17th BIEN Congress in Lisbon, Portugal

17th BIEN Congress in Lisbon, Portugal

The 17th BIEN Congress took place in Lisbon, Portugal from the 25th to the 27th of September. The focus of the congress was on “Implementing Basic Income.” The 150 presenters represented 33 countries, with more countries represented in the additional 380 audience members. According to Karl Widerquist, Vice-Chair of BIEN, this may have been the largest BIEN Congress since Brazil in 2010.  The Congress included keynote presentations by BIEN co-founders Guy Standing and Philippe Van Parijs, in addition to keynote presentations about several Basic Income pilot programs, reflecting the congress’s focus on implementation, and from several political figures who are advocating for Basic Income in their respective countries.

The first day of the congress took place at the Portuguese Parliament (Assembleia da República), and as Standing said: “I am sure I speak for many of the co-founders, and many of them are here, that when we set up BIEN 31 years ago we never anticipated that we would be in a place like this in 2017.” The second and third days were held at ISEG, Lisbon School of Economics and Management, a beautiful venue that used to be a convent (Convento das Inglesinhas, restored by architect Gonçalo Byrne) that has kept many of its original architectural features and now hosts the university’s post-graduate programs.  

 

Evelyn Forget, photo by Luis Gaspar

Starting the keynote session on Basic Income pilot programs, Evelyn Forget’s presentation was about the differences between the narratives attached to several Basic Income experiments. She underlined that different narratives will create different criteria of success. For example, Finland’s narrative is about long-term unemployment and incentivising return to work. In this case, the experiment will be successful if people return to work. Ontario’s narrative is about social justice and a gap in benefits for adults because of the new reality of precarious work and poverty issues. Their goal is to expand the welfare state. Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator’s narrative started out as an utopia put forward by private individuals who wondered what would happen once automation freed people to do what they want. Forget stressed that “context matters” in pilot programs, and she suggested that when we bring together all these shared experiences, we can create newer and richer narratives.

 

After Forget’s insights, there were several presentations about specific pilot programs being developed. Karen Glass, from the experiment in Ontario, Canada, described the pilot program as a type of Negative Income Tax program, since the payments decrease as the recipients start working. The Ontario project applies to households and encompasses individuals aged 18 through 64, who have been residents of the region for one year. The pilot provides a guaranteed annual income of $17,000 dollars per individual and $24,000 per couple, which is 75% of the low income measure. The success criteria are not focused primarily on work incentives, but on recipients’ improved health, reduction in anxiety and the ability to make ends meet. Elizabeth Rhodes from Y Combinator, a seed investment company, talked about the contours of what this private experiment wants to achieve. Y Combinator has already financed a feasibility study in Oakland. and now plans to select 3000 participants who will receive 1000 dollars per month, some for three years and others for five. There is an income cap in the selection and they will be undersampling higher incomes. Presently the program is considering selecting subjects  21 to 40 years in age. The pilot intends to evaluate well being, mental and physical health, social and civic engagement and social networks effects as well as effects in the children of the participants. The research team has been piloting and testing their methods with a smaller group of participants.

photo by Enno Schmidt

Joe Huston spoke about the experience of GiveDirectly in Kenya. GiveDirectly has raised funds privately and has been distributing them to around 100 people, but once the project is fully launched there will be up to 26,000 people receiving some type of cash transfer. The pilot is divided into three groups, one group will receive a monthly payment for 12 years, another for 2 years and yet another will receive a one time cash grant of the same amount. The 100 people who are receiving a monthly Basic Income already have reported on their experiences, and, as Huston says,many have reported they did not reduce their work efforts; instead, many have several projects that need to be completed (such as paying for school and building a house), so they need to work. Others have pulled their Basic Income payments together in something called “table banking” and give a larger sum to each member at a time so that more can be achieved. Giving to individuals as opposed to households has had the emancipatory effects that are often theorized: because each person receives an equal amount of money, it is easier to solve household disputes. Regarding how the money is spent,  Huston says that Basic Income debates seem to oscillate between saying that people will become lazy bums or startup engineers; however, both extremes are inaccurate and do not apply to what is happening in the village so far. Huston explains that when walking from house to house in Kenya one can see a diversity of life choices: “Irene spent some in purchasing a goat for about $12 and kept some of the money as savings. Eric spent most of his money in a fishing net, saved some of the money and bought small fish like anchovies for a snack. Frederick spent most of the money in school fees.” So far, each person used the money as is more adequate in their particular circumstances.

