverance. This will lead to a dissipation of propriety, causing a tide of lawlessness. Waiting until a citizen breaks the law, and utilizing punishment to handle him is essentially like using a fishing net to ensnare the populace. How can a benevolent monarch think this type of policy can be put into practice? As such, a wise monarch will formulate property for the people, giving them the ability to serve their parents and provide for their spouse and children. During a year of prosperity, a family can eat well and during years of shortages, they can still avoid starvation. Then enlightenment can be put into practice, urging the populace to perform good deeds, making it easier for them to follow the enlightenment. This is what Mencius meant when he said “Establishing property of the people, make them have sufficient food and clothing; first support (the people), then teach (the people).”
Thus, each of the basic income experiments around the world allow us to realize that after a person receives a guarantee for their livelihood, crime goes down, educational outcomes go up, economies grow, physical and spiritual health improves, families and societies become more harmonious, and parents have more time to accompany and take care of their children. Society is created by each family unity. Creating more harmonious families will make a more harmonious and safe society. In today’s turbulent world, implementing a UBI is of the utmost importance.
Inspired by the news surrounding Switzerland’s basic income referendum, this February I worked with the respected teacher Chunchi Tsao, a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, to start a new organization Global Basic Income Social Welfare Promotion Association in Taiwan. On Facebook, I recruited 30 people to found the organization to apply through the government to become an official organization. I hope that we can cooperate with the global movement to push the basic income, free education, social housing, free vegetarian restaurants for environmental protection, etc. in order to implement social welfare.
The honorary president of our association, Taiwan University’s School of Law European Union Law Research Center (EULRC) Dr. Lukas Lien said, “When the country’s founder, Dr. Sun Yatsen said ‘of the people, by the people, for the people,’ the genuine meaning was a country of social welfare, instead of the Nationalist KMT party’s idea of exploiting the people. No. The real meaning is to give all of the resources to the people and then the government can attain so-called legitimacy. Otherwise what can they rely on for legitimacy to levy taxes? The purpose of taxes is for educating the people, ensuring everyone has food, clothing, housing, transportation, and then the most important element is ensuring the most basic right to life. In German it is not called UBI. It is called the most fundament, the most basic right to life. That is to say, at the very least, is that no matter the circumstances, no one will face starvation.”
The purpose of government’s existence is to take care of the people. If a government does not take care of the people’s food, clothing, shelter, education and their fundament right to life, then a government is no longer needed, and in fact no longer has legitimacy to levy taxes and legislate to regulate the people. Since ancient times, both the East and the West have followed the ideology: “The will of the people is the will of Heaven,” and “The people are God.” The Book of History puts forward “Heaven sees what the people see, Heaven hears what the people hear,” and “That which the people desire, Heaven must abide by.” In Latin it is, “Vox Populi, Vox Dei”, or “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Dr. Lien also quotes the last Pope: “because all are created in the image of god, so we must protect people, in the same way that we protect the image of God. In his Christian Socialism course, Dr. Lien quotes Matthew 25 verse 31-46, the story of the judgement day: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” That is to say, we push for the basic income in order to push for world peace.
The practical way to achieve this is through the basic income, free education, and social housing as social welfare protections in the constitution and legislation. Educate the people about the ideology and law behind these basic rights is the first obligation. Revolution has to start from the mind. Once the people have the understanding of the ideology and law, then we will be able to choose and create a government of benevolence, as well as understand how to use legislation to push for these social benefits.
Collecting the revenue for the basic income has many different methods, for example taxes and printing money, cutting and integrating general welfare spending, generating profits or raising money. As science and technology continues to progress, humanity can already gradually use automation and robots to substitute human labor. This will give people more time and energy to pursue artistic and creative endeavors, entrepreneurship, spiritual development and realize their own dreams.
Our organization already conceived of some methods to fund the basic income: develop autonomous robotic national industries in order to produce food and other necessities and allocate the profits to all people. The American economist Milton Friedman 1969 popularized the satirical idea of throwing cash from helicopters and letting people collect it. In reality, the Central Bank could print money and directly give it to the entire population. In the second year, the basic income could be matched with a consumption tax and some of the money that was issued could be absorbed back into government coffers. From this, an uninterrupted source of finances could supply the revenue for the unconditional basic income to smoothly operate over the long-term. Certainly, there are many more methods for financing the UBI, which could all be properly tuned and applied.
Universal unconditional basic income is not only feasible; it is an imperative.
