by Craig Axford | Jul 14, 2014 | Opinion
During the 2014 elections for the European Parliament, the Basic Income Earth Network, at the request of its partner, Unconditional Basic Income Europe, signed an open letter to all candidates for the European parliament. The full text of the open letter follows.
Open Letter To All Candidates For The European Parliament
Given the commitment by the EU to reduce poverty by 20 million by 2020, most people want to know: What will you do to deliver results for people in the European Union? Did you know that according to the most recent data available, around one fourth of the EU population, that is about 120 million people, are at risk of poverty? However, given the prolonged economic crisis since 2008 and increasing automation of production permanently eliminating many jobs, there are reasons to believe that the situation will get even worse in the future if nothing changes.
Unconditional Basic Income Europe, which represents basic income networks and organisations in 25 EU countries, along with Basic Income Earth Network, with members all around the globe, would like to underline the current threat which income inequality represents to a peaceful, democratic and social Europe. Therefore we expect our newly elected representatives to support those strategies which will promote social cohesion and ensure sustainable and inclusive development in Europe. Our representatives should see the crisis as a wake-up call.
Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) is an amount of money, paid on a regular basis to each individual unconditionally and universally, high enough to ensure a material existence and participation in society. It differs from traditional guaranteed minimum income (GMI) / social security schemes by removing the bureaucracy and its costs as well as the stigma of means-testing. UBI also eliminates the disincentive to work caused by the high marginal tax rates (65-95%) imposed by these schemes.
Pilot studies throughout the world have proved that UBI is a far more effective tool for reducing poverty and inequality than traditional social security schemes and subsidies, with more positive effects on local economies, health, societal cohesion, public safety and education. An unconditional basic income implemented throughout Europe could also reduce tensions created by intra-EU immigration forced by lack of economic opportunity. It may seem like a radical proposal, but the current ‘business as usual’ attitude is not sustainable and endangers the EU itself.
We expect our representatives and the European Commission to take further serious and practical steps on the European Parliament resolution 2010/2039(INI) of 20 October 2010 on the role of minimum income in combating poverty and promoting an inclusive society in Europe.
Considering that the unemployment rate will gradually increase due to technological advancement while productivity increases, ordinary Guaranteed Minimum Income schemes are becoming less and less effective, leading to rising inequality and social exclusion – all these lead to conclusion that we need culture change to tackle these problems. If you are elected, will you raise a debate about unconditional basic income in the European Parliament and will you stand for implementing it in the EU?
The 9th of May is celebrated as Europe Day because of the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman. He had a strong vision of a Europe which was peaceful and prosperous for everybody without exception. Europe has become peaceful and prosperous, but not for everybody. Let´s finish the job Robert Schuman has started. What are we waiting for?
Undersigned by:
Unconditional Basic Income Europe
Basic Income Earth Network
The open letter was originally posted at: https://one-europe.info/initiative/open-letter-to-all-candidates-for-the-european-parliament
Sources about poverty in Europe and Unconditional Basic Income:
Ending Poverty is a Political Choice! https://www.eapn.eu/en/news-and-publications/press-room/eapn-press-releases/ending-poverty-is-a-political-choice
Short movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zru79jcVTt4
Recent interview with Prof. Philippe van Parijs, Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL): “Van Parijs: An unconditional basic income in Europe will help end the crisis“ https://www.euractiv.com/sections/social-europe-jobs/van-parijs-unconditional-basic-income-europe-will-help-end-crisis-301503
For more profound insight, please watch the movie “Basic Income – a Cultural Impulse“ https://dotsub.com/view/26520150-1acc-4fd0-9acd-169d95c9abe1
Unconditional Basic Income Europe: https://basicincome-europe.org/
Basic Income Earth Network: https://basicincome.org
by Karl Widerquist | Jul 4, 2014 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This book was recommended to me as technology-based argument for the basic income guarantee (BIG), and it is, but its support is tentative and only for BIG in the form of the Negative Income Tax (NIT), not in the form of a Universal Basic Income (UBI).
The authors define the computer revolution that is currently underway as “the second machine age.” The industrial revolution was “the first machine age.” It brought machines that could apply power to do simple but profoundly important tasks, eventually replacing most human- and animal-powered industries with steam, electrical power, and so on. Machines of the first machine age could often do those tasks much better than humans or beasts of burden ever could. For example, the replacements for horses—automobiles, trains, and airplanes—can carry more people and more cargo father and faster than horses ever could.
