by Stanislas Jourdan | Dec 1, 2014 | Opinion
Yoland Bresson (1942-2014), one of the prominent advocate for basic income in France passed away during the summer.
A tribute by Jacques Berthillier originally published in French. Translated and adapted by Stanislas Jourdan.
In 1971, Yoland Bresson worked as an economist for the Concorde aircraft project, and observes a surprising fact: those who have more control over time and personal schedule are those with more financial resources (and those who are more likely to book flights on Concorde airlines). Moreover, people’s resources increase over time because freedom and time allow to take advantage from commercial discounts, and get access to social conditions which allow to escape from constrained social time.
Yoland started to dedicated himself into studying those notions until he found the theory linking spare time with income, which he published in 1981, and developped in the book ‘Post-Salariat’ in 1984. A conclusion emerged from this theory: the value of time is the value of the minimum income, the poverty line from which individuals become economically integrated. Therefore, we should distribute to people the monetary equivalent of the unit of time.
In 1986, Yoland Bresson was invited by Philippe van Parijs to participate to the very first meeting in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) where BIEN was founded.
Later on, he was contacted by Henri Guitton, reknown economist and very enthusiast reader of Bresson’s books. They decided together to found a working group around those concepts. After a series of meetings at the Polytechnic University, the “association for an existence income” (AIRE) was created. They insisted on the notion of ‘income’ as opposed to ‘allocation’ [allowance] because an income is linked with the contribution to the creation of wealth, while a social allwoance is refers to the notion of assistance. Indeed, every single exchange of time contributed to the creation of wealth, as Bresson proclaimed.
First, Henri Guitton was president of the AIRE, then Yoland Bresson replaced him after Guitton died. The association was striving for the instauration of an ‘existence income’, it explored the idea in order for all citizens and politicians to embrace it.
Since then, the AIRE kept spreading the idea. It notably organised a BIEN Congress at Paris Saint-Maur in 1992, a colloque at Cedias on june 12th 1996, and two other ones at the French National Assembly: one on November 26th, 1998, with more than 300 participants. Finally; and the second one on june 23rd 2004 with the sponsorship from Christine Boutin (Christian-Democrats leader).
In 2012, when the European Citizens’ Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income started to be organised, Bresson immediatly supported the efforts deployed by a new generation of activists. He partners his association with the launch of a new website revenudebase.info which resulted in the creation of the French Movement for a Basic Income, a new association which broadly federates all those who push for the idea of a basic income. Yoland Bresson had the wisdom and open-mindness necessary to trust the young new blood who made the movement grow.
Yoland Bresson also played an international role in the promotion of basic income, notably through his interventions in the french-speaking african countries, and until recently in Bulgaria. Shortly before he died on august 22nd 2014, he was invited for a conference at the Polish Parliament.
His contribution as an economist also include his last proposal: the creation of a eurofranc, a new national currency complementary with the euro currency. His idea was to unleash the possibility to finance a basic income with money creation, without transgressing the Lisbon Treaty – which would result in leaving the eurozone. Such scheme was set to be temporary, allowing a smooth transition for the introducion of a basic income.
If this very innovative (and even revolutionary) proposal was adopted, the introduction of a basic income would be facilitated, and the economic activity would be simultaneously stiumulated.
Following Yoland Bresson’s decease, we have received a very large number of letters expressing sympathy, esteem and gratitude to Yoland and his family. It would not be possible to publish all of them, but there is one we would like to communicate. The one from BIEN’s founder Philippe van Parijs:
Yoland was present at the founding Assembly of BIEN in 1986. Until now he remained a loyal camarade of thoughts and struggle. Like others before and after him, he passed away without witnessing the achievement of a proposal he kept believing. Nonetheless, the day when his country as elsewhere eventually will implement the basic income, we will owe him and others with such personalities »
by BIEN | Oct 26, 2014 | Opinion
Book review of Birnbaum, Simon. 2012. Basic Income Reconsidered: Social Justice, Liberalism, and the Demands of Equality. Basic income guarantee series. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 246 pp.
ISBN 978–0–230–11406–7
Published in Ethical Perspectives, vol.3, 2014, p.464-5.
Roberto Merrill (University of Minho)
In his book Basic Income Reconsidered: Social Justice, Liberalism, and the Demands of Equality, Simon Birnbaum builds a defence of an unconditional basic income which is based on three pillars: the first consists in a radical-liberal interpretation of John Rawls’ theory of justice, the second offers a reconstruction and defence of Van Parijs “jobs as gifts” argument for basic income, and the third proposes a definition of a work ethics which is not perfectionist and is compatible with state neutrality.
The book is divided in three parts.
The first part of the book, untitled “A Society of Equals: Radical Liberalism, Self-Respect, and Basic Income” is divided in two chapters, the first one being devoted to a defence of a rawlsian case for basic income, and the second chapter is an examination and refutation of the claim that only contributors are entitled to social rights. The general aim of the chapter is to defend an understanding of Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness, in particular Rawls’ theory of primary goods, including self-respect, which can be compatible with the promotion of a basic income as the best way to protect the status of the least advantaged as free and equals throughout their lives.