Annotation: 1. All beings are originally Buddhas – The Chart of Mortals, Saints, Delusion and Enlightenment
Written by Juku Shenguang: Founder, Vice-president and Secretary-General of Global Basic Income Social Welfare Promotion Association in Taiwan.
Translated by Tyler Prochazka
by Dave Clegg | Aug 11, 2016 | Opinion
Guy Standing has published a new book that became available on July 14, 2016, published by BiteBack.
The book notes that the implications of the Age of Rentier Capitalism go beyond the economic sphere as the plutocracy fund and influence political parties, while media ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few powerful individuals.The Corruption of Capitalism shows why, in the interests of democracy and our common wealth, the rise of rentier capitalism must be resisted. If it is not, we risk dire social and political consequences.
A summary from the publisher states: ”
There is a lie at the heart of global capitalism. Politicians, financiers and global bureaucrats claim to believe in free competitive markets, but have constructed the most unfree market system ever. It is corrupt because income is channelled to the owners of property – financial, physical and intellectual – at the expense of society.
This book reveals how global capitalism is rigged in favour of rentiers to the detriment of all of us, especially the precariat. A plutocracy and elite enriches itself, not through production of goods and services, but through ownership of assets, including intellectual property, aided by subsidies, tax breaks, debt mechanisms, revolving doors between politics and business, and the privatisation of public services. Rentier capitalism is entrenched by the corruption of democracy, manipulated by the plutocracy and an elite-dominated media.
Meanwhile, wages stagnate as labour markets are transformed by outsourcing, automation and the on-demand economy, generating more rental income while expanding the precariat.
The Corruption of Capitalism argues that rentier capitalism is fostering revolt, and concludes by outlining a new income distribution system that would achieve the extinction of the rentier while promoting sustainable growth.”
To view and pre-order the book online, visit: https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/the-corruption-of-capitalism
by Guest Contributor | Aug 10, 2016 | Opinion
By Alexander de Roo
The 20th century was the century of social democracy in Western Europe. But nowadays the social democratic model of the welfare state is in deep crisis. This model — in which paid work is central, full (male) employment is the norm, and social benefits are dependent on performance in paid work — is no longer working and no longer appealing to voters.
The strong political position of social democracy in Western Europe has been based on the strength of labor unions. Economic changes, however, have accelerated the declining membership of unions. The strength of the various social democratic parties has thus been structurally eroded. Consumption and leisure time are becoming ever more important. These factors open the way for basic income as the economic model for the 21st century.
There is a strong relationship between the strength of the unions and the popularity of the Dutch Labor Party in national elections. In the chart below, the dotted line represents the strength of the unions, while the continuous line represents the strength of the Labor Party:
As you can see, there is a structural relationship between the strength of the unions and the electoral strength of the Dutch Labor Party (PvdA – the social democratic party of the Netherlands). The unions are slowly losing members in the Netherlands. The decline is largely due to structural changes in advanced economies. For example, total manufacturing employment in America has fallen from nearly 20 million in 1979 to 12 million today. The kinds of workers who have lost out — unskilled men, in particular — were precisely those who were most likely to belong to a union in the first place. And what has sprung up in their place further undermines unions. If you went to a factory in the 1970s, you would have seen assembly lines of people. Such workers were much more amenable to the idea of “class consciousness”. Go to a factory today and you might you find a few people monitoring robots and other whizzy bits of machinery. Add other economic changes to the mix — globalization (which makes it harder for unions to regulate work), the rise of a more flexible service sector and government policies — and the loss of union clout seems inevitable. More recent reforms to minimum wage and workplace discrimination have also reduced the need felt by individuals to belong to a union.
The decline of the Dutch Christian Democratic party
Additionally, the other political party essential to the construction of the Dutch welfare state, the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), is in structural decline. Below, we see the electoral results of the CDA over the last 60 years – from an absolute majority in the 1950s and early 1960s to only 10 percent in the 2012 elections.
The blue line represents the three different Christian democratic parties in the Netherlands, which merged in 1980 to form the singular CDA – represented by the green line.
In the general election of 2006 — before the 2008 economic crisis — the CDA and the PvdA together had 46 percent of the vote. That proportion dropped to 32 percent in both the 2010 and 2012 national elections. Today, according to opinion polls, these two parties together command just over 20 percent of the vote. That is to say, the parties of the old social model have declined from 46 percent in 2006 to 20 percent in 2016, losing more than half their support in just 10 years.
Conclusion: Political support for the old welfare state, developed by the Labor Party and the Christian Democratic Appeal, along with the unions, has been completely eroded.