Machines of the second machine age have gone beyond the application of power; they are also replacing some human brainwork. Calculators have been around so long that few people are aware they replaced a form of human labor, called “computers.” In the early 20th century, “computers” were people who did computations. It was skilled brainwork, far beyond the capabilities of the up-and-coming technologies of the day, such as the internal combustion engine. Computers (as we define the term today) have almost entirely replaced that form of human labor, and their ability to substitute for human labor only continues to increase—especially when combined with robotics.
The computational powers of computers are so strong can already beat the best chess masters and “Jeopardy” champions. Self-driving cars, which have turned driving into a complex computational task, will not only relieve us all of the task of driving to work, they have the potential to put every professional driver out of business. Perhaps computers, then, will someday learn not just to calculate, but also to think and evaluate. If so, might they eventually replace the need for all human labor?
Perhaps, but Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, the authors of the Second Machine Age, do not base their arguments on any such scenario. The possibility of a truly thinking computer is out there, but no one knows how to make a computer think, and no one knows when or how that might happen.
So, the authors focus on the improvements in computers that we can see and envision right now: machines that can augment and aid human thought with computational ability increasing at the current exponential rate. As long as computers are calculating but not truly thinking, humans will have an important role in production. For example, although computers can beat an unaided chess master, they cannot beat a reasonably skilled human chess player aided by computer. This is the focus of the book: computers and robotics taking over routinized tasks (both physical and mental), while humans still the deep thinking with access to aid from more and more computer power.
This change will be enough to radically transform the labor market and eliminate many (if not most) of the jobs that currently exist. At the enormous rate of increase in computing power, one does not have to envision a self-aware, sentient machine to see that the effects on the economy will be profound. According to the authors, “in the next 24 months, the planet will add more computer power than it did in all previous history; over the next 24 years, the increase will likely be over a thousand-fold.”
The book’s analysis of those changes is very much based on mainstream economic theory. In the books analysis, increases in unemployment and decreases in wages are attributed almost entirely to a decline in demand for labor thanks to the introduction of labor-replacing technology. Political economy considerations, in which powerful people and corporations manipulate the rules of the economy to keep wages low and employment precarious, are not addressed. When the authors consider shifting taxes from payroll to pollution, they don’t consider that powerful corporations have been using their power over the political process very effectively to block any such changes.
Yet, the book demonstrates that even with purely mainstream economic tools, the need to do something is obvious. We have to address the effects of the computer revolution on the labor market. The second machine age creates an enormous opportunity for everyone to become free from drudgery, to focus their time on the goals that they care most about. But it also creates a great danger in which all the benefits of second machine age will go to the people and corporations who own the machines, while the vast majority of people around the world who depend on the labor market to make their living will find themselves fighting for fewer jobs with lower and lower wages.
The technology-replacement argument for BIG has been a major strand in BIG literature at least since the Robert Theobald began writing about the “triple revolution” in the early 1960s.[i] So, approaching this book as I did, I was on the lookout through a large chuck of the book, waiting for BIG to come up. I was very surprised to see the entire “Policy Recommendations” chapter go by without a mention of BIG.
The authors finally addressed BIG in the penultimate chapter entitled, “long-term recommendations.” In the audio version of the book, the authors spend about 20 minutes (out of the 9-hour audiobook) talking about BIG. They recount some of the history of the guaranteed income movement in the United States with sympathy, and write, “Will we need to revive the idea of a basic income in the decades to come? Maybe, but it’s not our first choice.” They opt instead for an NIT, writing “We support turning the Earned Income Tax Credit into a full-fledged Negative Income Tax by making it larger and making it universal.”
Their discussion of why they prefer the NIT to UBI is perhaps the weakest part of the book. They favor work. They want to maintain the wage-labor economy, because, taking inspiration from Voltaire, they argue that work saves people from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need. I am skeptical about this claim. I view it as an employers’ slogan to justify a subservient workforce, but my skepticism about this argument is not why I find the book’s argument for the NIT over UBI to be the weakest part of the book. The reason is that the argument from work-incentives gives no reason to prefer the NIT to UBI. The authors view the NIT as a “work subsidy,” but it is no more a work subsidy than UBI.