A first convincing strategy proposed by Birnbaum in arguing for a rawlsian case for basic income is to recall that John Rawls, following the work of James Meade on property-owning democracy, argued that justice must also achieve resource equalization ex ante rather than only corrective adjustments ex post. Ex post justice is what the welfare state in capitalist societies already does and it’s not working. A basic income should thus be considered as an adequate illustration of a public policy which contributes to realize the ideal of a property-owning democracy. Furthermore, according to Birnbaum paid work should not be considered as a necessary condition of rawlsian self-respect, otherwise it would imply a perfectionist conception of self-respect incompatible with liberal neutrality (Birnbaum, 2012:61).
Another convincing argument proposed by Birnbaum allowing to block a potential objection to a defence of basic income from the rawlsian conception of society as a system of cooperation is to distinguish two conceptions of cooperation: a thick and a thin one. A thick conception of cooperation implies both economic and political cooperation and a thin conception implies only one of them (Birbaum, 2012: 68). Furthermore, both economical and political cooperation can be thick or thin. According to Birnbaum, a thick conception of cooperation, which implies labour market participation is in tension with some of Rawls basic intuitions about justice and therefore should be rejected. If true, this clears the way for a compatibility between Rawls’ conception of social cooperation and a basic income, and thus for radical liberalism.
The second part of the book, untitled “The Exploitation Objection against Basic Income: Equality of Opportunity, Luck, and Responsibility”, is also divided in two chapters.
The first chapter consists of a review and a refutation of the main variants of the “exploitation objection” against the defence of a basic income such as formulated by Philippe Van Parijs in his book Real Freedom for All, which, according to Birnbaum, offers the best defence against the exploitation objection. The main variant of the exploitation objection examined is the “restriction objection”, according to which the distribution of the pool of resources is only for those that are willing to work and are involuntary unemployed (Birnbaum, 2012: 34-35). In this chapter, Birnbaum examines Van Parijs’ controversial claim according to which employment rents, incorporated in wages of privileged jobs, must me considered as resources to which all are entitled. Birnbaum distinguishes a weak and a strong version of this objection and argues that Van Parijs “jobs as gifts” argument, according to which the employment rents should be considered as common resources to which all have an equal claim, survives the strong version of the restriction objection. However, this is only possible if some qualifications related to the “long term stability of justice” are incorporated to the argument. These qualifications are developed in the second chapter, in a clear and convincing reconstruction and defence of Van Parijs “jobs as gifts” argument for basic income. According to Birnbaum, if Van Parijs’ argument is to be successful in rejecting the exploitation objection, apart from accommodating the “stability of justice” clause, it also needs to accommodate some considerations regarding the social and economical conditions of basic autonomy (which are fleshed out in part one of Birnbaum’s book).
The third and last part of the book, untitled “The Feasibility of Basic Income: Social Ethos, Work, and the Politics of Universalism”, is divided in two chapters. The first chapter proposes a conception of a “work ethics” which is compatible with liberal neutrality. Contra Van Parijs, Birnbaum argues for a non obligatory work ethos which avoids any perfectionist implications, by proposing a wide definition of an ethos of contribution which includes activities that are not “productivist”. However, Birnbaum acknowledges that his anti-perfectionist definition of a work ethics, although having the advantage of being compatible with neutrality, also exposes itself to the structural exploitation objection, since it does not protect self-sacrificing individuals to be exploited by selfish ones (Birnbaum, 2012: 160). But this is not the freedom that liberal neutrality should protect, nor the freedom that radical liberal egalitarians seek to promote through the implementation of a basic income. For this reason Birnbaum tries to avoid this consequence of his redefinition of the work ethos by introducing the notion of a “minimal autonomy” to which all individuals must have access if they are to avoid ethical servility and make well informed choices about their life-plans (Birnbaum, 2012: 162). As a neutralist, one might worry here that Birnbaum’s minimal autonomy constraint implies a work ethos and a duty to contribute which after all may not be compatible with liberal neutrality, although it clearly is less perfectionist than the alternative of a strictly productivist ethos while at the same time resisting well to the exploitation objection.
The last chapter proposes an exploration of the political implications of radical liberalism, in practical policy issues, such as political legitimacy, environmental sustainability, and gender equity. The author explores these issues in a clear and well informed way. The book ends with a realistic proposal by arguing for a gradualist implementation of a basic income scheme. Overall, the book is a major contribution to the liberal egalitarian literature on basic income.
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 10, 2014 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
Unconditional Basic Income is a movement. Five or ten years ago the idea was little discussed outside of a few limited—mostly academic—circles. Now activists are campaigning for it all over the world. The mainstream media is writing about it. It is becoming a part of the political debate.
