by Kate McFarland | Aug 14, 2016 | News, Testimonies
Juon Kim has been an organizer of Basic Income Youth Network in Korea since 2013. In March of this year, Juon ran for a proportionate candidate of Green Party Korea in the general election, representing the party’s UBI agenda. She’s currently a graduate student of cultural anthropology, and plans to write her MA thesis about basic income.
In this Basic Income Interview, Juon talks about how she came to learn about and support basic income, and why she is now an activist.
About 5 years ago, only a few people in Korea knew about basic income, including my friends. Since they were studying basic income, I became aware of it but was not attracted to it at first. But after reading two women’s books, I decided to live as a UBI advocate and joined the Basic Income Youth Network based in South Korea.
One book is Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. “It is necessary for women to have five hundred pounds a year and a lock on the door if you are to write fiction or poetry.” It reminded me of basic income immediately. The other is Carole Pateman, a feminist political theorist saying that basic income could guarantee universal economic citizenship of women.
Juon at the 2016 BIEN Congress in Seoul
When I was young, I dreamt of becoming a human rights lawyer. Many discrepancies in the society seemed to have been caused by law which is a tool only for the powerful. I entered university envisioning that I would stand in the forefront of social changes with the law as the tool for justice. I was even thinking of branding law firm ideas to increase my chances of being someone’s first choice to defend them.
But the university that I encountered back in 2010 was no more than a ruin. The gravity of making ends meet pulled heavily against my attempted search for friends with whom I would find solutions to the social ills. No time could be wasted if it wasn’t for career preparation, no space was available without fees, and ultimately no freedom to plan my life as I wanted was granted.
Fortunately, there were great classes and friends in and out of the campus. There were those who were being forcefully evacuated from the very place of their livelihoods in their cities, those who are taking their lives in their hands just to reclaim their lost jobs, and those religious figures, LGBT activists, disability-rights activists, grass-root activists and youth activists who fought against state violence and its forced militarization of Gangjeong village in Jeju island and forced nuclearization of Miryang in Korea.
I saw how they tried and worked to rebuild hope in their own respective communities. We met in support, delight and equality. I experienced happiness rising from others even amidst poor material conditions.
In our encounters I realized something. All of us who were dreaming of a better life, one that’s better than now, were in fact fighting against ‘dual poverty’. They fought against poverty of their own and simultaneously poverty of the world.
What I endured was not different from what they endured. It was in this moment I was introduced to the idea of ‘basic income’. I strongly related to its philosophy that the rights to eat and live should be guaranteed just for the reason that I am a constituent of this society.
What if the activists I met who suffered from dual poverty had basic income? What if my colleagues, women, youth and young adults, farmers, artists and seniors had basic income? What happens when there appears this gift called basic income in the Korean society, whose severe income bipolarization and winner-takes-all structures in all corners render all untrustworthy toward each other?
I imagined an alternative made possible by the hope called basic income to those who give up their lives or terrorize others’ lives because there cannot be a better tomorrow. Then I joined basic income movement because I wanted to imagine all these possibilities as one.
The ‘human rights’ that used to be so nondescript when I wanted to be its lawyer took shape as an economic citizenship, basic income. Basic income as the fundamental right for all humans. I hope it becomes a common sense to all everywhere in the world in the nearest future.
Photos used by permission of Juon Kim. (Cover photo: Juon promotes basic income at International Women’s Day, dressed as a suffragette.)
Juon wishes to thank her friend Heehe for translation assistance.
Basic Income Interviews is a special recurring segment of Basic Income News, introduced in July 2016 by Jason Murphy and Kate McFarland. Through a series of short interviews, we aspire to display the diversity of support that basic income receives throughout the world.
Have your own thoughts to contribute? Want to see yourself in a future Basic Income Interview?
Visit our interview form.
by Kate McFarland | Aug 7, 2016 | News, Testimonies
Jennifer Lawson studied philosophy and psychology at Stetson University and the University of North Florida. During graduate school, she suffered several psychotic breaks, and now lives on disability. Jennifer has been an advocate and activist for over twenty years.