The Dutch Precariat: Almost 40 percent
“In the 21st century, technological changes are being introduced into economic and social life at a much faster pace than in the 20th century,” noted Dennis Meadows, one of the authors of Limits to Growth, in a 2012 lecture in Brussels.
One of the most important trends has been the rise of flexible work. This has been especially strong in the Netherlands. Today 20 percent of Dutch workers, amounting to 1.7 million people, are on flexible contracts. The increase seems unstoppable. Unions are demanding that politicians repair this state of affairs by restoring the old model of stable, regulated jobs through legislation.
Alongside the 1.7 million flex workers are 1.3 million people who are self-employed. At least 20 percent of these – 0.3 million people – became self-employed due to a lack of alternatives. The graph below shows the increase in flexible jobs over last 10 years, and the corresponding decrease in regular jobs. The blue bars signify the increase in the number of flex workers, while the brown bars indicate the change (usually negative) in the number of regular workers.
Additionally, there are 0.6 million people officially registered as unemployed, and 0.4 million who depend on social benefits (“Bij-stand” in Dutch). In total, 3 million people and their dependents form the Dutch precariat. Approximately 5 million people still have regular jobs – 10 percent fewer than 10 years ago. And automatization is threatening even these jobs. In the debate in The Netherlands, the position that the rise of the robots will lead to structural unemployment is still minor. However, studies like one from Oxford University show that approximately 50 percent of the jobs that exist today will no longer be secure in 20 years’ time (THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYMENT: HOW SUSCEPTIBLE ARE JOBS TO COMPUTERISATION? Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne; September 17, 2013).
Opportunities for basic income implementation are growing in the Netherlands
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” – Victor Hugo
The decline of the two old parties that built the Dutch welfare state, combined with the rise in number of the Dutch precariat, opens the way for a post-social democratic pathway. Basic income has the strongest card. In contrast to the 1980s and 1990s, large parts of the Dutch population are now receptive to the idea of basic income, given that the present welfare system is – in their eyes – no longer worth fighting for.
History of the basic income debate in the Netherlands
There was fierce debate about basic income in the 1980s and 90s in the Netherlands. The Dutch branch of BIEN, “Vereniging Basisinkomen”, was founded in 1989. Before that, an organization called “Workshop Basic Income” promoted the idea. The PvdA almost adopted basic income in its national election program in 1993 (with 40 percent in favor). Then, in 1994, there was a debate about basic income in the national government. On the side of basic income were the Minister of Economic Affairs, Hans Wijers (of Democrats 66, left wing liberals), and the Minister of Finance, Gerrit Zalm (the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, right wing liberals). On the other side, the Prime Minister, Wim Kok (of the PvdA), argued successfully that basic income’s time had not yet come, claiming it to be a topic for 30 years down the line. The economic upswing of the early years of the new millennium subsequently overshadowed this discussion in the Netherlands.
The financial and economic crisis of 2008 changed the economic and political landscape. And, over the past three years, the basic income discussion has returned to the Netherlands, becoming much more intense than it was 25 years ago.
Even with the recent economic upswing, the old status quo — under which almost all adult citizens had a secure, regular job — is history. A new scheme of social security is urgently necessary. The general public recognizes this.
National poll: 40 percent in favor; 15 percent don’t know; 45 percent against basic income
In a recent national poll, 40 percent of the Dutch population declared themselves to be in favor of a basic income, with 45 percent against and 15 percent expressing uncertainty. The voters of the three left wing parties are in favor, with their endorsement breaking down as follows: GreenLeft 60 percent, the Socialist Party 54 percent, and PvdA 53 percent.
The votes of Democrats 66 are divided, with 44 percent in favor and 45 percent against. The followers of the right wing parties, by contrast, are quite clearly against basic income: 73 percent against in People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, and 61 percent against in CDA. It is interesting to note that voters of the populist right wing Party for Freedom, headed by Geert Wilders, are also divided, with 37 percent in favor, 46 percent against and 17 percent uncertain. The Party for Freedom is the biggest party in current polls.
Enthusiasm
When we hand out our basic income leaflets to the general public, about 50 percent of people take the pamphlet and react positively, while the other half ignores us. Several times a young couple, arm in arm, would pass me – the young man would nod that he was not interested, but the young woman would leave him to walk back and collect a leaflet! We have lively discussions with the public. Even young people who were not alive 25 years ago, when that first debate raged, have already a very good idea of what basic income is. I have been active in politics for 42 years and I have never encountered so much enthusiasm.