When I agreed to write the USBIG NewsFlash in 1999, Basic Income was so far out of the popular mindset, I didn’t think there would be enough news to fill a newsletter every two months, but even in those pre-Great-Recession days, there was always something to report. The expansion of worldwide attention to basic income has been great for the movement, but it’s created a difficult task for BI News. There is so much Basic Income-related news that Basic Income News (the website) and its accompanying NewsFlashes (email newsletters) will have to expand along with the movement. With this issue, both the BIEN and the USBIG NewsFlashes will become monthly (instead of bi-monthly) publications.
Basic Income News—once mostly written by one or two people—is now written by a growing team of volunteer reporters. Toby Rane and Jenna van Draanen have recently completed training to join Josh Martin, Craig Axford, F. H. Pitts, and me as members of the group of rotating volunteers who keep up with all the BIG news—as best we can—making sure Basic Income News is updated daily. Four others (Pablo E. Yanes Rizo, Andrea Fumagalli, Jason Burke Murphy, and Toru Yamamori) are currently in the training process. Yanes and Fumagalli are far enough in the process that they have already contributed pieces to the website and the accompanying NewsFlashes.
We have found that a rotating team of about five or six people can keep up with most of the English-language news leads that come up. Usually a different reporter takes full responsibility for the news section of the website each week. We now have a functioning, rotating English-language team, and we hope to have similar teams in Spanish, French, German, and other languages. We hope also to expand our features section as well to include regular blogs, interviews, and opinion pieces.
Since the retirement of two past editors, Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, both of whom had great multi-lingual skills, Basic Income News has fallen behind in our coverage of news from non-English-language sources. We hope that to expand the team in ways that will also allow us to cover many more languages. We have currently have a few volunteers with knowledge of Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Japanese. We could certainly use more volunteers with skills in those and other languages (including English). If you would like to volunteer for Basic Income News, please send me an email: Karl@Widerquist.com.
-Karl Widerquist, Mojo Coffee House, October 7; revised the Rook Café, Freret Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 8, 2014
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 29, 2014 | News
The Swiss government opposes the popular intiative for an unconditional basic income, but the national referendum is still to happen in 2016.
The Swiss Federal Council has released its evaluation of the popular initiative for an unconditional basic income (UBI), which received enough signatures last fall to trigger a nationwide referendum on it. The Federal Council evaluates all people’s initiatives in Switzerland making one of three recommendations: it could accept, reject, or no recommendation. The council chose to reject the initiative. The initiative will still take place sometime in 2016, the rejection means simply that the council recommends that citizens vote no on the proposal.
Enno Schmidt & Daniel Straub, the two main organizers of the people’s initiative said, “This is nothing special. We expected this.” The function of a people’s initiative is to bypass the government and go directly to the people even against the ruling government’s wishes.
The Federal Council also release a statement justifying its rejection of the initiative. The statement alleged many shortcomings of UBI, including: many low-paid jobs would probably disappear or be transferred abroad, Women would be forced back into the housework and care work. Taxes would rise considerably to finance the basic income and further weaken the incentive to work. The amount of the UBI proposed is too large and cannot be financed. It contradicts the principle of subsidiarity. The statement also defended the existing social system is in Switzerland. The Federal Council agreed with the founders of the initiative that each person has to be able to can live a life in dignity but argued that Switzerland achieves that goal with its existing system.
Schmidt & Straub’s reaction to the statement was mixed, “The tone of the message is fair, no nasty insinuations and no polemic.” But, according to Schmidt & Straub, the substance of statement implied that Switzerland would perish if this initiative were accepted by the people.
Philippe Van Parijs, of the Basic Income Earth Network said that this statement was an opportunity for Basic Income supporters “to point out the misunderstandings [in the statement] and to work out realistic scenarios in terms of amount and funding.”
For more information (in German) see:
Enno Schmidt & Daniel Straub, “Botschaft des Bundesrates über das bedingungslose Grundeinommen, [Report of the Federal Council on the unconditional Grundeinommen],” Volksinitiative Grundeinkommen, August 2014.
News.Admin.ch, “Bundesrat lehnt die Volksinitiative ‘Für ein bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen» [Bundesrat rejects the popular initiative “for an unconditional basic income’],” News.Admin.ch, 27, 08, 2014.
Didier Burkhalter, “Botschaft zur Volksinitiative «Für ein bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen» [Message Regarding the People’s Initiative ‘for an unconditional basic income’],” the Swiss Federal Council, 2014.
Aagauer Zeitung, “Bundesrat lehnt Initiative für bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen ab [Bundesrat rejects initiative for unconditional basic income].” Aagauer Zeitung, 27, 08, 2014.
For more information in French see:
Ludwig Gärtner, “Conseil fédéral suisse : Le Conseil fédéral rejette l’initiative populaire ‘Pour un revenu de base inconditionnel,’ [Swiss Federal Council, the Federal Council rejects the popular initiative ‘For an unconditional basic income’]” Zonebourse, 27/08/2014
Enno Schimdt contributed to this article.
“8 Millionen Fünfräppler auf Bundesplatz bei Initiative-Einreichung” -Aagauer Zeitung
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.
