by Peter Knight | Jun 26, 2023 | Events, News
In Maricá, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, the creation of a local currency in combination with a Basic Income as a Solidarity Economy is creating community wealth.
A webinar will be take place on Friday, 30 June, at 6pm BST organized by the Jain Family Institute (JFI) in the USA about the Basic Income trial in Maricá in Brazil.
Join JFI for a presentation and discussion on the mumbuca, a digital complementary currency introduced in Maricá, Brazil, as part of the city’s Solidarity Economy Program, as well as an interactive visualization of the mumbuca economy: We Take Mumbucas: Charting the Complementary Currency that’s Transforming a Brazilian City
You can register for the webinar by clicking here.
You can read the report about the use of the local currency Mumbuca, in Portuguese, by clicking here.
About 25% of the poorer section of the local population of 200,000 inhabitants receive a Basic Income in this local currency.
by Peter Knight | Jun 3, 2023 | Events, News
The 22nd BIEN Congress: Basic Income in Reality
Date: 23-26 August
Venue: offline (Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea) & online (https://biencongress2023.virtualseoul.or.kr/)
Organizer: Basic Income Korea Network (BIKN)
Co-hosts: 22nd BIEN Congress Local Organizing Committee, Basic Income Policy Laboratory, The Institute for Democracy, National Assembly’s Basic Income Research Forum, and Ewha Institute for Social Sciences
More information is available at the official website for the Congress: http://biencongress2023.org/.
On Registration
The BIEN Congress is the largest annual event of basic income advocates and those interested in basic income around the world. As with the past 21 Congresses, it will be held in a spirit of friendship and solidarity, and all speakers, including keynote speakers, moderators, and audience – in other words, all participants – are required to register in advance.
Registration is a two-step process. The first step is to submit the registration application and the second step is to pay the registration fee. Once you have completed both processes, your registration is complete. You will receive an email with your personal login details to access the online venue.
You can find the registration link here: https://biencongress2023.org/registration/. The registration deadline is 8/15/2023.
For offline participants, information on accommodation is provided here: https://biencongress2023.org/accommodation/.
Keynote Speakers
Guy Standing, Toru Yamamori, Louise Haagh, Michael Tubbs, Sarath Davala, Scott Santens, Almaz Zelleke, Annie Miller, Aida Martinez Tinaut, Jurgen De Wispellaere, Jorge Pinto, Philippe Van Parijs, Roberto Merrill, Nam Hoon Kang, Min Geum, Jeonghee Seo, Hyosang Ahn, and Hye-in Yong. More information on these speakers is available here: https://biencongress2023.org/keynote-speakers/.
Program
A Draft Program will be announced on the Congress website and shared with presenters. The finalized version of the program will be available by July 7th on the Congress website.
About Venue – Ewha Womans University
Ewha Womans University (Korean: 이화여자대학교) is a private women’s university in Seoul founded in 1886. It was the first university founded in South Korea. Currently, Ewha is one of the world’s largest female educational institutes and one of the most prestigious universities in South Korea.
History: https://www.ewha.ac.kr/ewhaen/intro/history02-1.do
by Peter Knight | Apr 2, 2022 | News
Dr. Markus Schlagnitweit, Director of the Catholic Social Academy Austria, has written an article about Catholic teaching and theory and basic income. Several statements of Pope Francis about basic income were reviewed.
In his paper, Schlagnitweit rejects the claim that the basic income violates principles of Catholic social teaching. To the contrary, basic Income is not only compatible with the principles of subsidiarity, solidarity and personal dignity, but it also strengthens them. Furthermore, implementation of an unconditional and universal basic income can help reduce social injustice and other distortions resulting from employment at market-determined wages and a narrow definition of work.
Uncondtional und universal basic Income, which ensures livelihood and social participation, is a fundamental right, according to Markus Schlagnitweit.
Basic Income Network Germany financed the translation and published the paper in several languages:
English
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Polish
by Guest Contributor | Dec 3, 2021 | Opinion
In The Basic Income Engineer (not yet available in English, unfortunately), Marc de Basquiat invites us to embark upon a journey of discovery on the subject of Basic Income. Each chapter draws on a personal experience to illustrate his point and marks a milestone in his intellectual development. The author does not reveal much about his private life (we learn in passing that he has many children). However, this engineer by training and sensibility unabashedly shares the joys and frustrations that have punctuated his journey in search of solutions rather than truths.
He describes himself as a right-leaning by culture. His book reveals, on the contrary, a passionate person with a resolutely left-wing heart, underpinned by great scientific rigor. With his doctorate in economics acquired late in life, de Basquiat has been involved in all aspects of Basic Income research and advocacy: as a founder of the French Movement for a Basic Income (MFRB) and president of the Association pour l’Instauration d’un Revenu d’Existence (AIRE), he knows everyone.
Unlike most Basic Income theorists, who are little concerned with the practical side of things, de Basquiat distills the concept down to a simple formula and brings it to life by quantifying it: €500 per month minus 30% of income. It is this easy to understand and democratic (since it applies to everyone) formula that he successfully defends throughout his work.
The great strength of this book is that the reflection does not stop at the sole question of a Basic Income. Many other issues must be tackled simultaneously to ensure a better quality of life for all. De Basquiat is not a philosopher: so much the better! There are enough of them as it is who stir the economic pot without ever sitting down at the table!
For example, to ensure decent housing for all, he proposes a mechanism that would allow everyone to find housing in exchange for a quarter of their income. His best idea, in my opinion, is the proposal to levy a wealth tax of 0.1% per month (since life lasts about 1000 months) applied equally to the lords of the manor with assets worth 2 million € and to the owner of an old jalopy worth 1000 €. The first one pays 2000 € per month, the other just one euro. It’s an original and disarmingly simple concept that has enormous potential to transform mentalities and strengthen social solidarity. It is also a clever update of Thomas Paine’s Agrarian Justice, to which Basic Income supporters all claim allegiance, without taking full advantage of Paine’s message.
