by Kate McFarland | Sep 15, 2017 | News
Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE), an affiliate of BIEN promoting basic income in Europe, will be holding a meeting on Sunday, September 24, in Lisbon, Portugal, one day before the start of the 2017 BIEN Congress.
This is the first time that UBIE has organized a meeting to coincide with one of BIEN’s congresses. UBIE’s goal is to increase interaction between its members and other members of BIEN.
The meeting will be held at Casa dos Direitos Sociais (Rua Ferreira de Castro, 1950-315 Lisboa) from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, beginning with the General Assembly.
From 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM, workshops will be held on UBIE’s projects and activities. At the end of the meeting, participants will report on results from these workshops. The afternoon sessions will be open to all Congress attendees and members of BIEN and its affiliates.
UBIE will also host a workshop titled “How can basic income activism and research support each other?” on Wednesday, September 27, as part of the BIEN Congress.
Additionally, UBIE plans to organize social events on Saturday, September 23 for those who arrive early to the congress.
More information can now be found on UBIE’s (brand new and improved) website: https://ubie.org/join-us-in-lisbon-on-24-september/.
Reviewed by Caroline Pearce.
Photo: “European Panorama” CC BY-NC 2.0 NASA, International Space Station, 01/25/12.
by Andre Coelho | Aug 26, 2017 | News
Keith Ellison. Credit to: The Boston Globe.
Keith Ellison, a member of the US Congress from Minnesota and Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee, has expressed an endorsement for basic income on Twitter. His tweet posted on the 17th August 2017, is straightforward: “I am for guaranteed basic income. Who agrees? Who disagrees? Why?”
This is relevant not only because Ellison is a prominent politician in one of the two major parties in the United States, but also because the tweet was liked around 4500 times, shared 850 times and commented almost 1000 times, in less than five days.
Ellison himself did not join the conversation on his Tweet. However, many other basic income advocates joined the thread, including well-known writer and activist Scott Santens, who wrote: “we didn’t invent technology to make sure we always had a job”.
Ellison’s endorsement was immediately noticed by the Economic Security Project (ESP), a two-year initiative supporting basic income projects in the US, which released a press release on his statement on the 18th of August. ESP co-founder Dorian Warren said in the press release: “we are thrilled that basic income has the support of a bold, progressive leader like Keith Ellison”.
by Kate McFarland | Aug 8, 2017 | News
The 2017 North America Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress was held June 16-18 in New York. Some papers are now available online.
Event Recap
The annual NABIG Congress is jointly organized by BIEN’s North American affiliates, the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) and Basic Income Canada Network (BICN).
In 2017, the 16th NABIG Congress was held at Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work in New York, New York, from June 16 through 18.
The event was the largest NABIG Congress in its history, drawing over 100 attendees and featuring over 50 speakers. Keynote speakers including Frances Fox Piven (Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center), Andy Stern (former President of SEIU), Juliana Bidadanure (Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University), Joe Huston (Give Directly), and Chris Hughes (Facebook co-founder). Plenary sessions were also held on Welfare Rights and the basic income movement in Canada, including the guaranteed minimum income pilot soon to be launched in Ontario.
Parallel sessions covered a diverse range of context. As USBIG Chair Michael Howard describes in his summary of the congress (see the July 2017 USBIG NewsFlash), “Quite a few sessions focused on movement building, from local to global levels, including two sessions on grassroots organizing, and sessions on cultural and conversational contexts, communication, and messaging. Other topics discussed included child benefits, women, inequality and economic rents, basic income experiments from New Jersey to Africa, costs and financial aspects of basic income schemes (including blockchains), growth and degrowth, and philosophical and religious arguments for basic income.”
The 2017 NABIG Congress also featured two musical performances. Singer-songwriter Brandy Moore revisited her song “Just Because I’m Alive,” which she originally performed at the 2016 NABIG Congress in Winnipeg. Additionally, John Mize closed the conference by performing his new song “B.I.G.” with his son.
A full schedule of the event can be viewed here.
For additional perspectives on the congress from participants, see “(IDEA/Child Find)+ Basic Income = Equity” by Chioma Oruh (June 20, 2017) and “Recap: North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG)” by Ryan M Harrison (June 20, 2017).
Content Available Online
Several papers and presentations from the conference are now available in the USBIG discussion paper archives, including (as of July 2017) the following:
– Barbara Boraks: “Consensus or Discord- It’s Our Choice: A Values Based Framework For a Basic Income Model”
– Karen Glass: “Ontario Basic Income Pilot”
– Rachel Presser: “Why UBI Should Make the Earned Income Tax Credit Obsolete”
– Steven Pressman: “A LITTLE BIG: The Case for Child Allowances”
– Steven Pressman: “Ecology vs. the Economy: Lessons from Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century”
– Sheila Regehr: “Dignity or Degradation: What should be the value base for building a benefit system?”
– Cameron Weber: “The Actually-Existing Welfare State in the USA and One Possible Transformation to a Basic Income”
– Karl Widerquist: “The Cost of Basic Income: Back of the Envelope Calculations”
Additional papers may be uploaded later.
Photo: Mingling after Plenary (credit: Basic Income Guarantee Minnesota)
Reviewed by Russell Ingram
by Andre Coelho | Jun 14, 2017 | News
Terreiro do Paço, Lisboa. Credit to: Like3ZA.
The 17th Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress, happening in Lisbon from September 25-27th, has now a posted schedule and a registration link.
There will be plenary and parallel sessions each day, with a total of 45 sessions over the course of the Congress. Parallel sessions will last for two hours each, usually with six sessions held simultaneously. Each presentation will take up to twenty minutes, followed by up to ten minutes discussion per presentation.
The Congress webpage also provides information on how to purchase tickets, alerting to an extra cost if the entrance fee is paid after the 20th of July. Several fee levels apply, depending on attendance situation, although all include admission to all sessions, the Congress Proceedings and coffee breaks. Simple attendance without a presence certificate is free of charge.
Closer to the event’s date, all papers and presentations will be available on the Congress webpage. Other details and practical information will be shared in the upcoming weeks, on the website and the Congress Facebook page.
More information at:
17th Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress webpage
17th Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress Facebook page
by Karl Widerquist | Jun 5, 2017 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
One cut with Chinese subtitles:
https://www.facebook.com/ping.shyu/videos/1013110892156223/
An overlap clip with German subtitles:
