[Josh Martin]
Santens provides a thorough timeline of basic income ideas dating from 1776 to now, including details on major thinkers and publications related to the basic income.
Scott Santens, “A Brief History of Basic Income Ideas“, 2noame on Tumblr, 1 May 2014.
Scott Santens (Source: 2noame on Tumblr)
The third US Basic Income Create-a-thon took place in New Orleans, Louisiana from September 9 to 11. The event was organized and hosted by Scott Santens, and attended by two members of BIEN’s Executive Committee: Karl Widerquist (co-chair) and Kate McFarland (news editor).
One project launched at the create-a-thon was “Basic Income MediaBites”–a database of timestamped videos (e.g. the “most quotable” moments of lectures and interviews about basic income) and images based upon quotes from said videos. Basic Income MediaBites is intended to be an ongoing collaborative project. The database is a shared document to which anyone can contribute.
One of the images created at the create-a-thon, featuring a quote from BIEN cofounder Philippe van Parijs’ TEDxGhent talk
Also at the create-a-thon, Karl completed his article “The Third Wave of the Basic Income Movement“–which, as the abstract states, “puts the current wave of support into this historical context to help understand why the movement is taking off now and how to build on it”.
The first two Basic Income Create-a-thons were held in San Francisco and Los Angeles in November 2015 and April 2016, respectively. The Universal Income Project promotes and assists the convocation of create-a-thons throughout the United States.
For more details about the projects pursued at the New Orleans create-a-thon–and a variety of quote and slogan images–see the official Tumblr page of the event.
Special thanks to Kate’s supporters on Patreon (for helping her to both write news like this and attend events like this).
Jim Clark, founder of the World Technology Network, has organized a panel discussion on universal basic income at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), to be held next week in Philadelphia.
Participants will include two of the world’s most notable proponents of basic income: Scott Santens and BIEN cofounder Guy Standing. From the opposing side, Jason Pontin (Editor in Chief of the MIT Technology Review) will complete the panel. Clark will moderate the discussion.
The universal basic income session will take place on the morning of Monday, July 25, and is planned to be recorded and streamed live. (Details to be announced.)
In addition to the panel on universal basic income, Clark has organized sessions on technological unemployment, evidence-based solutions to combat poverty, and utopian and dystopian scenarios for 2026, according to his Facebook announcement of the event.
An expected 4,769 delegates will be in attendance at the DNC, where they will select the 2016 US Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. According to a recent article in PhillyVoice, approximately 50,000 people in total are expected to arrive in the city for the convention.
Thanks to Genevieve Shanahan for the typo-spotting — and, as always, thanks to my supporters on Patreon. (Click the link if you too would like to support my work for Basic Income News.)
Photo of 2008 Democratic National Convention CC Kelly DeLay.
Image credit: Scott Santens and Midjourney v6
The Foundation for Government Accountability – a Florida-based lobbying group backed by the richest 1% – is working to get basic income experiments banned by state legislators across the U.S.
As a well-known quote often wrongly attributed to Mahatma Ghandi says, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” As of 2024, the basic income movement in the United States is now firmly in the “then they fight you” stage thanks to a slew of bills introduced in state after state that are all attempting to ban the basic income experiments that have spread across the country. Over 150 guaranteed basic income pilots are now ongoing or recently completed in 24 states as of this writing, and so far, bills in seven states have been introduced to stop them. All of the bills are the result of efforts by the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) – a lobbying group with a billionaire-fueled junk science record every American should know about. ….
To read the full article, click here.
Comingle is an app under development that will unite people who want to make sure no one goes a week without income.
For a quick introduction, watch this video.
“We all need some extra money sometimes. Other times, we have a little extra to give. By connecting our finances using today’s technology, we can form a secure, anonymous network of generosity that automatically pools money and moves it to where it’s needed the most.”
In early September 2023 Comingle launched a crowndfund campaingn to raise US$75,000 to cover the development costs required to boost Comingle to the next phase, which will allow verification of user identities, detect fraud, address security concerns, and begin transferring real money on a weekly basis.
The ambitious goal is to get this launched and have at least 100,000 Americans living with a small UBI floor of around $50 a week by the end of 2025 that all those who join collectively make possible.
As of September 16, 57% of the goal had been reached with 19 days left to complete the job. Contributions are being matched (“Every time we hit another $1000 our matching donors will contribute $3000! Every dollar you donate now = $4!“). Comingle founder Conrad Shaw writes: “One of our $10K matching donors is doing a 1-1 match and remaining anonymous. The other $10K matching donor is doing a 2-1 match and is Katie Moussouris, who made a name for herself as a white hat hacker (the good kind of hacker) and is CEO/Founder of Luta Security.”
ITSA President and BIEN Member Scott Santens has a blog post supporting the campaign. He thinks is an important project, and writes that Forward Party Co-Chair Andrew Yang “dropped into one of our Spaces talking about this, and donated $5k live during the stream.”
