by Craig Axford | Aug 6, 2014 | News
Photograph by Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg
Congressman Chris Van Hollen, (D) Maryland, recently introduced the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act of 2014. If passed, this legislation would guarantee every American a small Basic Income using revenues from the sale of carbon permits. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, these permits would be auctioned off to carbon emitting industries in the same manner the US government currently auctions off permits for the emission of sulfur dioxide. The permitting system for sulfur dioxide was instituted in 1990 in response to the increasing impact of acid rain. It is widely credited with dramatic reductions in the release of that pollutant since.
Because revenues from the sale of permits under the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act would be evenly distributed to every American, this legislation links a basic income to the struggle against global warming in ways past anti-pollution efforts have not. According to Climateandprosperity.org American families stand to receive a dividend regardless of income. “With an initial auction price of $10/ton of CO2, a median family of four would receive about $640/year and pay about $380 as a result of higher fossil fuel prices, receiving a net benefit of about $260/year.” The organization projects this payment will grow over time as permits increase in value. Climateandprosperity.org also reports a substantial number of environmental organizations have already endorsed the proposal. According to the organization’s statement of support for the legislation 32 groups from around the United States have so far endorsed the bill. This potentially provides an opportunity for basic income advocates to expand support for the BIG concept as well.
For additional information regarding the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act of 2014 please visit one or more of the following websites:
Peter Coy, “Is This How to Sell Americans on Fighting Global Warming?”, Bloomberg Businessweek, July 30, 2014
Congressman Chris Van Hollen, “Van Hollen Introduces the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act of 2014”, Press Releases, July 30, 2014
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, “Protecting Our Climate and the Middle Class”, The Huffington Post, July 30, 2014
Climate and Prosperity, “Climate and Consumer Groups Support the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act“, Climateandprosperity.org, July 30, 2014
by Karl Widerquist | Jul 17, 2014 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
The 15th International Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network was held in Montreal at McGill University from June 27 to June 29, 2014, and a pre-conference North American day was held on June 26. The event was sold out with well over 200 people attending.
Two of the central topics at the conference were the recent basic income pilot projects the recent petition drives for basic income. Renana Jhabvala, of Self-Employed Women’s Association and Guy Standing, of School of Oriental and African Studies discussed the recent pilot project in India. Among other results, basic income was found to increase health and employment.
Enno Schmidt, Co-founder of the Initiative Basic Income in Switzerland and president of the Cultural Impulse Switzerland Foundation, and Stanislas Jourdan, Co-founder of the French Movement for Basic Income and Coordinator for Unconditional Basic Income Europe, talked with Barbara Jacobson, of Basic Income UK, and Philippe Van Parijs, of BIEN, about the citizens initiatives of basic income in Switzerland and the European Union (EU). Between the two initiatives, activists raises more than 400,000 signatures, enough to trigger a vote in Switzerland to take place in 2015 or 2016. Although the EU movement did not receive enough signatures to trigger a vote, it created headlines across the continent, sparked a pan-European movement for BIG (UBIEurope), and organized national movements in all of the EU’s member states.
Joe Soss, of University of Minnesota, gave the NABIG (North American Basic Income Guarantee) lecture, which was surprisingly optimistic despite its depressing title, “Disciplining the Poor, Downsizing Democracy?” He discussed how many recent social policies from welfare “reform” to the 500% increase in the incarceration rate are part of an international trend toward treating poverty as willful misbehavior curable only by discipline. The optimism came from his belief that people are coming to recognize what’s been happening, and they’re fighting back through various movements.
The conference included a good mix of academics and activists. The Congress generated press around Canada and to some extent around the world. Some of the attendees started an international youth activist organization for the basic income, called Basic Income Generation. The Basic Income Canada Network furthered its push for a $20,000 basic income for all Canadians. The theme of technological unemployment recurred through many of the sessions—much more than it has in any past BIEN Congress. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twentieth Century, was discussed by many of the academics at the Congress. And discussion of the Great Recession was frequent.
The Congress closed with BIEN’s General Assembly (GA) meeting. The GA voted to recognize five new affiliates from Norway, France, Portugal, Europe (UBIEurope) and the Southern African Development Community (the SADC BIG Coalition). UBIEurope and the SADC BIG Coalition have become BIEN’s first transnational affiliates.
