by Karl Widerquist | Apr 4, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in November 2009.
The political barriers to the current situation in the United States and the implementation of a full basic income are daunting. On an international basis, the outlook is much brighter. As far as I can tell, there are more basic income projects underway or under discussion worldwide now than ever before. There are small, privately funded pilot projects going on in Namibia and Brazil. Thirty basic income supporters were elected to the German Bundestag in recent elections. The Nigerian government is considering a regional basic income in the Niger Delta area. The Mongolian government has recently pledged to introduce the world’s first national basic income. (See stories below.)
Just last week, October 29, 2009, I had the honor to be present when the city council of Santo Antonio do Pinhal, Brazil (a city of about 7,000 people in the State of Sao Paulo) voted unanimously to create a small basic income from local tourist revenue. What will come of this small, locally based income remains to be seen. But remember that the Alaska oil dividend was inspired by a local basic income introduced in a small town. And the Alaska dividend may prove to be an inspiration for similar programs in places as far away as Mongolia and Nigeria.
So, progress is happening worldwide. In America, however, it is important to focus on small victories. Politics is full of opportunities to change minds toward the ways of thinking that support basic income.
Two of the most compelling reasons to support basic income are the belief that people have an equal right to the world’s resources and the belief that everyone should have the right to meet their needs. Any policy that helps establish these norms moves us (however gradually) in the direction of basic income.
People don’t discover oil every day, but some kind of new government giveaway of natural resources does happen just about every day. Every new mine, well, or beach front hotel is an opportunity to establish the norm that people have a shared right to natural resources, and that they should be compensated if private firms want to privatize it.
Two years ago we missed an opportunity when the U.S. government gave away a substantial portion of the broadcast spectrum to a few corporations at no charge; and then allowed those companies to sell it back to us. But the issue isn’t settled. A recent study by the Consumer Electronics Association found that reallocating broadcast spectrum could yield cost savings of more than 1 trillion dollars. If and when that reallocation happens, we have the opportunity to press for auctioning off that spectrum and sharing the proceeds.
Several BIG-related campaigns are under way right now. The refundable child tax credit was won a few years ago. It is essentially a very small basic income for children, but only a portion of the federal government’s child tax credits are refundable. Several groups are pushing for a larger refundable credit. The cap-and-dividend approach to greenhouse gas reduction would establish a small basic income out of taxes designed to discourage the behavior that causes global warming (www.capanddividend.org). Cap-and-Dividend is a live issue on Capitol Hill, and several Members of Congress have signed on.
Probably the biggest issue in U.S. politics right now is healthcare reform. The current debate is largely a debate over whether there should be a universal right of access to healthcare. Almost every other country has established that right in law, and the United States might finally join them this year. The versions of healthcare reform on the table right now are not as close to true universality as the healthcare systems exist in most other countries, but they clearly help to establish the norm that healthcare ought to be universal.
Once norms like this are established in law, they tend to become more popular. Although the creation of national health was controversial in many countries, I don’t believe that there is any country in the world that has the universal right to healthcare in which a majority of people would like to go back to a system in which some have health insurance and some don’t. Public education is far from equal, but few people today want to deny a basic education to the children of the poor as most countries did a hundred years ago.
Establishing a universal right to healthcare is not the same as establishing the norm that all people should have an unconditional right to other necessities, but it certainly brings us closer to that objective. The fight for universal healthcare is our fight.
-Karl Widerquist,
Begun in Santo Antonio do Pinhal, Brazil, October 29, 2009
Completed in Doha, Qatar, November 4, 2009
by Karl Widerquist | Mar 28, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in September 2009.
Many people believe that the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend is an idea ready to export—a model that should be copied around the world. Two U.S. Senators have gotten the idea that the Alaska model is ready to be copied, not by the country over which the U.S. Senate has jurisdiction but by Iraq instead.
Last January, John Ensign (Republican-Nevada) introduced the “Support for Iraq Oil Trust Act” of 2009. According to the official summary of the bill, it would force the U.S. State Department to present a plan for an oil trust fund (based on the Alaska model) to the Iraqi government, and it threatens to reduce U.S. aid to Iraq if the U.S. Secretary of State fails to do so.
The bill picked up one cosponsor, Senator Evan Bayh (Democrat-Indiana). No further action has been taken on the bill since it was referred to committee in January, and probably the bill will die in committee.
But the bill has received negative attention from press in the Persian Gulf region. Saadallah Fathi, writing for GulfNews.com (based in Dubai) sees the bill as an effort to pressure the Iraqi government to adopt a policy that is not well-suited for Iraq’s situation.
Whatever the value the Alaska model might have for Iraq, this bill is probably the wrong way to export the idea. The U.S. government could make a greater effort to lead by example. If the Alaska Permanent Fund is a model to be copied, the Senate might consider copying the model itself by creating a Federal U.S. Permanent Fund. Copying the model yourself seems much more reasonable than trying to influence someone else (a sovereign foreign government) to copy the model.
The United States is resource-rich. It has the potential to create a very large Alaska-style fund using taxes on resource exploitation, such as mining, drilling, forestry, carbon emissions, and real estate. If the senators are right that the Alaska-model is ready to be copied, they might consider implementing it first in their own jurisdiction.
-Karl Widerquist, Doha, Qatar, August 2009
For Saadallah Fathi’s article in the Gulf News, go to:
https://www.gulfnews.com/business/Comment_and_Analysis/10322760.html
by Andre Coelho | Feb 22, 2018 | News
Steven Shafarman has just published a new book titled “Basic Income Imperative”. The sub-title points to some of the expected results of basic income implementation, according to him: peace, justice, liberty and personal dignity. Shafarman, author of three other books (Awareness Heals, Healing Politics and We The People), defends the basic income concept in this new book, in an approach centered on the individual. “What do you want for your kids and grandkids?”, “What will you do with a basic income?”, Can you see how this might lead to rapid progress on the issues you care about, like hunger, homelessness, health care, education, democracy, social justice, climate change or peace?” are some questions the book poses, and hints at possible answers, looking further into the future.