How did you hear about Basic Income?
I studied political philosophy in graduate school. This means being fluent in all stripes of political argument. One day, while perusing the blogs, which I did quite often as a blogger for my university, I found some Libertarian arguments for Basic Income. This was a flavor of Libertarian who understands that poverty should be alleviated, but wants small government, too. I found the arguments compelling.
Why do you support a Basic Income?
I support a Basic Income because I am now disabled, and receive disability. There was a time, when I was applying for disability, where I had no income whatsoever. People who apply for disability often have a long waiting period during which time they have no money. This was a struggle for me because I still had bills and needs. I figured that if a Basic Income existed, there wouldn’t have been a time where I had no income coming in.
Photo used by permission of Jennifer Lawson.
Basic Income Interviews is a special recurring segment of Basic Income News, introduced in July 2016 by Jason Murphy and Kate McFarland. Through a series of short interviews, we aspire to display the diversity of support that basic income receives throughout the world.
Have your own thoughts to contribute? Want to see yourself in a future Basic Income Interview? Visit our interview form.
by Kate McFarland | Jul 31, 2016 | News, Testimonies
Nina Šoštarič obtained her Master’s Degree in Philosophy from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, with a thesis titled “Basic Income as a Step towards Environmental Justice”. She is now a PhD student at University College Dublin in Ireland, where her research lies in the intersection of equality issues, social justice, and degrowth.
Nina has published two articles — “Between Socialism and Capitalism: Universal Basic Income” (2012) and “UBI in the Light of Global Environmental Crisis” (2011) — and edited the book Where are we headed? Thoughts on Ending the Crisis (2013) (all in the Slovenian language).
In a recent Basic Income Interview, Nina explained her interest in the idea:
I first heard about basic income years ago in college when my professor Igor Pribac, later my supervisor, talked about basic income at a module called Social Philosophy. Immediately I thought it was an amazing concept.
I support basic income because it is truly an inspirational idea. Every individual and the society as a whole could benefit immensely from it, if implemented properly. Basic income would provide a safety net for everyone in this precarious era. I think it has a big transformational potential.
Nina recommends the website Sekcija UTD for more information about the basic income movement in Slovenia.
Photo used by permission of Nina Šoštarič.
Basic Income Interviews is a special recurring segment of Basic Income News, introduced in July 2016 by Jason Murphy and Kate McFarland. Through a series of short interviews, we aspire to display the diversity of support that basic income receives throughout the world.
Have your own thoughts to contribute? Want to see yourself in a future Basic Income Interview? Visit our interview form.
by Kate McFarland | Jul 24, 2016 | News, Testimonies
Harmony Hackney describes herself as a “housewife and quasi-revolutionary who went to school for motorcycle repair, where she went $9k into debt to learn how to read the manual, and an Associate in Science in paralegal studies, where she went $15k in debt to learn how to read the manual.” Since neither motorcycle repair nor paralegal work panned out as a career, Harmony now studies the history of her home state of Florida and “the nine generations of Floridians who came before her.” She plans to publish a book on the subject in the near future.
In this Basic Income Interview, Harmony was asked how she learned of basic income and why she supports it. Here is her reply:
I was looking for alternatives to the way the majority of us struggle each day and only manage to accomplish the barest levels of survival for our cultures. Since we have an abundance of things, but not an abundance of consumers, basic income seems like the most reasonable solution.
I support a basic income because it’s cheaper and more effective than our current process. My family has never been very well off; we’ve only ever managed minimal survival. My parents would work two and three jobs and we still couldn’t climb any higher. So we had to rely on assistance. For each piece of the process we had to go to a different office, fill out tons and tons of forms, get mailed tons of forms, mail back tons of forms, and spend a lot of time just waiting to fill out more papers or turn in more papers. That was back before the internet, but honestly the process hasn’t changed much. It’s still a series of separate offices, separate parts of the government, and separate places to fill out and turn in various forms. Now think about the cost of all that. How much is it costing to manage all of those forms and papers and all of that redundant information? And all of this serves no other purpose other than prevent just handing money to people.