 

Photo by Enno Schmidt

On the political arena there were several important participants. From Germany, Cosima Kern spoke about the new Basic Income single issue party, and explained that since Germany has no direct democracy (in contrast to Switzerland) this is a way to force Basic Income into the political arena. The Basic Income party had almost 100,000 votes in the election that took place on day before the Congress, which Kern said is a good result for a new party. Enno Schmidt talked about the referendum in Switzerland and also underlined that the 23% vote for Basic Income was a great first result, reminding everyone how it took 17 years of discussion in Switzerland for women to have the right to vote. Lena Stark spoke about the new political party in Sweden in the same vein as the German party; they plan to run for elections in September 2018. Ping Xu presented the situation in Taiwan with the help of Tyler Prochazka. Taiwan has the highest housing costs and the lowest birth rates, and would be an ideal site for a full implementation of Basic Income. From Japan, the ex-Minister of Agriculture, Masahiko Yamada, spoke about the importance of Basic Income in his country, which is facing new economic challenges that urgently need to be addressed.

 

Ronnie Cowan, Photo by Luis Gaspar

Finally, the Scottish MP Ronnie Cowan inspired the audience with his privileged viewpoint regarding how politicians tend to operate and the heartfelt way that Scotland is pursuing their Basic Income pilot programs. Mr. Cowan said that politicians rely on experts, but experts and academic often disagree, and politicians need facts and figures, which is why experiments are so important. With pilot schemes, we can monitor outcomes; they can be used to tell if “people are happier, more socially engaged, eating healthier, if kids are doing better at school, we can measure the benefits against the cost.” Mr. Cowan concluded:  “Basic Income really comes alive for me when we consider it’s for everyone. It is not means tested. It is not subject to the disability test. It removes stigma. It creates choice and it’s absolutely dripping in humanity.”

 

Guy Standing and Philippe Van Parijs, photos by Enno Schmidt and Luis Gaspar

The two main keynote speakers, Guy Standing and Philippe Van Parijs, also captured the audience’s interest with their presentations. Standing celebrated the 800 year anniversary of The Charter of the Forest, a piece of legislation that was valid for 754 years, only repealed in 1971. Standing argued that the commons defended in The Charter of The Forest have been plundered upon for hundreds of years, and Basic Income is a way to bring back the commons. He defended the position that Basic Income should be seen as a social dividend based in the commons and land tax, not something that will send income tax through the roof. Van Parijs spoke of the right to work and the duty to work. He argued that even though many see Basic Income as an attack on these, it actually facilitates both. Basic Income can organically encourage part-time work and therefore job sharing, thus promoting the right to work. Basic Income can also allow for the duty to work to be expressed in a meaningful way that includes paid and unpaid jobs. According to Van Parijs, the duty to work cannot mean simply doing something for a salary; it should be viewed more widely as a duty to participate in society in a meaningful way. Basic Income can liberate people to participate in such a way by either allowing them to chose paid work that is more meaningful, or by choosing other unpaid useful work. If we eliminate the idea that people have to work in whatever they can to survive, the morality of what one chooses to do will come to the forefront, allowing the duty to work in a more meaningful way to become center stage as far as human activity is concerned.