There are some proposals in the Universal Income Engineer that put me off. I can’t accept that an employer can purchase with his payroll contributions the right to direct his employees. A license to lead slaves cannot be bought. But de Basquiat is only describing how things are. Indeed, the power to manage employees is granted free of charge to anyone who sets himself up as a boss.
It is refreshing to see the socio–economic problems of our time treated in a global and integrated way, with rigour and without any ideological bias. It’s an engineering tour de force. And all this while raising a big family!
by Lewis Small | Sep 17, 2021 | Featured, News
On 29th April 2021 the prestigious Oxford Union Society hosted a panel of students, activists, politicians and scholars to debate the motion ‘This House Would Introduce a Universal Basic Income’.
The debate began with the majority (68%) voting in favour of introducing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) and the remaining 32% voting against it. After hearing a total of 8 panelists’ arguments for and against the motion, the majority shifted in the closing poll to a marginal victory for the opposition, with 54% voting against introducing a UBI and 46% voting for it.
The full debate can be watched on the Oxford Union’s YouTube channel here, with a programme of the speakers and summary of their key arguments provided below.
00:33 – Opening up the case for the proposition, Classical Archaeological and Ancient History student Ambika Sehgal drew on anecdotal evidence from victims of flaws in the DWP’s (Department for Work and Pensions) systems, experiences from the Covid-19 pandemic, and accounts of early forms of UBI in Ancient Greek societies to make three arguments for the motion:
- To lift people out of poverty and provide a basic standard of living to everybody “without fear or favour”.
- To increase the wealth of the entire population by giving everybody the freedom to upskill, reeducate, take on more prosperous jobs, or start their own business.
- To prevent the inevitable economic catastrophe that we are approaching as a result of the automation of skilled industries.
10:52 – Rebutting with the opening case for the opposition, Eliza Dean, first year Classics and French student and Member of the Union’s Secretaries Committee, denounced UBI as the solution to our current economic and political struggles, arguing instead for better funding of existing state welfare systems and a return to greater recognition of the value of labour in society.
20:58 – Professor Guy Standing, Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London and founding member of BIEN, outlined the fundamental ethical – as opposed to instrumental – rationale for introducing a UBI, arguing that we have an ethical justification to introduce UBI to resolve the unequal distribution of wealth created by rentier capitalism.
Rounding off his argument for the proposition, Professor Standing drew on his extensive experience working on over 50 pilots to outline some of the key findings of research on UBI:
- It improves individual mental and physical health.
- It reduces people’s stress.
- It leads to better school attendance.
- It increases work and its productivity, leading people to be more innovative and altruistic in their work because people feel more able to act in such a way.
- It helps to reduce debt.
- It leads to a greater sense of social solidarity.
36:34 Marco Annunziata, former Chief Economist and Head of Business Innovation Strategy at General Electric, invoked suggestions for the necessary rise in taxes, the case to offer the same amount to the rich and poor, and the disincentives to work as evidence that a UBI is both unaffordable, unjust and riddled with unintended consequences.
48:53 Drawing on simulations run by the RSA (Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) Anthony Painter, Chief Research & Impact Officer, made the economic case for UBI, citing its ability to make up for inadequacies in existing social support systems by offering a hardwired economic platform for all in society.
59:50 Regarding UBI a ‘recurring revenant’ throughout his career, Professor Hilmar Schneider, Director of the Institute of Labour Economics in Bonn, cited the experience of the German pension system and his own research conducting funding and behavioral responses simulation models to argue against the motion. Pointing to the fact that most UBI pilots rely on external funding sources, Professor Schneider argued that the strongest argument against a UBI lies in its unaffordability, as it would ultimately result in more people losing money than gaining money.
01:10:34 William Greve, first year Philosophy, Politics and Economics student and Sponsorship Officer at the Oxford Union,consolidated the arguments made by the panelists to round off the underlying economic and liberal arguments for a UBI:
- That is the most effective way to counter the wealth inequality and unjust returns to capital observed in the modern economy that leave labour so unjustly rewarded.
- That it is reasonable to demand that all individuals in a society be entitled to a share of the total wealth of society a basic level of economic security.
- That it would fundamentally change our relationship with employment for the better.
Drawing on Professor Schneider’s earlier remarks on the case against higher income taxes (owing to the fact that the majority of wealth that exists in the modern economy is not received as an income in the traditional sense), William also argued that a wealth tax, not an income tax, is the most just and feasible way to fund UBI.
01:21:30 Rt Hon Jon Cruddas, Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham and Former Coordinator for the Labour Party, rounded off the case for the opposition by arguing that those advocating for UBI should remain cautious when their political opponents also support the scheme for radically different outcomes. Noting the many cross-spectrum and cross-ideological arguments for and against the motion, he also pointed to the more ‘mundane and practical’ issues with introducing UBI, such as financial feasibility, its efficacy compared to its alternatives, and what accompanying policies are required to ensure desired outcomes.
Concluding the case against UBI, Rt Hon Cruddas hammered home his argument for the dignity of labour and questioned the role that UBI would play in creating decent work. All but entirely dismissing concerns around automation and the future availability of work, he argued that we should instead be organizing for collective rights, strong unions, income guarantees and above all, dignified labour. He argued that there is a strong case against UBI if you consider that the nature of work thesis is flawed, and that the debate around the future of work is an inherently political one. UBI, he suggested, could transform citizens into ‘passengers of capitalism’, robbing them of meaning and dignity, and leaving them more isolated, vulnerable, angry and humiliated, and society itself less fraternal and solidaristic.
