by Michael Millar | Mar 18, 2014 | News
https://grundeinkommen.tv/?p=263
[Michael Millar]
SUMMARY: Many people are dissatisfied with their jobs. Students are pressured into picking a career. Instead of improving quality of life, we have an ‘elbow society’, one that prioritises economic growth, competition and quantity. As this happens, technology is increasing productivity and making human labour redundant. Enough food can be produced for nearly double the world’s population, yet thousands die of hunger every hour.
“Grundeinkommen – ein Kulturimpuls” is a fast-moving yet thorough analysis of Basic Income, documenting its history, economics, politics and philosophy. The film is peppered with statistics and diagrams, while opinions are shared from sociologists to supermarket workers, bankers to artists, business leaders to the man on the street.
Who would do the dirty work? Who would get out of bed? How would it be paid for? These questions are discussed, along with proposals for a single consumption tax. Income tax could be abolished while value added tax could be made more social. Victories against inequality such as child labour and the vote for women are compared to the struggle for Basic Income. The film concludes that Basic Income will encourage greater creativity, collaboration and meaning in life.
Language: German, with English subtitles
Daniel Häni und Enno Schmidt, “Grundeinkommen – ein Kulturimpuls [Basic Income – a cultural impulse]”, September 17 2008.
by Karl Widerquist | Mar 6, 2014 | News
The 15th BIEN Congress will take place on 27-29 June 2014 at McGill University (Montreal) on the theme of “Re-democratizing the Economy.” A pre-conference workshop focusing on political strategies for pushing BIG on the agenda in Canada and the United States will take place on 26 June as part of the 13th annual North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) conference.
-BICN
Featured speakers for the BIEN Congress 2014 include:
· Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), United Nations
· Roberto Gargarella, Professor of Constitutional Theory and Political Philosophy at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at University College London
· Renana Jhabvala, President of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), Bharat, India
· Joe Soss, Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
· Guy Standing, Professor in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and Co-President, BIEN
· David Stuckler, Senior Research Leader at University of Oxford and Research Fellow of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Chatham House
A full congress program will be available mid-March.
For all info visit https://biencanada.ca/congress/registration.
-BICN
by Karl Widerquist | Mar 6, 2014 | Research
Michael Howard is a professor of philosophy at the University of Maine. -From the Bangor Daily News
AUTHOR’S SUMMARY: “I argued previously in a Feb. 4 BDN OpEd that unconditional cash transfers funded by a carbon tax could bring about substantial reductions in extreme poverty globally. But what about the less-than-extreme poverty in developed countries? Is there a case to be made for unconditional cash transfers for them?”
Michael Howard, “Guaranteed income for every adult? It’s not as far-fetched as you might think,” Bangor Daily News (Maine, USA), March 04, 2014.
by Karl Widerquist | Jan 26, 2014 | Research
From Heathwood Press
AUTHOR’S SUMMARY: Over the past few weeks I’ve had the privilege of engaging with a number of people both in formal discussions and on Heathwood’s comment boards regarding a range of issues. These issues span from the structural problems of capitalism and the idea of the basic income law through to an alternative philosophy of social change, the questionable meaning of ‘social progress’, and potential social-economic alternatives. The following article, which I’ve broken down into a few different sections, carries forward these discussions in light of arguments made in: Gunn & Wilding, ‘Occupy as Mutual Recognition’, ‘Revolutionary or Less-Than-Revolutionary Recognition’; Gunn, Wilding & Smith, ‘Alternative horizons – understanding Occupy’s politics’; Michael Ott, ‘Something’s Missing: A Study of the Dialectic of Utopia in the theories of Theodor W. Adorno and Ernst Bloch’; as well as R.C. Smith, ‘A series of essays on an alternative philosophy of social change’, ‘In defense of Occupy’s politics’, ‘Russell Brand, the question of revolution and why we need more than an abstract, grand narrative of social change’.
R.C. Smith, “On the Basic Income Law, Economic Democracy, Participatory Economics, and the Importance of the Commons in the 21st Century”, Heathwood Press, December 18, 2013,
by Karl Widerquist | Jan 16, 2014 | News
The BIEN Congress 2014 has extended the deadline for submitting proposals for papers, panels and roundtables. The extended deadline is Friday 31 January 2014. Anyone interested should visit the conference website for more information or to submit a proposal.
The 15th BIEN Congress will take place on 27-29 June 2014 at McGill University (Montreal) on the theme of “Re-democratizing the Economy.” A pre-conference workshop focusing on political strategies for pushing BIG on the agenda in Canada and the United States will take place on 26 June as part of the 13th annual North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) conference.
Featured speakers for the BIEN Congress 2014 include:
· Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), United Nations
· Roberto Gargarella, Professor of Constitutional Theory and Political Philosophy at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at University College London
· Renana Jhabvala, President of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), Bharat, India
· Joe Soss, Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
· Guy Standing, Professor in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and Co-President, BIEN
· David Stuckler, Senior Research Leader at University of Oxford and Research Fellow of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Chatham House
For more information or to submit a proposal go to: www.biencongress2014.com
Basic Income Canada Network