The NIT and the UBI are both BIGs, by that, I mean they both guarantee a certain level below which no one’s income will fall—call this the “grant level.” Both allow people to live without working. UBI does this by giving the grant to everyone whether they work or not, but taxing them on their private income. NIT does this by giving the full grant only to those who make no private income and taking a little of it back as they make private income. In standard economic theory, the “take-back rate” of the NIT is equivalent to the “tax-rate” of the UBI, and so either one can be called “marginal tax rate.”
Applying standard mainstream economic theory (which is used throughout the book), the variables that affect people’s labor market behavior are the grant level and marginal tax rate. The higher the grant level and the higher the marginal tax rate, the lower the incentive to work whether the BIG is an NIT or a UBI. You can have an NIT or a UBI with high or low marginal tax rates and grant levels, and you can have a UBI or an NIT that have the same grant level and marginal tax rate. It is for this reason that Milton Friedman, the economist and champion of the NIT, gave for drawing equivalence between the two programs:
INTERVIEWER: “How do you evaluate the proposition of a basic or citizen´s income compared to the alternative of a negative income tax?”
FRIEDMAN: “A basic or citizen’s income is not an alternative to a negative income tax. It is simply another way to introduce a negative income tax”.
-Eduardo Suplicy, USBIG NewsFlash interview, June 2000, https://www.usbig.net/newsletters/june.html
If the book’s arguments for work incentives are sound, I seen an argument for a modest BIG with a low marginal tax rate, but I see no argument one way or another why the BIG should be under the NIT or the UBI model.
Whatever one thinks about the issue of NIT versus UBI, the book presents an extremely sophisticated and powerful argument for moving in the direction of BIG. Therefore, it is a book that anyone interested in any form of BIG should examine closely.
-Karl Widerquist, Cru Coffee House, Beaufort, North Carolina, June 2, 2014, revised June 14, 2014
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014. Audio edition: Grand Haven, Michigan: Brilliance Audio, 2014.
[i] Mostly in three works, The Challenge of Abundance (1961), The Triple Revolution (1964), and The Guaranteed Income (1966).
by Karl Widerquist | Jul 1, 2014 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
Marshall Brain is a science writer (both fiction and non-), futurist, founder of the website How Stuff Works, and a long-time advocate of basic income. His book, Manna: Two Visions of Humanity’s Future, makes a case for basic income—and for a post-work society altogether—through the vehicle of science fiction.
The novel is essentially a thought experiment, working through two possible ways in which society might react when technology becomes so sophisticated that machines replace virtually all human labor. In the dystopian part of the story, America essentially warehouses its excess human labor in humane, but highly restricted and regimented residential community. In the later part of the story, the main character makes his way to Australia where the resources that make the machines run are jointly owned, and people do not have to work if they do not want to.
The story moves quickly beyond basic income to a society that has no more need of paid labor. In Manna’s vision, there is such little need for human effort that people are free to pursue whatever projects they wish, some of which is things we would call “work” but not “paid labor.”
No doubt not all readers will find all aspects of Brain’s utopian vision to be truly utopian. His characters willingly concede a great deal of power over their lives and their own bodies to a centralized, impersonal computer system. They do it for security, but the fear that it will be misused will hit some readers even if it is ignored in the book.
The most important part of the book for BIG supporters is the warning in the dystopian portion of the book. America deals with less need for labor by squeezing wages and then eventually warehousing workers. Brain’s nonfiction work has argued that the rate of increase in computer and robotics technology makes the level of technology discussed in this book a realistic possibility—perhaps sooner than most of us think.
In any case, robotics technology is already here. It’s replacing human effort on a daily basis. It’s affecting our labor market, and those effects will increase every year from now on. Whether or not it will eventually replace all labor, we have to think about how to react to the labor it is now replacing on a daily basis. If we no longer need everyone to work, then BIG has to be part of the solution.
-Karl Widerquist, Cru Coffee House, Beaufort, North Carolina, June 2014
Marshall Brain, Manna: Two Visions of Humanity’s Future. BYG Publishing, Inc. 2012.
Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/Manna-Two-Visions-Humanitys-Future-ebook/dp/B007HQH67U.