A new Executive Committee (EC) was elected by the GA, including Louise Haagh and Karl Widerquist as Co-Chairs, Anja Askeland as Secretary, Borja Barragué as Treasurer, and Andrea Fumagalli, Toru Yamamori, Pablo Yanes Rizo, and Jason Murphy as EC members for News and Outreach.
Several issues were tabled (delayed) due to lack of time. These included some proposed amendments to BIEN’s statutes and a proposal to change BIEN’s definition of unconditional basic income to include a clause that it must be high enough to allow individuals to live in dignity.
The GA ended with a bit of drama. Before we could give up the room to the cleaning crew, which had been waiting much longer than they expected, the GA had to decide the location of the next Congress between three impressive proposals from affiliates in Finland, the Netherlands, and South Korea. As time was running out, the representatives of Netherlands and Finland both dropped their bid in favor of Seoul, Korea, and the motion was quickly passed unanimously.
I think I speak for all of BIEN’s leadership when I write that we are looking forward to working with Korea on the 2016 Congress and to working with UBIE and all of BIEN’s European affiliates to help build on the political moment for basic income has devleoped on that continent.
-Karl Widerquist, Cru Coffee House, Beaufort, North Carolina, June 13, 2014
Some of the press coverage of the BIEN Congress:
Ahn Hyo-sang, “[Special report] Basic income movement gaining momentum worldwide.” The Hankyoreh, July12, 2014.
Benjamin Shingler, “$20,000 per person: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians” The Globe and Mail, 29 June 2014.
Beryl Wajsman, “The fierce urgency for a guaranteed national income”, The Metropolitain, 30 June 2014.
The Canadian Press, “Guaranteed $20K income for all Canadians endorsed by academics”, CBC News, 30 June 2014.
Deirdre Fulton, “New Campaign Pushes for ‘Basic Income Guarantee’ in Canada“, Common Dreams, 3 July 2014.
Dan Delmar, “The Exchange Podcast with Dan Delmar,” CJAD 800AM Radio, 2 July 2014. [Discussion of BIG begins about 18 minutes into the broadcast.]
Jacob Kearey-Moreland, “Universal Income Worth a Look”, Orilla Packet, 4 July 2014.
Mélanie Loisel, “Le revenu garanti est la voie de l’avenir, croit Blais”, Le Devoir, 30 June 2014.
by Josh Martin | Jul 15, 2014 | News
[Josh Martin]
The 2014 BIEN International Congress took place in Montreal at McGill University from June 27 to June 29. Among the hundreds of attendees were academics from a variety of disciplines—economics, social work, development studies, philosophy, and many others—as well as community activists, politicians, and others simply interested in the idea of a basic income for all. The Congress generated press around the world for a few major reasons: some of the attendees started an international youth activist organization for the basic income, numerous papers were presented on the basic income, and, most significantly, the Basic Income Canada Network furthered its push for a $20,000 basic income for all Canadians.
Here are some of the news stories run around the world about the Congress:
Ahn Hyo-sang, “[Special report] Basic income movement gaining momentum worldwide.” The Hankyoreh, July12, 2014.
Benjamin Shingler, “$20,000 per person: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians” The Globe and Mail, 29 June 2014.
The Canadian Press, “Guaranteed $20K income for all Canadians endorsed by academics”, CBC News, 30 June 2014.
Beryl Wajsman, “The fierce urgency for a guaranteed national income”, The Metropolitain, 30 June 2014.
Dan Delmar, “The Exchange Podcast with Dan Delmar,” CJAD 800AM Radio, 2 July 2014. [Discussion of BIG begins about 18 minutes into the broadcast.]
Mélanie Loisel, “Le revenu garanti est la voie de l’avenir, croit Blais”, Le Devoir, 30 June 2014.
Deirdre Fulton, “New Campaign Pushes for ‘Basic Income Guarantee’ in Canada“, Common Dreams, 3 July 2014.
