by Peter Knight | Mar 10, 2023 | Events, News
“This panel invites contributors to elaborate discussions concerning the Basic Income theory and its connection with problematics in the fields of Ethics, Politics, Sociology, and Economics. There are central issues for this panel, which aim for multidisciplinary debates that should stimulate UBI studies in various disciplines.
Therefore, questions that play a key role in this discussion are the following:
- How can a UBI project tell us more about the potential environmental impacts, and the rise of inequality, unemployment, and poverty around the world?
- Which social policies should be proposed in coordination with the UBI aiming for higher welfare levels and environmental stability?
- What are the ex-post consequences of a UBI policy, either in the short, medium or long-term perspectives? How would it affect educational, health, and political spectra, and how does it influence individual freedom?
- How does one build political and economic conditions for a UBI policy to be approved and how do long-lasting projects impact governmental spending regarding public services?
- Would a Basic Income project be beneficial to Portugal when faced with the Portuguese socio-economic structure and challenges?”
For details on the panel and its call for papers, click here.
by Peter Knight | Feb 10, 2023 | News
“We need a new approach to addressing poverty in South Africa. The current system is not working and we can no longer pretend that there will be enough jobs for everyone. By bringing visibility to the benefits of a digital basic income transfer, we’re expanding the possibilities for South Africans and nourishing the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit present in the country ”, says Karen Jooste, Founder of RightfulShare.
The project began as a policy proposal in the South African parliament and has since moved into an independent initiative. Every month for one year, beneficiaries receive a digital basic income in GoodDollar to use as they choose.
Read the details in the full press release.
by Peter Knight | Feb 2, 2023 | News
One of BIEN’s founders, Philippe Van Parijs, has published a review of new book by a distinguished Indian economist, Pranab Bardhan. Bardhan argues that insecurity and not inequality is the source of our worldwide democratic malaise. And in poor countries even more than in rich ones a basic income is required in order to reduce not poverty but insecurity.
Van Parijs concludes: “Whether in India, Europe or America, Bardhan does not claim that basic income constitutes a magic potion to guarantee security, let alone a magic bullet to kill populism. But it is part of the battery of security-enhancing policies that are needed if the root causes of the worldwide disenchantment with democracy are to be addressed.”
To read the review, click here.
by Guest Contributor | Jan 19, 2023 | Events, News
Guest Contributor: Jeffery J. Smith, co-founder of the US Green Party and author of the play
Thomas Paine—not Tom Paine as his detractors addressed him—added his voice to the chorus of prominent thinkers calling for an extra income for everyone sourced from ground rent. In the 18th century, Paine’s was a popular voice, inspiring revolt everywhere. His opponents dubbed his career “the Age of Paine”.
Leading reformers advanced “physiocracy” (nature’s rule). To them, it was obvious that the distribution of natural rent created class, decided one’s wealth vs one’s poverty, and conferred political power as consistently as a natural law. Physiocrats dominated debate in the three nations where Paine promoted justice.
In France, Quesnay and Turgot formulated “l’impot unique” (the single tax) on land. Mirabeau the Elder prophesied their discovery would be a “social advance equal to the inventions of writing and money.” (The equal of fire, too?) Voltaire’s character Candide declared, “The fruits of the earth are a common heritage of all, to which each man has equal right.” Rousseau added, “You are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to no one.” The first French Republic used land rent exclusively until the cost of war impelled them to tax commerce, too.
In Britain, Adam Smith wrote, “Ground rents seem a more proper subject of peculiar taxation.” William Blackstone judged “The earth, therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of all mankind.”
In America, two famous friends of Paine shared the same belief. Thomas Jefferson: “Everyone may have land to labor for himself may exact for it such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable subsistence, but wherewith to provide for a cessation from labor in old age.” Benjamin Franklin, bankrupted by his speculation in land (bailed out by friends), converted to physiocracy. Today, the US Social Security Administration recognizes Paine’s proposal as the precursor of the Social Security pension.
Paine’s Common Sense spurred the American colonies to rebel, his American Crisis kept them at it while the war went against them. For these achievements—plus Rights of Man, Age of Reason, and Agrarian Justice—the US Congress bestows the Thomas Paine Award upon authors of clear, inspiring political prose.
In our era, it’d not be books but other media that’d shift a popular paradigm, likely entertainment media. Recall how Gandhi helped the anti-nuclear weapons movement, what Malcolm X did for civil rights, what Milk did for gay marriage, etc. A movie about Paine could do the same for an extra income for all.
A step toward the silver screen is a new stage play, Tom Paine’s Bones, which unlike previous attempts, relates his exciting life—he faced death seven times—in order to reveal his humanitarian ethics as a way to convey his geonomic policies. That is, entertain to enlighten.
To bring the play to your town and enjoy a night at the theater, please get in touch. To help make its premiere in Portland Oregon a success, join the crowd funding campaign. Thanks for you consideration.
by Peter Knight | Jan 8, 2023 | News
Michael W. Howard is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Maine, past president of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, past co-editor of Basic Income Studies, and co-editor, with Karl Widerquist, of two books on Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend. On 6 January 2023 the prestigious magazine, Scientific American published an article by him entitled “The U.S. Could Help Solve Its Poverty Problem with a Universal Basic Income”.
Click here to read the article.