Author’s website for the book: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm.
by Guest Contributor | Jun 2, 2014 | Opinion
It’s a bit bizarre if you ever stop and think about rent. When you’re homeless, though, you have a lot of time to think, and it’s hard to think about anything other than paying rent.
If you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to find yourself homeless and don’t have friends or family to crash with, you quickly learn that there really is no place at all for you to go. Actually, the problem is sleeping- there are countless places to kill time for free, places where you can sit, stand, or pace without being chased out or looked at funny. Homelessness really isn’t bad at all during the day. There are shops, parks, libraries, cafes- plenty of safe, climate controlled areas to spend the day. But when night comes and all the free places to linger shut their doors, things get tough. And when the urge to sleep starts to overwhelm you, when all you want in the entire world is to simply lay down unmolested for a few hours, the difficult reality of homelessness sets in.
If you have a vehicle, it’s a bit easier-find a secluded place to pull over, lean your seat back as far as it will go, and try and get some sleep. Every area has its own pro’s and con’s. In a poor neighborhood, residents don’t call the police- they see far worse criminal activity than a person sleeping in their car. But it’s hard to sleep in a sketchy area where a sleeping person in a vehicle-probably with all their world belongings packed into it-presents an easy target for robbery. If it’s the summer, you’ll find yourself faced with a dilemma-the further down you roll your windows, the less the oppressive heat builds up in your car, soaking you in sweat and giving all your belongings the telltale scent of someone without access to a shower or laundry. But the lower the windows go, the more danger (and strange noises in the night) you expose yourself to. It’s not an easy decision to make.
You can try and park in a nicer neighborhood, but the odds of police interrupting you increase greatly. If you are smart you’ll pick a spot near a major highway. When the cops knock on your window, just say “I’m on my way home from work, I was tired and pulled over for a rest.” (Try to disguise the fact that you’ve got all your worldly possessions packed in there with you. Resist the urge to hang your sweaty t-shirts on a coat hanger hooked above your window. These are obviously not a sun visor.) Maybe the police will buy your story or maybe they won’t, but at least with the “on my way home” you have plausible deniability. It would be pretty hard for them to prove you are truly a vagrant and not just a weary motorist making a safe decision. Most of the time you’ll just get an exasperated “move along,” a shorthand way of saying “I don’t hate you, but go be someone else’s problem.”
If you are homeless and don’t have a vehicle, your problems are much worse. All plausible deniability of your homelessness is lost the moment you lay down in public. In many places, there is nowhere that’s legal for you to sleep. As mentioned before, there are tons of public places you can be awake, but the moment you want to rest your head you’ll realize how bad the options are. Either find someplace deserted (risky for many reasons), congregate wherever the other homeless do (still not legal but usually de facto allowed), or crash someplace public and get hassled by the owner or police (humiliating, potential legal consequences.). There are no good options, but congregating in “acceptable” homeless areas like a train station is usually the best bet to avoid the shameful and humiliating “move along”, or even worse, legal repercussions. But some cities, exasperated with a growing homeless population, are starting to crack down by criminalizing homelessness and kicking out the unwanted.
In light of the impossibility of homelessness, what the heck are you supposed to do? If you weren’t fortunate enough to be born into a property-owning family or haven’t earned enough income through labor to purchase property, you have to pay rent. Granted, homebuyers have their own woes – it can be really expensive to own property simply because it can take a chunk out of the income in terms of mortgage or property tax and other additional costs (take a look at this post on how to lower property taxes in Texas, among other states). However, even rent is a sizable chunk of your income even for the most basic accommodations. In my area, $500 is about the bare minimum you can find, renting a single room in a run-down house owned by slumlords. This is about half the take-home pay of a full-time minimum wage job. In short: $500. Pay this much money every month, to someone (whose wealth was likely hereditary to some degree)… or else you are a vagrant and a criminal the moment you attempt to lay down.
There are rarely any other options. Whatever public spaces exists have policies to prevent people from living there. “The Park closes at Dusk.” “Camping requires a permit.” “No loitering.” You can’t just “Go West” and get a plot of land from the government anymore. No free acreage to sow and reap with your own labor. You can’t pitch a tent or build a cabin in the woods. Hunting and fishing require permits and have tight restrictions on when and what you can take- not enough to live off of. You aren’t permitted to be self-sufficient. Everything and everywhere is owned and has been owned for hundreds of years, and that ownership is passed down hereditarily. Most people are granted nothing, and must pay hundreds per month for the privilege of laying their head down on the ground. This is a tax on being alive.