Jacob Kearey-Moreland, “Universal Income Worth a Look”, Orilla Packet, 4 July 2014.
by Karl Widerquist | Jul 12, 2014 | News
A new group, called Basic Income Generation (BIG), formed at the 2014 BIEN Congress in Montreal. Although the group began as a youth movement, Basic Income Generation is a Basic Income activist collective with open-ended membership (without age, occupational, or locational restriction). Basic Income Generation aims to facilitate the direct support of BIEN to movements and actions in support of unconditional basic income around the world.
Basic Income Generation is the product of a process started in late 2012 by two Korean Basic Income activists, Juon Kim and Kieun Song, who first proposed that a Basic Income Global Youth Network (BIGYN). After a few exchange of emails and a Skype meeting, it was decided that activists would gather up all the young people present at the next BIEN General Assembly to ask them what they thought of the idea and how to move it forward. The group thus organized two informal gatherings in Montreal, which led the group to turn into Basic Income Generation (on a proposal from Stanislas Jourdan), on the Swiss model of ‘Generation Basic Income’ that was created to support their national citizen initiative, and lead it to succeed.
Part of the reason for the choice of its name, is that Basic Income Generation is not defined by some trait of its membership, but by its objectives: Helping BIEN to be more present and efficient in its support of Basic Income activism worldwide, as well as helping BIEN to develop new communication strategies and material, while facilitating exchanges between Basic Income activist from all over the world.
More information about Basic Income Generation (including information on how to get involved) is on its Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/248926788642187/
Basic Income Generation
by Josh Martin | Jul 5, 2014 | News
[Josh Martin]
The moderator of the Basic Income page on Reddit, under the username 2noame, has called on all Americans to write to their representatives in Congress encouraging them to consider supporting a universal basic income. He also includes an available template he constructed that others can use.
Here is the template:
“Dear Senator Last Name, (or Congressman/Congresswoman Last Name)
I am writing to you as one of your constituents about something that is not yet on the map of the political landscape but what I guarantee will become increasingly discussed as current conversations amplify around ongoing inequality, an increasingly strained welfare system, and ongoing automation of human labor through innovations in software and hardware. I’m talking about unconditional basic income.
I don’t know how familiar with this idea you are, but it is the idea that every U.S. citizen should receive an unconditional cash grant, given with the same regularity as a paycheck, regardless of any conditions other than citizenship, and set at a level sufficient to cover our most basic needs such as food and housing. Think of it as a Social Security check for every citizen, in the amount of about $1,000 per month per adult and perhaps $333 per child, for nothing other than being a citizen.
If this idea is new to you, I admit it can sound crazy on its face, but once you actually look into it and learn all the evidence of where forms of it exist or have been tried, including our own state of Alaska, it really starts to not only make sense, but becomes the policy option that makes the most sense of all. I understand you keep a busy schedule but please consider reading the following article as a primer to the idea. It’ll take about 12 minutes.
Article: https://medium.com/working-life/why-should-we-support-the-idea-of-an-unconditional-basic-income-8a2680c73dd3[3] (leave as is or insert your own favorite link)
I write this letter to urge you to consider looking into basic income as an idea for new legislation. If you are aware of the Oxford study that estimated 47% of all current jobs are at risk of being eliminated by technology in 20 years, and you are also aware of Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century calling for redistributive taxation to prevent capitalism from endangering our democracy, and you are also aware of the inefficiencies and inadequacies of our current safety nets, and you also recognize the need to provide stimulus to our economy to allow consumers to return to consuming and the vital importance of regrowing our middle class, then the idea of unconditional basic income will no doubt make a lot of sense to you. The question will become what is the best way of funding it.
If you get out ahead of the curve on this matter, you will be seen as having real vision, and a real understanding of where we are headed. Bill Gates himself has warned of the inevitability of labor demand being reduced by software and that he thinks people don’t “have that in their mental model.” Meanwhile Robert Reich when recently asked about basic income directly, replied that he sees it as “almost inevitable.” We need to start seriously looking into this as actively debated legislation as support for it will only continue to increase. Of this, I have no doubt. Please consider leading the way in this matter, and begin personally working towards the introduction of legislation for basic income to be voted on in Congress.
Thank you so much for your time, and if you have any questions about basic income, now or at any point in the future, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Your Name”
For more basic income news on Reddit, go to reddit.com/r/basicincome
His full post is available here.
