by Karl Widerquist | Dec 9, 2012 | News
India’s ruling coalition government suddenly and unexpectedly announce a major move in the direction of a basic income guarantee by replacing many transfer and expanding them into a cash transfer program. The government will begin phasing-in the program on January 1, 2013. Details are sketchy at this point. According the New York Times, “The plan is to replace existing pensions, scholarships and subsidies on household items by directly disbursing cash to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts. It could apply to 720 million people.”
A group of private NGOs has been conducting a pilot project on basic income in India for over a year. It is unknown the extent to which this project influenced the government’s decision. But, according to Guy Standing, one of the principle researchers on the project, members of their team have been requested for television interviews and newspaper articles are pouring out about the new decision.
For more on the issue see:
Bal, Hartosh Singh, “Will Vote for Rupees,” The New York Times, December 7, 2012
https://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/indias-cash-transfer-for-the-poor-is-an-electoral-gambit/?ref=opinion
by Citizens' Income Trust | Oct 18, 2012 | Opinion
Matthew C. Murray and Carole Pateman (eds), Basic Income Worldwide: Horizons of Reform, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, xv + 271 pp, hbk, 0 230 28542 2, £57.50
This book is a most useful survey of international experience of Basic or Citizen’s Income, of benefits sufficiently similar to enable them to be regarded as on the way to a Citizen’s Income, and of significant legislative attempts at Citizen’s Incomes. The book complements Basic Income Guarantee and Politics, edited by Richard Caputo and recently published by the same publisher, with which it overlaps to some extent, but not too much. Both books are essential reading for anyone interested in how experience of Citizen’s Income, and debate about it, are developing worldwide.
Some of the material in the first part of the book will be familiar to readers of this Newsletter, but some will not be. The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend will be well known, but less well known will be some highly positive results from United States and Canadian Negative Income Tax experiments. This Newsletter has already reported stunning results from the Namibian Citizen’s Income pilot project, but less well known are the complexities of Brazil’s and Canada’s political economies and their effects on benefit reform.
The second part of the book describes Basic Income proposals for East Timor, Catalonia, South Africa, Ireland, Germany, New Zealand, and Australia. The overall impression is of a widespread global debate, different in different countries, but with lots of connections between the different national debates.
Murray’s concluding chapter is understandably effusive about the results of the Namibian pilot project, and about the brake on inequality provided by the Alaskan Permanent Fund Dividend. Conditional schemes, on the other hand, are found to lead to new inequalities (p.253), and tax credit and negative income tax schemes to have similar problems (p.255). Murray recognises the different effects of different political contexts, and this reviewer was particularly struck by ways in which more federal political arrangements, such as those in the USA and Brazil, can make the debate more possible locally but quite complex nationally.
One issue over which the editors seem to be somewhat confused is that of terminolog. In this book, ‘Basic Income’ usually means an unconditional and nonwithdrawable income for every citizen, but sometimes it means a class of benefit types of which an unconditional benefit is one member (e.g., p.251), which leaves the unconditional and universal benefit without a name. A similar problem arises in the introductory chapter, which lists some important questions: What form should the payment take? How much should it be? Should it be unconditional? Should it be universal? Can it be afforded? How should it be funded? Some of these questions are ‘controversial questions’ surrounding ‘Basic Income’ (p.2) if ‘Basic Income’ is understood as an unconditional, nonwithdrawable and universal income: but some are not. The question ‘Should the payment be universal?’ is a question about whether we should have a Basic Income. It is not a question about a Basic Income. Similarly, ‘Should the income be paid unconditionally?’ is a question about whether or not we should have a Basic Income. By the end of the introduction we are entirely unsure about what the term ‘Basic Income’ means.
I know that this has been said in these pages before, but it clearly needs saying again: clarity of definition is essential to rational debate.
Our position is this: A ‘Citizen’s Income’ or a ‘Basic Income’ is an unconditional, nonwithdrawable income for every individual as a right of citizenship. The terms should not be used for anything else. Other terms, such as ‘social dividend’ and ‘universal grant’ are equivalent, but only if they mean the same thing. (We do not use ‘Basic Income Guarantee’ because a guaranteed income can mean an income achieved by means-tested benefits.) Widespread agreement on the meaning of terminology would considerably help the clarity of debate, both individual national debates and the global debate, and it would have helped the editors and authors of the book under review to express themselves more clearly.