We have entire sections of our government doing nothing but acting as a middleman between money and people who need money. When you go down and file for food assistance, you fill out all your forms, get approved, and they give you a card with a sum on it. Only that sum is in a special currency so that you don’t get real money. An entire section of government is devoted to calculating, managing, overseeing, enforcing, investigating, and distributing this special currency, which is additionally regulated so that it can only be used for these specific things. In addition, we have a whole other section of government that then collects this special currency, with all the bureaucracy that entails, who then redistributes the special currency as money. Imagine how much we could save if we simply eliminated all the extra stuff and just handed everyone a set amount of money.
And more than just saving money, we could save our environment as well. Think about how much we produce that gets thrown away because people couldn’t buy it. But we have to keep producing at that amount, and work to produce even more, so that we can make enough to live on. In addition to that, most of our jobs are make-work. It’s work that’s created just to say you are working. We have an abundance of fast food, retail, and other service jobs that can easily be automated. But we don’t because low wage workers are cheaper, and because we have been conditioned to believe that our existence is only justified if we are part of the workforce.
Most of my free time is spent studying and writing about history. I’ve discovered some very fascinating things that no one else has had the time to research. I’m being encouraged by other history professionals to continue my work and eventually publish my findings. Unfortunately, I’ve reached a point where I have to go to where records are in order to complete my research. Since we live paycheck to paycheck, with nothing to spare, I can’t finish my research. This is why it bugs me when someone says that a basic income will make people lazy. I’m not lazy now. Why would I suddenly become lazy just because I can choose to prioritize my time to suit me instead of a corporate machine?
Photo used by permission of Harmony Hackney
Basic Income Interviews is a special recurring segment of Basic Income News, introduced in July 2016 by Jason Murphy and Kate McFarland. Through a series of short interviews, we aspire to display the diversity of support that basic income receives throughout the world.
Have your own thoughts to contribute? Want to see yourself in a future Basic Income Interview?
Visit our interview form to let us know who you are and why you support basic income.
by Kate McFarland | Jul 17, 2016 | News, Testimonies
Olufemi O Taiwo researches and teaches political philosophy and metaethics at the University of California Los Angeles. He is an organizer for the Undercommons, an ongoing public meeting space initiated by African-American graduate students “to find ways to achieve liberation from white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, settler colonialism, and all forms of structural violence.” Taiwo has presented about basic income at the Undercommons.
In this Basic Income Interview, Taiwo was asked how he learned of basic income and why he supports it. Here is his reply:
I was an economics major in college. Milton Friedman was actually my first exposure to the idea of a universal basic income. At the time, I considered it a conservative sort of intervention, since this version of advocating for UBI, which I think of as “UBI-“, generally treats it as a replacement for other forms of welfare.
I support “UBI+”, or UBI that is meant to supplement at least some of the existing welfare structures. I think of it as at least a partial solution to a variety of social problems. One is the social presumption we seem to have that one ought to have to be economically productive – or in the case of seniors, to have had been economically productive – to earn the ability to provide for even their basic needs. This presumption is ableist on its face, since not all people’s abilities position them to earn high wages.
Other forms of bigotry aren’t far behind, given that the preponderance of evidence from social science suggests a myriad of ways in which various groups (e.g. women, people of color, and queer folks) are less than fairly compensated for their labor.
A second is just the presumption that work is valuable in and of itself. This is an idea worth challenging against any sort of historical background – even if a society needs some people to produce things, why should we make this a universal expectation? How much production is enough?
Of course, as the effects of climate change, driven by consistent overproduction, continue to manifest themselves, challenging this presumption will take on a greater urgency in this historical moment.
Photo: Olufemi Taiwo (right of podium) at meeting of the Undercommons, February 2016.
Basic Income Interviews is a special recurring segment of Basic Income News, introduced in July 2016 by Jason Murphy and Kate McFarland. Through a series of short interviews, we aspire to display the diversity of support that basic income receives throughout the world.
Have your own thoughts to contribute? Want to see yourself in a future Basic Income Interview?
Visit our interview form to let us know who you are and why you support basic income.
