by Kate McFarland | Nov 5, 2016 | News
The United States Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network has released its Call for Participation in the 2017 North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress, which will be held at Hunter College in New York City from June 16-18.
Sixteenth Annual North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress,
Call for Participation
The North American Basic Income Congress will be held at:
The Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College
2180 Third Ave.
New York, NY 10035
June 16-18, 2017,
With a special event June 15 at Roosevelt House, 47-49 East 65th St.
Papers, panel discussions, roundtables, strategy sessions, and events of other kinds related to basic income are encouraged. Activists in particular are encouraged to propose events in and around the congress, in the evenings for example. Send your proposal, no more than 500 words, to Kate McFarland (mcfarland [dot] 309 [at] osu [dot] edu) by February 1, 2017.
This is the official general Call for Participation of the congress. CFPs for specific panels and other sessions are likely to be released at later dates. For example, a CFP for a panel on philosophy and basic income has been released, and can be viewed at
PhilEvents and the
American Philosophical Association. Other topic-specific are currently being planned, and prospective participants are invited and encouraged to propose their own.
Updates and announcements concerning the event will be posted on the Facebook pages of
USBIG and CFP point-person
Kate McFarland as they become available.
by Kate McFarland | Oct 21, 2016 | News
The 2017 North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress, co-organized by the US Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network and the Basic Income Canada Network, will convene at Hunter College in New York City, New York, USA on June 15-18.
The opening day of the congress (to be held at Roosevelt House) will include a panel open to the general public, followed by a reception. The remainder of the conference will take place at the Silberman School of Social Work and be open only to registered attendees.
Registration information, keynote speakers, and a call for proposals will be available soon on the USBIG website (usbig.net).
Photo: Hunter College Station, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 maxxum
by Andre Coelho | Oct 17, 2016 | News
(photo: credit to Mundiventos Club)
The call for papers for the next Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress has been released.
This 17th BIEN Congress will be held in Lisboa, Portugal, at the Portuguese National Parliament, from the 25th through the 27th of September, 2017. It will take place as part of the Portuguese Basic Income Week, which lasts from the 25th through the 30th of September. The Basic Income Week, which has been scheduled in parallel to the Congress as a way to widen the event’s impact, will include concerts, film-screenings, performances, campaigns and other special features.
The Congress will have the general theme “Implementing a Basic Income”, and nine keynote speakers havebeen invited, including Evelyn L. Forget, Louise Haagh, Philippe van Parijs, Jurgen De Wispelaere and Yanis Varoufakis, Sara Bizarro, Y Combinator’s Elizabeth Rhodes, Give Directly’s Joe Houston, and Guy Standing.
All those interested in submitting papers or proposals for either the Congress or the Basic Income Week (or both) can do so by submitting a proposal (an abstract of up to 300 words) to the organizing committee at bien2017.callforpapers@gmail.com. Proposals must be submitted no later than March 31st, 2017.
The final programs for the Congress and Basic Income Week will be released by April 20th, 2017.
More information at:
BIEN website (also in Portuguese)
by Kate McFarland | Oct 9, 2016 | News
The International Peace Bureau (IPB) held its 2016 World Congress in Berlin, Germany from September 30 through October 3. This year, the congress included a panel discussion on universal basic income.
The panelists — who were also the organizers of this IPB workshop — included Juana Perez and Angel Bravo from the Spanish organization Humanistas por la Renta Básica Universal (“Humanists for a Universal Basic Income”), and Diana Aman and Ralph Boes of the Bürgerinitiative bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen (BBG), a Berlin-based advocacy group which celebrated its 10th anniversary at the start of the month. (BBG, in collaboration with other pro-UBI German organizations, has been campaigning for the introduction of a basic income referendum in Germany.)
The panelists described ways in which the implementation of a basic income would contribute to peace — for instance, by reducing or eliminating violence and social unrest caused by poverty, and by overturning the “inhuman system” of present societies that presently abide by the “biblical curse that says ‘By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread'”.
Founded in 1891, the International Peace Bureau has a long and distinguished history of advocating for a world without war and facilitating communication between peace societies worldwide. The IPB was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910, and 13 of its officers have received the prize as individuals. At present, IPB has 300 member organizations in 70 countries.
The IPB’s main present focus, and the theme of its recent congress, is the reallocation of military expenditures by governments.
For details concerning the IPB panel on UBI, see:
Sasha Volkoff (October 6, 2016) “A workshop on the Universal Basic Income in Berlin“, Pressenza International Press Agency.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Image: Doves at International Peace Day, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 United Nations Photo
by Jenna van Draanen | Sep 14, 2016 | News
UNITED STATES: U.S. Congress Discusses Artificial Intelligence, Robots, and Basic Income
Co-written by Jenna van Draanen and Dave Clegg
At the end of May 2016, the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and Senate held a two-hour hearing entitled “The Transformative Impact of Robots and Automation,” which featured several expert speakers: Andrew McAfee, MIT research scientist, and co-author of The Second Machine Age; Adam Keiper editor of the New Atlantis and Fellow of the Washington based Ethics and Public Policy Center; and Dr. Harry Holzer economist and co-founder and director of Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy at Georgetown University.
While there is not much discussion of basic income at the hearing (most of the talk is about the implications and impact of automation and robots on the workplace), participants briefly bring up basic income as a possible social support for loss of jobs due to technological automation.
Mr. Keiper speaks to the BI briefly as an option, but he is most concerned about the loss of jobs because he sees jobs as “a source of structure, meaning, friendship and fulfillment.” A panel speaker, Mr. Lee, brings up a concern about the risk of subsidizing “non-work.” Dr. Holzer, admits that something like a BI might be needed but was worried that it would overburden the tax system.
To see the hearing and find further information, check out:
Joint Economic Committee, “U.S. Congress Discusses AI, Automation, Robotics and Basic Income.” Singularity Lectures, Youtube, May 28, 2016.
Or the JEC website: https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/hearings-calendar?ID=BB1C3FD8-9FD1-46BA-917C-E5B3C585F1CC
Matt Orfalea, “Basic Income discussed among US Senators at “The Transformative Impact of Robots and Automation” Hearing” Medium.com, June 7, 2016.