Free money for everyone
The return of the basic income idea to the Dutch debate has been invigorated by a book by the young historian Rutger Bregman (only 28 years of age), Gratis Geld voor Iedereen (Free Money for Everyone), which was published in September 2014, along with a few national television documentaries. Bregman’s influential book on basic income is now available in English, under the title Utopia for Realists.
Petition for the Dutch parliament
A petition to put basic income on the agenda of the Dutch parliament gathered 50,000 signatures over a couple of months. The intention is to generate 100,000 signatures by autumn so that basic income can play a role in the election campaign for the Dutch national elections in March 2017.
Local experiments with basic income
Several basic income experiments are planned in the Netherlands. Nineteen municipalities have officially declared their willingness to initiate such an experiment to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. Utrecht, Groningen, Tilburg and Wageningen were the first four to do so, and they are currently in conversation with the State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment in order to establish the necessary space in the law. These experiments will not comprise trials of a full basic income, even though many are based on the idea of a basic income. Instead, elements of a basic income are to be implemented in these experiments within the rubric of the current Dutch minimum welfare scheme (“Bij-stand”). More precisely, for the experiment participants, allowances will be made unconditional, allowing recipients of the minimum welfare to earn money simultaneously and thereby removing the currently existing poverty trap.
Various questions will be addresed by these experiments:
- Will people become more active if they are free to do what they want, as compared to the present situation under which they must apply for jobs and be policed?
- Will people become more autonomous?
- Will people become healthier?
- Will people be quicker to participate in paid work if they are allowed to earn in addition to receiving their allowance?
A large majority of the parliament is in favor of the experiments, but the details are still under discussion nationally, and there is a legal process that must be completed. If all goes well, the first experiments will start in January 2017.
Why have the experiments not yet started? Will there be 25 experiments in 2017?
The experiments should have already started, in fact, but the national government is very slow in giving the green light. The Dutch GreenLeft asked the national parliament in November 2015 to clear the way for these experiments. Fifteen of the 17 political groups in the national parliament said yes, with only Wilders’ Party for Freedom and Prime Minister Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy saying no. According to the latest update, the government is now working on an administrative decree which will allow the 25 most advanced municipalities to start their experiments in January 2017. That is likely to annoy the other 50 municipalities that also wish to initiate their own experiments.
Since the national elections are set for March 17th, 2017, this issue will most likely play a role in the national election campaign. It is likely that the left wing parties (GreenLeft, PvdA and, perhaps, the Socialist Party) will put forward demands for a Finnish-style experiment of basic income during the 2007 national election. One small party, the Cultural Liberal Party, is already advocating for the introduction of a basic income of €800 in the Netherlands.
Funding of basic income should be based on consumption rather than labor
The Dutch branch of BIEN has developed a model to raise VAT and environmental taxes, while removing most tax exemptions, to fund a basic income of €1100 per person. In the long run, this amount should be increased to €1400. The option of a small tax on financial transactions is also of interest in this regard. We oppose models that would fund basic income solely on an increase of taxes on labor. The Dutch Central Planning Bureau did just that in 2006, resulting in 56 percent income tax for everyone and a five percent increase in unemployment. We are instead fighting for a new calculation based on increasing consumption taxes so as to make it clear to the public that a basic income is (easily) affordable.
Alexander de Roo (alexanderderoo@gmail.com) was one of the founding fathers of BIEN and served as BIEN’s treasurer from 1986-2006. He studied chemical technology in Delft (1972-1978) and political science in Amsterdam (1976-1982), and was a GreenLeft Member of the European Parliament from 1999-2004.
Alexander de Roo photo credit: Bill Crompton.
Content reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan and Kate McFarland.
by Tyler Prochazka | Aug 3, 2016 | Opinion
As the US Presidential race heats up, most of the candidates have already made their opinions known regarding Universal Basic Income. Regardless, it is imperative that the United States fund new basic income pilot programs to test how a basic income would affect the current economy.
The United States experimented with a type of basic income in the 1960s and 70s, but it is time to collect new data. This is the first step toward implementing a full UBI in the United States.
Recent pilot programs throughout the world, such as in India, have given the basic income movement ammunition to push its message, showing improved educational, health and entrepreneurial outcomes. A pilot program in the United States would show policymakers that a basic income is far superior to our outdated bureaucratic safety net.