But having said all that: Murray and Pateman have provided us with a most useful collection of essays on some highly significant Citizen’s Income experiences and debates, and anyone interested in that debate should read this book.
by Karl Widerquist | Sep 30, 2012 | News
CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS
Basic Income and Economic Citizenship
Twelfth Annual North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress
Thursday May 9th to Saturday May 11th, 2013
Sheraton Hotel and Towers, New York City
The Twelfth Annual North American Basic Income Congress, Basic Income and Economic Citizenship, will take place in New York City on Thursday, May 9th through Saturday, May 11th, 2013. The congress is organized by the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) in cooperation with the Basic Income Canada Network (BICN/RCRG), and will be held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Economic Association (EEA). Attendees at the North American Basic Income Congress are welcome to attend any of the EEA’s events.
The North American Basic Income Congress (NABIG Congress) was originally the USBIG Congress, and was organized by the USBIG Network. It became a joint event of the USBIG Network and BICN/RCRG in 2010. Since then, it has been a NABIG Congress held on alternate years in the United States and Canada. Previous NABIG congresses have been held in Montréal, Toronto, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York City.
Featured speakers of this year’s NABIG Congress include Sheri Berman, Barnard College, author of The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century; and Jurgen De Wispelaere, University of Montréal, co-editor of The Ethics of Stakeholding.
USBIG and BICN/RCRG promote discussion and research on the idea of a basic income—an unconditional guaranteed minimum income that provides a basic but decent standard of living to all. Scholars, activists, and others are invited to propose papers and organize panel discussions on the basic income guarantee or other topics related to poverty and the distribution of wealth and income, including but not limited to:
- strengthening economic citizenship through universal grants and other measures;
- democratizing the economy through budget, tax, and labor market reform;
- building consensus around measures that promote equality;
- models and cost estimates for universal grants;
- issues of gender and the family;
- social justice;
- political prospects for universal grants in North America and around the world; and
- lessons from local pilots, programs, and initiatives.
All points of view are welcome, and proposals from any discipline are invited. To present a paper, organize a panel, or display a poster at the congress, submit a proposal to the congress organizer, Almaz Zelleke of USBIG, at azelleke@gmail.com.
Please include the following information with your proposal:
1. Name(s)
2. Affiliation(s)
3. Address
4. City, Province/State, Postal/Zip Code, and Country
5. Telephone
6. Email Address(es)
7. Paper/Presentation/Panel/Poster Title
8. Abstract or description of 50-150 words
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: November 30th, 2012
Proposals for panel discussions should include a title, topic, and description of the panel and the information above for each participant. If the participants in a panel discussion are not presenting formal papers, the title of the paper and abstract may be omitted. Panels should be limited to no more than four presentations.
REGISTRATION:
Attendees and presenters at the NABIG conference must register with EEA. USBIG participants, who are not economists, can register for $95, a discount of $60 off the regular price of $155. NA-BIG who are economists should become full members of the EEA and pay the full price. The EEA has set up a special online payment system.
For economists: https://eeaorg.myshopify.com/products/usbig-registration-academic
For non-economists: https://eeaorg.myshopify.com/products/usbig-registration-non-academic
MORE INFORMATION:
For updated information on featured speakers, registration, and accommodations as it becomes available, visit the USBIG website at www.usbig.net. For more information about the EEA Annual Meeting, visit the EEA website at https://www.ramapo.edu/eea/2013/.
by Yannick Vanderborght | Aug 30, 2012 | News
Seminar with Uhuru Dempers, the BIG Coalition and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia; Introductions by Carin Norberg,The Nordic Africa Institute and Gunnel Axelsson Nycander, Church of Sweden.
Social protection such as child grants and social pensions have recently been introduced in a growing number of developing countries, with good results. In some countries, a universal, unconditional basic income grant (BIG) has been proposed as the best way to fight extreme poverty and decrease the high level of income inequality.
In Namibia, a coalition of churches, trade unions and NGOs is actively promoting BIG. The BIG coalition has implemented a pilot project in Otjivero, a poor, typical village of about 1000 inhabitants. For two years, everybody in the village received an unconditional grant of approximately 100 SEK per month (€12). The results were striking. In just six months, poverty dropped significantly. Malnutrition decreased, especially among children, and school attendance improved. Among the most important impacts were the effects on the local economy. The small but secure income enabled people to increase their economic activity, through starting small businesses or searching for jobs outside the village.
Practical details: September 12th 14h-16h Kyrkans hus. Sysslomansgatan/St Olofsgatan, room Laurentius Petri, Uppsala, Sweden.
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 26, 2012 | Research
Inter Press Service News Agency, Feb 16 2011
Servaas van den Bosch interviews Bertha Hamases, one of the recipients of the Basic Income pilot project, which took place in rural Namibia over the last three years and ended this spring. In the interview Hamases argues for implementing BIG on a nationwide basis.
The interview is online at:
https://www.ipsnews.net/2011/02/namibia-basic-income-grant-let-others-taste-what-we-have-tasted/