A government is obligated to provide the necessities of life to its citizens, or at the least, the tools for them to get the necessities. (If not, the social contract between citizen and state is worthless to the citizen.) In 19th century America, you’d be given a plot of land out West to make your way. Now, everything and everywhere belongs to someone and there’s nowhere for new people to go, and so you must pay for the privilege of living on someone else’s land. A minimum wage employee has to tithe 50% of his wages for the right to sleep without being a vagrant. This is an enormous tax levied on the working class, a brutally regressive tax that bears a strong resemblance to feudalism.
A UBI should provide enough money for a human being to have all the things that he could provide himself in nature, in a world that isn’t divided into centuries-old hereditary land claims. A UBI should provide enough money for food, shelter, heating, and a bit extra to trade for random necessities and shortfalls. $1000 a month per individual is a good starting point. This is not charity, this is a refund to the brutal regressive tax that is extracted from everyone who didn’t inherit sizable property holdings. No one should have to perform $500 of labor for some hereditary landlord every month simply for the right to lay down and sleep. In the mid-to-late 20th century, when wages were high and capital ownership was more equitably shared, the tax on being alive was not quite so burdensome and regressive. But seeing as we have moved to the era of corporate welfare, massive wealth disparity, and laughably low wages, this tax has become more than the working class can sustain. UBI provides a way to simply and directly refund this tax.
-Tom Radtke <thomas.radtke@gmail.com>
by Citizens' Income Trust | May 5, 2014 | Opinion
A seminar and round-table discussion entitled ‘Beyond Welfare Reform to a Citizen’s Income: the desirability and feasibility of a CI scheme’, was hosted by Jim Eadie, Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) on Wednesday 15 January at the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. Over 60 people attended, including four other MSPs and some Parliamentary Assistants. The majority of the participants were employees and activists in the Voluntary Sector, together with representatives from several Scottish churches, civil servants, academics, and some private individuals.
Jim Eadie opened the proceedings with a warm welcome to the guests, reminding them of the importance and timeliness of the topic under discussion. The meeting was chaired by Sir John Elvidge, former First Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government. The first speaker was Ailsa McKay, Professor of Economics at Glasgow Caledonian University, who addressed the question of the desirability of a CI and gave a passionate, but reasoned, discursive presentation on the philosophical and political aspects of a Citizen’s Basic Income. She emphasised that a CI is not a mere reform of our current welfare system, but is a radical transformation that involves the acceptance of a whole new way of thinking about social security policy, and helps to secure both equality and efficiency objectives. She pointed out that the National Insurance system was designed for an industrial society, and does not help those who experience in-work-poverty, and helps those who are self-employed only minimally; nor does it take women’s contributions into account. A Citizen’s Basic Income breaks the link between paid employ-ment and income, and leads to greater gender equality.
The second speaker was Annie Miller, Chair of the Citizen’s Income Trust and retired academic economist, who tackled the feasibility question. She said that the discussion could be relevant to the whole UK, or to an independent Scotland, or to a devolved Scotland with greater fiscal powers within the union. She described the current Social Security system as a Gordian Knot that cannot be unravelled or reformed. It must be cut through and replaced by a new radical alternative, designed to meet the needs of the economy and society in the 21st century, but robust enough to meet the needs of changing societies in the future. She defined a CI in terms of the recent European Citizens’ Initiative on Unconditional Basic Income, that is, universal, individual, unconditional, and high enough for a life of dignity and participation in society. However, this does not define the whole system. She emphasised that there is not one unique optimum CI scheme, and that each scheme should be designed to meet a set of specified, prioritised objectives. Annie listed a range of objectives that a CI can fulfil. She briefly reviewed some of the suggested sources for funding a CI scheme, including a sales tax, a sovereign wealth fund, and income tax, but only the latter could redistribute income from rich to poor, men to women, and geographically, reversing the trend of recent decades.
The speakers responded to questions from the floor before the discussion was opened up to the participants. Sir John Elvidge asked the delegates to focus on three questions that needed to be addressed.