 

The keynote presentations wrapped up with Eduardo Suplicy from Brazil, ex-Senator and long time defender of Basic Income, and Francisco Louçã, member of the left wing party Bloco de Esquerda in Portugal. There were also many other local Portuguese participants, as well as a slew of media attention related to the congress (which will be discussed in a future Basic Income Newspiece). The congress also included 37 parallel sessions, among others, Malcolm Torry’s presentation on Defining Basic Income, sessions on Degrowth, Digital Economy, Communicating about Basic Income, and many other topics, as well as two films, Christian Todd’s Free Lunch Society and Rena Masuyama’s Film Project, the first fiction film about Basic Income produced in Japan. Summaries of all the sessions provided by the chairs should be available in about one month at the Portuguese Basic Income Site, for now there are papers and presentations and videos of the event available of the site.

 

 

More information:

 

See the program and available Papers and Abstracts for the 17th BIEN Congress here.

See Videos of all the plenary sessions here.

 

Institute for Policy Research releases “Assessing the Case for a Universal Basic Income in the UK”

Institute for Policy Research releases “Assessing the Case for a Universal Basic Income in the UK”

The Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at the University of Bath has released a policy brief titled “Assessing the Case for a Universal Basic Income in the UK”.

The 94-page policy brief surveys the rise in popularity of the idea of universal basic income (UBI), especially in the UK context, and examines its feasibility and possible implementation strategies.

The report’s author, IRP Research Associate Luke Martinelli, draws upon his previous microsimulation studies, including “The Fiscal and Distributional Implications of Alternative Universal Basic Income Schemes in the UK” (March 2017) and “Exploring the Distributional and Work Incentive Effects of Plausible Illustrative Basic Income Schemes” (May 2017). He supplements his own work with the simulation analyses of other researchers, including Malcolm Torry (Citizen’s Income Trust) and Howard Reed and Stewart Lansley (Compass) in the UK and Olli Kangas (Kela) in Finland. Martinelli argues that microsimulation techniques, which can be used to model the economic effects of UBI at a national level, allow researchers to address questions about the feasibility and desirability of UBI that are out-of-reach by “real-world” experiment–given that the latter “do not test for the crucial effects of accompanying tax changes, nor examine how changes in income and behavioural responses would be distributed across different demographic groups in the case of a truly universal payment” (p 16).

In Chapter 3 of the policy brief, Martinelli applies these simulation studies to the question of the affordability of UBI. Investigating both full and partial UBI schemes, Martinelli investigates the fiscal implications of the policy for the UK government, taking into account potential adjustments to the existing tax and benefit system, as well as their consequences for poverty and inequality. Overall, Martinelli finds that data “appear to suggest” that “it is possible to design a UBI such that it is both affordable and adequate” (emphasis in original), with the most feasible option being a partial UBI on top of existing means-tested benefits (p 48). However, he issues several notes of caution in interpreting this (apparent) consequence.

One cautionary note concerns the fact that the simulation studies use only static models, which do not provide for possible changes in labor market participation resulting from the introduction of UBI. In Chapter 4, however, Martinelli examines the labor market effects of UBI in detail, again drawing upon simulation studies. Here, he considers the results of studies that model the impact of UBI schemes on financial work incentives, concluding that UBI does significantly improve incentives, especially for low-income groups and recipients of means-tested benefits (although, as the author admits, monetary incentives are “by no means the only factor affecting labour supply decisions,” p 63). In this chapter, Martinelli supplements the simulation analysis with empirical findings from previous experiments on unconditional cash benefits (including, especially, from the negative income tax experiments conducted in Manitoba in the late 1970s). He also reviews a range of theoretical considerations, including the prima facie tension between the positions of UBI supporters who see the policy as a way of incentivizing employment (e.g. as contrasted to means-tested benefit schemes) and those who advocate the policy as providing an “exit option” from employment.

In the final chapter of the policy brief, Martinelli scrutinizes implementational challenges facing UBI in the UK, including complications building political coalitions around the idea. As Martinelli stresses, apparent political consensus around UBI is likely to dissolve when specific policy implementations are issue. In concluding the report, he urges supporters of UBI not to demand a full basic income immediately, but instead to consider an incremental approach. As potential first steps, Martinelli mentioned a small universal payment (“partial basic income”) or a basic income restricted to certain age groups (e.g., as suggested by Malcolm Torry, young adults or adults nearing pension age).