In Basic Income Imperative, after a presentation of the basic income concept, precedents are also described, such as the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. It goes on with explaining how it could be implemented, and what it could represent as a changing factor to political landscapes. According to Shafarman, a life member of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), basic income may be a key policy to achieve “meaningful progress on health care, tax reform, global warming, immigration, national security, and other issues”.
More information at:
Steven Shafarman, “Basic Income Imperative: for peace, justice, liberty and personal dignity” (on Amazon)
Basic Income Imperative book website
by Karl Widerquist | Jan 17, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in April 2007.
Republican Presidential Candidate Tommy Thompson has endorsed BIG—at least in a foreign country. On his campaign website, the former Wisconsin Governor calls himself “the reliable conservative in the 2008 presidential race.” The first reason he gives is, “Tommy Thompson is the father of welfare reform.” Thompson has a good claim to that title. Since 1996, welfare reform, also known as “workfare,” replaced conditional cash support for single mothers with work requirements, sometimes for less than minimum wage, without providing daycare. The plan was modeled on an earlier Wisconsin program initiated by then-governor Thompson. Workfare is usually motivated by the belief that poor people have a responsibility to take whatever jobs are offered, even if they have substantial childcare responsibilities.
Thompson is literally the last America one might expect to endorse BIG—a plan to provide unconditional cash benefits to every citizen. But Thompson has not only endorsed BIG, he has made it a major initiative in his campaign. He has discussed it in numerous interviews and speeches and at the Republican presidential debates. He hasn’t endorsed BIG for the United States but as part of his strategy to win the war in Iraq. The BIG element in Thompson’s Iraq strategy is that one-third of Iraqi government oil revenues will be reserved for a fund to provide every Iraqi with a small income guarantee modeled after the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF). USBIG Newsletter readers will recall that the APF was the initiative of another Republican Governor, Jay Hammond. It provides a small but significant income guarantee to every Alaskan resident.
Of course, both the APF and any likely Iraq proposal fall short of the goals of most BIG supporters because they are not large enough to cover the recipient’s needs—a “partial BIG” rather than a “full BIG.” But Alaska experience has show that even a partial BIG can make a great difference to the needy and sets the right precedent.
Thompson’s plan is rather far from implementation, however. To introduce it, the U.S. would have to be continuing its involvement in Iraq two years from now, when a president Thompson would take office. At that point the U.S. will have been at war for nearly six years. Even then, Thompson could only recommend the plan to the Iraqi Parliament, which is formally recognized by the U.S. government as the sovereign government of an independent country. If the whole of Thompson’s plan is adopted, United States would likely remain at war in Iraq for four more years while we find out whether the military elements of his plan work.
Thompson has not discussed extending the Alaska-style plan closer to home, nor does he seem aware of the possible conflict between the goals of an APF-style BIG and his pedigree, Workfare.
What’s the big deal if a politician in one country supports BIG in another country where he may have little influence even if elected? It show that framed in the right context, BIG can have a great appeal even to work-ethic conservatives, and it demonstrates the growing appeal of the APF precedent. The APF is so obviously successful, so popular, and so cost-effective that it appeals even to the father of workfare. Much of the motivation for workfare has been popular American resentment against people who receive direct government payments. But there is little resentment in America for people who receive property income whether or not they work and whether or not they received their property through work. The APF makes some part of Alaska’s oil revenues into part of the personal property of every Alaskan. It’s theirs; they own it. It is quite natural to infer that if it is right for every Alaskan to own a share of their oil, then perhaps every Iraqi should own a share of their oil too. But once you have endorsed that principle it is quite natural to infer that every South African should own a share of their gold. Every Botswanan should own a share of their diamonds. Every Welshman should own a share of their coal. Every Bolivian should own a share of their tin. And the full inference is that everyone should own a share of all natural resources. If we put that principle into practice, single mothers would not need workfare at all.
-Karl Widerquist (Michael Lewis contributing), New Orleans, LA, April 2007
by Karl Widerquist | Dec 20, 2017 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in December 2005.
On November 6, at a conference on greater economic integration in the Americas in Brasilia, just after his 22 minutes conference in Brasilia, President Bush extended his hands Senator Suplicy, who asked:
Senator SUPLICY: “With respect to the integration of the Americas we should have the purpose of not only to have the free movement of capital, goods, and services, without any barriers but also and mainly of what is most important, that is, of human beings from Alaska to the Patagonia. More than that we should also have what you already have in Alaska with much success, a citizen’s basic income to all residents in that State.”
President Bush: “Well, in Alaska they have lots of oil.”
SUPLICY: “But we may have a basic income from all the forms of wealth that are created. I would like to suggest that in order to create the conditions for real peace based on justice in Iraq that we should stimulate the Iraqis to follow the example of Alaska that pays every year a basic income to all residents living in that State in the form of dividends that result from the Alaska Permanent Fund.”
BUSH: “We are working on that! We are working on that! Thank you.”
Suplicy also spoke about Brazil’s basic income at the Parliamentary Network Conference of the World Bank in Helsinki, Finland on October 21-23. About 180 members of the parliaments of about 100 countries of the world participated in the Conference. Senator Suplicy individually lobbied several members of parliaments on Basic Income. Suplicy presented the same lecture at the Austrian and Belgium Basic Income Network, in Vienna, October 9, and to the Training Department of the European Commission, on October 10.