- What are your priorities with respect to a CI scheme: preventing poverty; increasing financial security; reducing income inequalities; restoring incentives to work-for-pay for poorer people; simplification of the welfare system; or stimulating aggregate demand?
- What do you think are the main stumbling blocks in implementing a CI?
- If you think that a CI is good thing in general, where would you like the matter taken next?
The ensuing discussion tackled all of these questions, and raised many other important issues. Specific answers were not necessarily forthcoming, but the general feeling was one of sympathy for the concept of a CI, and encouragement for the advocates to take it further.
by Karl Widerquist | Apr 29, 2014 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
Al Sheahen. Photo courtesy of Tom Sheahen, via the Los Angeles Daily News
[Karl Widerquist]
Allan “Al” Sheahen was an author, an athlete, a disc jockey, a promoter, a publisher, and a long-time campaigner for the basic income guarantee (BIG). He died at his home in Sherman Oaks, California on October 29, 2013 after battling myelofibrosis (a slow-moving bone-marrow disease) for over ten years.
Sheahen is known in the movement for BIG as a tireless, long-term campaigner for BIG. He helped to found the USBIG Network. He helped keep the idea alive during the era in which it fell out of mainstream politics in the United States. And he wrote some of the best introductory books on BIG.
He was born in June 28, 1932 in Cleveland, Ohio and moved to California in 1957. His first book on BIG, Guaranteed Income: The Right to Economic Security (Gain Publications), was published in January of 1983—perhaps the nadir of the BIG movement in the United states.
BIG, under various names including the guaranteed income, had been a major topic in mainstream American politics from the mid-1960s to the mid-70s when it was seen by many people across the political spectrum as the obvious next step to improve the welfare system. However, BIG dropped out of favor in the late-70s when new right politicians such as Ronald Reagan found success vilifying the poor as a lazy rabble. Supporters of the welfare system went on the defensive and stopped looking for new ideas, except perhaps for those that placated the new right’s desire for stringent work requirements.
Into that void, Sheahen’s 1983 book argued that it made so much more sense just to put a floor under everyone’s income. He raised all the objections of the other side. He asked the toughest questions. He answered them with knowledgeable but disarmingly simple, compelling prose that anyone could understand. Many “BIGists” believe this book is still the best available introduction to BIG, with the possible exception of his 2012 book.
In the political climate of 1983, Sheahen’s book was widely ignored.
Mark Crumpton interviews Allan Sheahen -Bloomberg Television
Sheahen did not stop. He was a journalist, and he wrote a long string of editorials on BIG and other topics in publications across the country. Over the years he wrote for Time, the Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Daily News, the Huffington Post, and many other publications.
In 1999, the BIG movement began to revive in the United States. A group made up mostly of east coast academics established the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG). Sheahen quickly joined. He not only became a leader of the organization, but also, along with Robert Harris, Francis Fox Piven, and others, he gave the new movement for BIG a connection with the movement of the 1960s and 70s.
Basic Income Guarantee: Your Right to Economic Security
As a leader of USBIG, Sheahen stepped up his work. He attended and presented new ideas at the annual USBIG Congresses—now know as North American BIG (NABIG) Congresses—and at the biannual BIEN Congresses. In 2004 he coauthored the paper, “A Proposal to Transform the Standard Deduction into a Refundable Tax Credit,” which was the basis for a bill introduced into the U.S. Congress as “H.R. 5257 (109th): Tax Cut for the Rest of Us Act of 2006.” The idea of the bill was simple: replace the standard tax deduction with an equivalent-sized refundable tax credit, and in the process introducing a small BIG. The preamble to the bill states simply, “To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a basic income guarantee in the form of a refundable tax credit for taxpayers who do not itemize deductions.”
Sheahen not only coauthored the paper on which the bill was based; he also lobbied for the bill. He made several trips to Washington and met with any Member of Congress or staffer who was willing to talk about the idea. He found a Member of Congress to introduce the bill and at least one other to sign on as cosponsor. But the bill did not get out of committee and expired at the end of 109th Congress. It has not as yet been introduced.