 

The full report can be downloaded here:

Luke Martinelli, “Assessing the Case for a Universal Basic Income in the UK”, Institute for Policy Research, September 2017.


Reviewed by Russell Ingram

Photo (Bath, England) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 David McKelvey

TruthOut Interview with Jurgen De Wispelaere

TruthOut Interview with Jurgen De Wispelaere

Jurgen De Wispelaere, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, University of Bath was interviewed on August 7th by Truthout, a nonprofit web-based news  and commentary site whose aim is to provide  “a platform for transformative ideas, through in-depth investigative reporting and critical analysis.”  In this interview, he makes several important points regarding some of the issues in the current debate and research on Basic Income.

 

De Wispelaere’s key position is that Basic Income’s aim should be first and foremost about relieving poverty and social exclusion. Poverty is fundamentally a lack of money and Basic Income offers a solution to that problem. Compared to other forms of welfare, Basic Income avoids the well-known poverty trap, where earning wages leads to a loss of benefits, while also reducing the need for some of the bureaucracy associated with contemporary welfare states. De Wispelaere also says that welfare states already dispense some amounts of cash or quasi-cash, with Basic Income the main difference is really about how the money is distributed.  As he says, “it is not just about whether or not you have more cash with a Basic Income, but also about how you get your cash.” Basic Income is characterized mainly by its unconditionality. De Wispelaere also mentions the Mike Leigh movie, “I, Daniel Blake” as an illustration of how current welfare policies can cause significant problems and how an unconditional Basic Income could make a big difference.

 

 

De Wispelaere also speaks about the value of Basic Income experiments, stressing that conclusions reached from one experiment may not be valid elsewhere due to limitations of time and location. Nevertheless, he argues that the experiments are worth pursuing and he identifies three key reasons for performing Basic Income experiments: implementation, politics, and philosophy.

 

There are a number of aspects of implementation that can be identified and fixed through running a limited experiment, things that are difficult to predict from a theoretical standpoint alone.  Basic Income, although it is often presented as such, is not a simple policy; it will interact with other policies such as housing benefits, disability assistance, the tax system and pension rights. When doing an experiment, these interactions can also be tested, along with other parameters. Another great motivation for Basic Income experiments is politics. Risk-averse politicians may like the idea of a Basic Income but be reticent to propose implementing it in full.  A limited trial can help gather more political support for a wider implementation. Finally, philosophical considerations reflect the different viewpoints as to whether we can trust people to play by the rules, or whether they are fundamentally lazy. Or, as De Wispelaere puts it, “do we think that the whole range of people to which Basic Income applies all are going to turn into Homer Simpsons?” According to De Wispelaere, “in many cases, evidence alone can’t solve these issues. It’s a philosophical and moral argument that has to be fought and won.”

 

De Wispelaere also says in the interview he is not convinced by the “Robots Are Coming” narrative. First, because we need Basic Income now to alleviate poverty, job fluctuation, and insecurity. Second, because when the robots do come there will be other significant issues that arise and Basic Income is not enough to solve those. Regarding the Silicon Valley positions, De Wispelaere says:  “It is a bit of a caricature, but what they are effectively proposing is a very polarized, divided society. They talk about Basic Income as a necessary part of the solution but don’t mention other important social and economic struggles between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. For me, Basic Income may be necessary, but it’s certainly not enough.”

 

More information at:

 

Kristian Haug, “Universal Basic Income Is About Trust and Decency”, Interview with Jurgen De Wispelaere, August 7th, 2017

 

Kate McFarland, “Jurgen De Wispelaere and Lindsay Stirton, ‘When Basic Income Meets Professor Pangloss’”, Basic Income News, January 28th, 2017

Dates announced for 2018 North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress

Dates announced for 2018 North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress

The 17th North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress will be held in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada from May 24-27, 2018.

