BIEN | Opinion
Opinion Posts
Here you will find articles expressing opinions about current issues in the Basic Income debate. Opinions expressed are not necessarily the opinions of BIEN.
OPINION: The Christmas Basket
FORWARD: The following article is nonfiction story by Diane Pagen, a Basic Income activist and social worker from the New York area. It chronicles an attempt to give a Christmas basket to families of students at a school in an underprivileged neighborhood in the...
INTERVIEW: Congressional Candidate Ian Schlakman on His Call for a Basic Income Guarantee or “Social Security for All”
As reported here earlier this month, Green Party candidate for Congress Ian Schlakman of Maryland’s Second Congressional District has made the Basic Income Guarantee a major issue in his campaign. Basic Income News asked him for an interview and he took the time from...
Book review of Birnbaum, Simon. 2012. Basic Income Reconsidered: Social Justice, Liberalism, and the Demands of Equality
Book review of Birnbaum, Simon. 2012. Basic Income Reconsidered: Social Justice, Liberalism, and the Demands of Equality. Basic income guarantee series. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 246 pp. ISBN 978–0–230–11406–7 Published in Ethical Perspectives, vol.3, 2014,...
Basic Income News Expands with the UBI Movement
Unconditional Basic Income is a movement. Five or ten years ago the idea was little discussed outside of a few limited—mostly academic—circles. Now activists are campaigning for it all over the world. The mainstream media is writing about it. It is becoming a part of...
INTERVIEW: Heidi Laura interviews Karl Widerquist
Heidi Laura, of Danish Weekendavisen, conducted this interview (by email) with Karl Widerquist in late February 2014. She used only parts of the interview for her article in Weekendavisen, and she gave BI News permission to use the interview in its entirety. Karl...
Report from the 15th Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network
The 15th International Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network was held in Montreal at McGill University from June 27 to June 29, 2014, and a pre-conference North American day was held on June 26. The event was sold out with well over 200 people attending. Two of...
EDITORIAL: Open Letter To All Candidates For The European Parliament
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.
Review of The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies.
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...
Marshall Brain: Manna: Two Visions of Humanity’s Future
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.
OPINION: The Tax on Being Alive
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...
OPINION: A report on a Citizen’s Income meeting at the Scottish Parliament
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.
Allan Sheahen, the steeplechase runner of the BIG movement, has died
[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...