Sheahen’s next major project was a new book, The Basic Income Guarantee: Your Right to Economic Security (published June 19, 2012, by Palgrave Macmillan). It was largely an update of Sheahen’s 1983 book, but this time it was put out by a major publisher with greater distribution. According to former U.S. Senator and former Democratic nominee for president, George McGovern, “This book is a great idea – brilliantly stated. Some may think it’s ultra-liberal, as they did when I proposed a similar idea in 1972. I see it as true conservatism – the right of income for all Americans sufficient for food, shelter, and basic necessities. Or, what Jefferson referred to as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The book came out at a time with growing interest in BIG. It continues to sell well, and it is the most popular item in Palgrave’s book series, “Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee.” Sheahen followed up the book with a speaking tour and a large number of editorials in major newspapers. As late as August of 2013, less than 90 days before his death, Sheahen was on television, radio, and the print media campaigning for BIG. Right up to the end, after more than 30 years in the fight, Sheahen was one of the hardest working people in the BIG movement.
Allan Sheahan running hurdles -MasterTrack.com
When he wasn’t working on BIG, Sheahen was an author, a disc jockey, a publisher, an announcer, and a competitor in and leading organizer of Masters Athletics—athletics for men and women over 35 years old. He was active in Masters Track and Field for decades, and he was so important to the movement that when he died, Mastertrack entitled their bibliography, “A giant has died: Al Sheahen was our chronicler and conscience.” According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, he served ten years as the Treasurer of the World Association of Veteran Athletes. He founded the magazine National Masters News and served as its editor for nearly four decades. According to The Los Angeles Daily News, in 1998, he was inducted into the Masters Track and Field Hall of Fame. His favored events were the 400-meter hurdles and the 3000-meter steeplechase—longest obstacle-jumping event in running. A long-distance obstacle race is a fitting metaphor for Sheahen’s three-decades of work for the BIG movement. The goal was far; the obstacles were many; and Sheahen ran on and on.
-Karl Widerquist, Mojo’s Coffee House, Freret Street, New Orleans, LA, April 2014
Personal note: I’ve worked with Al for nearly 15 years in USBIG, in BIEN, on the BIG Bill, and in Palgrave-Macmillan book series. At times he’s been a colleague, a mentor, and an inspiration—both from his hard work and from ability to communicate difficult ideas in an easily understandable way. It is a sad duty to write about his death.
For more on Al Sheahen and his work on Basic Income, see the following links:
The USBIG Network will organize a tribute to Al Sheahen at the Thirteenth Annual North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress, which will be held on June 26 in Montreal—a preconference workshop of the 15th International Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network, Friday June 27th to Sunday June 29th, 2014, McGill Faculty of Law, Montreal, Quebec.
Allan Sheahen -the Huffington Post
Ken Stone, “A giant has died: Al Sheahen was our chronicler and conscience.” MasterTrack, October 31, 2013.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Obituary: Allan John ‘Al’ Sheahen.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Nov. 3, 2013.
The Los Angeles Daily News. “Ode to Al Sheahen, a long time Daily News letters contributor.” The Los Angeles Daily News. October/31/13.
Allan Sheahen’s page at the Huffington Post.
USBIG, “Allan Sheahen tours to promote his book, the Basic Income Guarantee: Your right to economic security.” BI News, July 11, 2013.”
USBIG, “Allan Sheahen’s BIG tour continues.” BI News, July 21, 2013
VIDEO: Bloomberg national television discusses BIG, July 23, 2013
VIDEO: Huffington Post, 17-minute video discusses BIG: “America The Poor,” August 24, 2013
Allan Sheahen, “Fulfilling One Of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dreams: A Basic Income Guarantee.” International Business Times, August 20, 2013. (This is probably Sheahen’s last published article.
H.R. 5257 (109th): Tax Cut for the Rest of Us Act of 2006.
Al Sheahen and Karl Widerquist, “A Proposal to Transform the Standard Deduction into a Refundable Tax Credit.” USBIG Discussion Paper No. 93, August 2004 (Revised, October 2004).
This article was later revised and combined with a historical discussion of BIG in the United States, and published as:
Karl Widerquist and Allan Sheahen, September 3, 2012. “The Basic Income Guarantee in the United States: Past Experience, Current Proposals” in Basic Income Worldwide: Horizons of Reform, Matthew Murray and Carole Pateman (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 11-32
Articles by and about Al Sheahen on BI News.
Allan Sheahen