Sign this petition to ask all of the US presidential candidates to take a pledge to fund basic income pilot programs throughout the country.
by Michael Lytton | Aug 2, 2016 | Opinion
An article on basic income appeared in The Hindu newspaper recently and is potentially significant because it was written by a Member of Parliament in the ruling BJP party. Does it reflect possible government policy? No one, including Varun Gandhi, is telling. Moreover, what he means by the “need to talk about basic income” is anyone’s guess.
The article is a bit of a mish-mash of history in North America, but also includes reference to the cash transfer pilots in India. Gandhi makes the usual mention of the 1970s Canadian experiment in Manitoba with a negative income tax, but I think interested readers should examine the more recent work of Evelyn L. Forget, the author of the oft-cited study “The Town with No Poverty: The Health Effects of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment.” (The 2008 draft version of this article has an extended discussion of the history of the idea in North America. However, the draft isn’t available on ResearchGate.)
At the University of Manitoba, Dr. Forget has a project that asks the question, “Is MINCOME useful in the development of a Basic Income pilot in Ontario and elsewhere?” She points out that the sociopolitical environment, research methods and policy context are all different now than they were in the 1970s and demanding a critical examination of the relevance of the old experiment.
From her ResearchGate site you can download an April 2016 presentation prepared for a symposium on UBI pilot design for the Ontario government. You might also access the following valuable documents: “Cash Transfers, Basic Income and Community Building,” and “The Experiment that Could End Welfare.”
Mr. Gandhi’s piece extols the virtues of a basic income but overstates his case in a number of areas—village sanitation, access to drinking water, growth of rural employment and the national economy, and the pursuit of happiness. He even makes the startling declaration that with respect to automation and the threat to work “the basic income stands out as a panacea”. With such statements you might wonder if he’s being serious, or aware that he could inadvertently be discrediting the idea with extravagant claims.
India presents complex development challenges and it’s not clear that a basic income is the best or only approach. For example, Joseph Stiglitz, who generally supports the idea of a basic income, argues that targeting the needy is a necessary trade-off when public budgets are tight. And, I wonder, when aren’t they tight?
India is home to more than one-third of the world’s stunted children. If current trends continue, by 2030 India will have the world’s highest global burden of under-five year old deaths (17 percent). It has more poor people in absolute numbers in eight states than the 26 poorest sub Saharan countries combined. The main reason for extreme poverty in rural areas lies in the still largely agrarian economy and its very low productivity due to small landholdings and underemployed farming labor. Droughts have also taken their toll. People resort to informal agricultural work because there is no alternative, or landowners need to supplement their incomes and join the landless in seeking wage labor. It is estimated that 5.5 percent of a country’s GDP will be required to provide education for all by 2030, yet in 2012, India invested 3.9 percent. Corruption is endemic.
With such a constellation of issues, interventions can quickly get complicated, producing tensions between targeted transfer approaches and universal approaches. Nutrition is one example. Pakistan is modifying its unconditional cash transfer program (the Benazir Income Support Program) so that it can better respond to—read target— the nutritional needs of women and children.
India currently addresses the underlying determinants of nutrition—food security, rural livelihoods, and sanitation—with a smorgasbord of programs that include the Public Distribution System, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), and the Swachh Bharat Mission. These centrally sponsored programs are then delivered by state governments, where there are risks of corruption or of states simply not prioritizing nutrition.
Others argue that without targeting for health, households will not get around to malnutrition or education. At the same time, studies confirm that health deficiencies lead to cognitive deficits and experts recommend that health and cognition be addressed in tandem to potentially reinforce each other.
But out-of-pocket health expenditures, especially for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) can impoverish Indian households. A recent systematic review of the global impact of NCDs on household income (Jaspers et al., 2015) found that cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients in India spent 30 percent of their annual family income on direct CVD health care.
Finally, providing equal amounts of finance on a per pupil basis is not necessarily a formula for equitable education funding. For children who enter an education system with disadvantages associated with poverty, gender, disability or ethnicity, more resources may be needed to achieve opportunities equivalent to those enjoyed by more privileged children.
As they say in India about so many things, what to do?
More information at:
Jaspers, Loes, Veronica Colpani, Layal Chaker, Sven J. van der Lee, Taulant Muka, David Imo, Shanthi Mendis, et al. 2015. “The Global Impact of Non-Communicable Diseases on Households and Impoverishment: A Systematic Review.” European Journal of Epidemiology 30 (3): 163–88
Feroze Varun Gandhi, “Why we need to talk about a basic income”. The Hindu, June 30th 2016
