by USBIG | Sep 14, 2014 | News
Basic Income Week or Reddit
The Seventh International Basic Income Week begins tomorrow (Monday, September 15, 2014) and runs through Sunday, September 21. Basic Income (BI) week is “a yearly event for promotion of Basic Income.” BI is an unconditional cash income granted to all citizens without means test or work requirement. BI week will include dozens of events in at least nine countries and cyberspace events originating from more than six more countries.
Peter Barnes
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN)’s contribution to BI Week will be a series of live internet interviews called “AMAs” (“Ask Me Anything”), in which people all around the world will be able to type in questions and have them answered live by experts. Participants will include some of the key activists who have brought basic income to the forefront of contemporary politics; noted authors such as Peter Barnes and Marshall Brain; experts in fields such as economics, philosophy, sociology, Christianity, feminism, and automation. Participants will be from countries all around the world including, the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Qatar, Korea, Japan, and more. There will be at least one and as many as four AMAs per day all week. Karl Widerquist, co-chair of BIEN, will kick off the AMA series starting at Noon (Eastern Time, USA) on Monday, September 15. Louise Haagh, co-chair, and Anja Askeland, secretary of BIEN will close the series with an AMA starting at 1pm (Eastern Time, USA) on September 21.
BI Week in Germany
BI Week in Austria includes lectures, workshops, discussions, free meals, radio shows, and a street action. The Belgian program includes events French and English in all three Belgian regions. Basic Income UK will launch of a UBI support statement during International UBI week, with a discussion about basic income on September 16th 19:00 tot 21:00 in London. BI Week in the Czech Republic will include a film, an outdoor workshop, and even a drum jam session for basic income. Events in France will take place in Nantes, Paris, Bordeaux, Nice, and Montpellier, and they will include films, lectures, discussions, and a conference. The largest and most diverse program of BI Week events will be in Germany, which has scheduled 5 to 11 events each day all across the country. The Hungarian program includes three days of discussions; a debate; a forum bringing together a politician, an economist, and an activist; a film; an activist program for the BIG Movement. BIN Italy presents a BI Week meeting entitled, “Fundamental Rights: Europe and the Guaranteed Income.” The program for the Netherlands includes events in Amsterdam, Borger, Tilburg, Zoetermeer, and several other cities.
Anja Askeland
Links to BI Week events
Basic Income Week
by Karl Widerquist | Jun 26, 2014 | News
Street art in Boulevard Saint Laurent, Labrona -Basic Income Canada Network
The Basic Income Earth Network’s (BIEN’s) 15th International Congress gets underway today, June 26, 2014 with the pre-conference day dedicated to the 13th Annual North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress, a joint meeting of the Basic Income Canada Network and the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network. The NABIG Day is focusing on strategies to activate and implement a basic income policy in Canadian and United States jurisdictions.
The BIEN Congress is the oldest and largest basic income conference in the world. He has taken place every two years since 1986, when it was known as the Basic Income European Network Congress. It expanded to become the Basic Income Earth Network Congress in 2004. This year’s Congress takes place at McGill University in Montreal under the theme of “Re-democratizing the Economy.” The registration has sold out with about 250 attendees. Participants will be discussing all aspects of BIG from the effects in terms of economics, philosophy, and sociology to the effort to build a successful political movement for BIG.
The 15th International Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress will take place on 27-29 June 2014 in Montreal. The Congress brings together academics, activists, policy makers, political representatives, NGOs, and interested members of the general public to discuss and debate how introducing a universal and unconditional basic income relates.
Click here for more information on the BIEN and the NABIG Congresses.
See also the following article from the Montreal Gazette:
Peggy Curran, “Idea of flat income to be hot topic at McGill on Friday,” The Gazette [Montreal, Quebec, Canada], June 26, 2014.
On Friday, more than 100 academics, economists and activists for social change from around the world will gather at McGill University’s Law Faculty for the 15th International BIEN Congress. -Photograph by: Aaron Lynett , Postmedia News, via the Gazette
by Karl Widerquist | Jun 16, 2014 | Research
SUMMARY: Guy Standing’s book, The Precariat: A New and Dangerous Class, addresses labor market insecurity and argues for basic income as a solution. The journal, Global Discourse, devotes an entire issue to the Precariat. According Matthew Johnson, who was the guest editor of the special issue, “This issue of Global Discourse seeks to explore the nature, shape and context of precariat, evaluating the internal consistency and application of the concept, particularly with regard to: changes in the sociology of class; democracy, participation and representation; the relationship between precariat and multitude; the means by which precariat might become a ‘class-for-itself’; place, migration and globalization; poverty and precarity; the subjective experience of precarity, and forms of resistance. The articles published reflect the extent, both with regard to paradigmatic engagement and site of study, to which the concept has permeated the consciousness of academics and those subject to precariousness (indeed, the former appear increasingly to be included in the latter).”
Matthew Johnson (editor), “Special Issue: The Precariat.” Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs and Applied Contemporary Thought, Volume 3, Issue 3-4, 2013
by Karl Widerquist | May 11, 2014 | News
Friday 6th June 2014, 10.00 – 17.00, British Library Conference Centre, London, United Kingdom.
The British library will host this one-day conference in association with the Citizen’s Income Trust. The conference aims to explore, analyze and debate the potential social, economic and labour market advantages of a having a Citizen’s Income in the UK. A Citizen’s Income is defined as ‘an unconditional, automatic and non-withdrawable payment to each individual as a right of Citizenship’ Confirmed speakers include Natalie Bennett, Leader of the Green Party, Dr Tony Fitzpatrick, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, John McDonnell, M.P. and Professor Guy Standing, Professor of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies.
This event is free, but registration is essential as spaces are limited. To reserve a place please email info@citizensincome.org. For more information see the British Library’s forthcoming events calendar: https://www.bl.uk/reshelp/bldept/socsci/events/socscievents.html.
British Library
by Karl Widerquist | Mar 22, 2014 | Research
SUMMARY: This article focuses on poverty and inequality, discussing how poverty puts people in a condition in which they cannot make meaningful choices. “Instead, we might look to policies like a guaranteed basic income or a negative income tax, in which we give people money and treat them with the dignity their humanity entitles them to. … Not only would it help those who are suffering get by, but rather than treating them like social degenerates, it would trust and empower them to make their own financial decisions. Given how much responsibility the more fortunate among us have for the problems plaguing the poor, it is the least our society can do.” The author, Shamus Khan is an associate professor of sociology at Columbia University. He is the author of Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School.
Shamus Khan, “The marriage of poverty and inequality: Who is responsible when people don’t have enough?” Al Jazeera America. February 20, 2014.