The annual congress is co-hosted by BIEN’s two North American affiliates, the US Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) network and the Basic Income Canada Network (BICN), with locations alternating between the US and Canada. The 2017 congress was held in New York, New York, and drew more than 100 attendees and 50 speakers.

The location of the 2018 congress is notable as one of three sites of a guaranteed annual income pilot project launched by the provincial government of Ontario. The government is currently enrolling participants from the Hamilton, Brantford, and Brant County areas, as well as the Thunder Bay area. A third pilot will begin in the city of Lindsay later in 2017.

During the three-year experiment, individual participants will receive up to $16,989 per year unconditionally ($24,027 per year for couples), an amount of the payments was chosen as equivalent to 75% of the Low Income Measure in the province. The amount of the payments will be reduced by 50% of any additional earned income. (The ) Although distinct from a basic income, the program is similar insofar as it provides regular and unconditional cash payments to beneficiaries. (It differs in that the amount of transfers depends on income and household status.) The effect of the unconditional payments will be examined with respect to health (including mental health), food security, housing stability, education, and workforce participation.

BICN will provide more information about NABIG 2018 on its website and social media when available.    


Reviewed by Robert Gordon.

Photo: Albion Falls, Hamilton, Ontario CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 JP Newell

NEW BOOK: Call for authors for Palgrave Macmillan Basic Income handbook (edited by Malcolm Torry)

NEW BOOK: Call for authors for Palgrave Macmillan Basic Income handbook (edited by Malcolm Torry)

Malcolm Torry, Director of the UK-based Citizen’s Income Trust, Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, and General Manager of BIEN, has signed a contract with the publisher Palgrave Macmillan to edit An International Handbook of Basic Income.

Torry is currently recruiting authors of each of the book’s chapters (listed below). The publisher has issued the following the call for authors:

Palgrave Macmillan is planning to publish An International Handbook on Basic Income, which it intends to be a definitive guide to the current state of the debate.

The editor, Dr. Malcolm Torry, is seeking chapter authors who will represent the best available scholarship from around the world.

A few of the chapters will be commissioned: but for most of them the editor is seeking expressions of interest.

If you would like to express an interest in writing one or more of the chapters then please contact him at generalmanager@basicincom.org or info@citizensincome.org with a CV and a list of publications on Basic Income. Bids for individual chapters from two or three authors from different parts of the world will be particularly welcome.

Dr. Torry will be at the BIEN Congress in Lisbon from the 25th to the 27th September, and he would very much welcome discussions with prospective authors or groups of authors.

The table of contents is as follows:

Part I: The concept of Basic Income

  1. The definition and characteristics of a Basic Income
  2. The history of Basic Income
  3. The anatomy of a global debate

Part II: The effects of Basic Income

  1. Employment market effects
  2. Social effects
  3. Economic effects
  4. Ecological effects
  5. Gender effects

Part III: Implementation of Basic Income

  1. The anatomy of a Basic Income scheme
  2. The administration of a Basic Income scheme
  3. Costings for Basic Income
  4. The framing of Basic Income
  5. The feasibility of Basic Income
  6. Alternatives to Basic Income
  7. The funding of Basic Income
  8. The implementation of a Basic Income scheme
  9. Objections to Basic Income
  10. An illustrative Basic Income scheme

Part IV: Pilot projects and other experiments

  1. Canada and the USA
  2. Brazil
  3. Iran
  4. Namibia
  5. India
  6. Switzerland
  7. Finland
  8. The Netherlands

Part V: The political economy of Basic Income

  1. Libertarian arguments for Basic Income
  2. Left wing arguments for Basic Income
  3. Neoliberal arguments for Basic Income
  4. Human rights arguments for Basic Income
  5. The justice of Basic Income
  6. The ethics of Basic Income

Blank book photo CC BY 2.0 kate hiscock