Palgrave-MacMillan Publishers has announced a new book series on the Basic Income Guarantee. They expect to publish two or three books per year starting within the next year or so. Books will be nonfiction monographs and edited volumes. They are currently accepting proposals from authors and editors with ideas for books for the series. The series announcement is repeated in full below: Basic Income Guarantee Series Series Editors: Karl Widerquist, Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University-Qatar James Bryan, Professor of Economics at Manhattanville College, Michael A. Lewis, Associate Professor at Hunter College School of Social Work Basic income is one of the most innovative, powerful, straightforward, and controversial proposals for addressing poverty and growing inequalities. A Basic Income Guarantee is designed to be an unconditional, government-ensured guarantee that all citizens will have enough income to meet their basic needs. The concept of basic, or guaranteed, income is a form of social provision and this series examines the arguments for and against it from an interdisciplinary perspective with special focus on the economic and social factors. There will be contributions from individuals in the fields of economics, philosophy, sociology, history, and social policy studies as well as from activists and practitioners in the field. By systematically connecting abstract philosophical debates over competing principles of basic income guarantee to the empirical analysis of concrete policy proposals, this series contributes to the fields of economics, politics, social policy, and philosophy and establishes a theoretical framework for interdisciplinary research. The series will publish both high-quality monographs and edited collections. It will bring together international and national scholars and activists to provide a comparative look at the main efforts to date to pass unconditional basic income guarantee legislation across regions of the globe and will identify commonalities and differences across countries, drawing lessons for advancing social policies in general and BIG policies in particular. The series editors additionally are open to considering proposals that address other policy approaches to poverty and income inequality that relate to the Basic Income debate. Karl Widerquist is a Visiting Associate Professor in philosophy at Georgetown University-Qatar. He is co-editor of The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee and co-author of Economics for Social Workers. He has published more than a dozen scholarly articles in the fields of economics, political theory, and philosophy. He is also an editor of the journal, Basic Income Studies. James Bryan is Associate Professor of Economics at Manhattanville College specializing in Microeconomic analysis of public policy, public finance, and economic education. Michael A. Lewis is Associate Professor at Hunter College School of Social Work with specific expertise in Quantitative Methods, Social Policy, and Civic Engagement. He is co-editor of The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee and co-author of Economics for Social Workers. We strongly encourage scholars, practitioners, and activists to send us proposals for books to be added to the series. Contact the series editors for the series proposal guidelines.
[This article was originally published as part of ‘the Basic Income Guarantee Blog on USBIG.net. I reprint it here exactly as it was published then.]
In a period of about eight months, I managed to save and invest enough money to get myself a small personal basic income. It was easy-if you get the kind of lucky breaks I got. Of course, you could use the best trading app there is with the hope of making some great returns as I did! I’m telling you this story only because it illustrates how much our economic fortunes are determined by luck, how favorably our laws treat people who own stuff (people who have obtained control of natural resources) and how much unearned income is available for redistribution.
According to my job title, I’m a philosopher. My field is not known as a big money-maker. But at least since Aristotle, philosophers have occasionally made good money by teaching the children of the rich. Aristotle went to Macedon to teach the son of the king. I went to the Middle East the children of the oil-rich. The history that made parts of the Middle East rich began more than 90 years, as the Ottoman Empire was breaking up. Britain and France decided to arbitrarily draw lines on the map of the Middle East to create dependencies that eventually became states. Nobody knew at the time how much oil was there or where most of it was. So, they had no idea those lines would make eventually some of those countries very rich and others very poor.
Thanks to those decisions, the small Persian Gulf state of Qatar is now the wealthiest country in the world. A few years ago the Emir of Qatar (who basically owns the country) offered huge amounts of money to get big-name Western universities, including Georgetown, to open campuses there. Last year Georgetown hired me at a salary about three or four times what I made on my previous job.
What did I do to “earn” this salary? My teaching load is lighter and my skills are no higher than they were last year. The work I do now is no more important than the work I did last year. The children of the oil-rich can afford to pay more for their education, but it’s hard to argue that it’s more important to educate them than anyone else.
Partly I’m being paid for my flexibility. Most people can’t pick up and move to the Middle East. Partly I’m being paid because everybody knows the Emir of Qatar has a lot of money, and nobody with any other options is going to work there unless they get a piece of it. Just a lucky break for whoever happens to be in position to take advantage of it.
So, suddenly, I had money to invest.
Meanwhile, in South Bend, Indiana, the most depressed real estate market in the United States, my brother was a public school teacher. He had bought a couple houses, fixed them up, and was making good money renting them out. He had time and skills to invest but not money. I had money but no time. We trust each other. The arrangement was obvious-a lucky coincidence.
Because real estate prices are so low in South Bend, we already have three houses, a lien on another, and we’ll soon be shopping for another. We have long-term leases signed on the first three houses, so that, beginning August 1, my share of the rental income from those houses will be about $700 per month, or $8,400 this year, next year, and every year.
The laws of the state entitle me to keep that stream of income from now until the end of time. I could leave it to my children or set up a trust fund that to direct that flow of income toward whatever purpose satisfies the whim I have in my head when I write my will. That is a lot of money that can be put aside for something useful. Whether it will be used for my children’s tuition fees or for medical costs, that money can go a long way.
As we’re thinking about shopping for another real estate property, maybe we should consider out of state real estate investing instead? This could offer us more choice in the type of property that we invest in, as well as having the possibility to use it as a vacation home. I would just like something that could help to contribute to our income.
Above all, investing in real estate is a fantastic way to diversify your investment portfolio. However that being said, it is no secret that managing several properties at once can be confusing, particularly if you intend on leasing out your properties to tenants. For this reason, if you are considering investing in real estate, it might be a good idea to research some of the amazing property management companies out there that can take care of the day to day responsibilities that come with being a property owner. I know that a friend of mine managed to find a jacksonville property management company to safeguard his investments by doing some research online so it might be worth researching some different property management companies in your area.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that thanks to my property investments I have a basic income, not just for life, but forever.
I pay about $15 a month in property tax on each home. But because we can deduct funds spent on improvements to the homes and claim “depreciation,” I can expect to pay no income taxes out of my share of the returns. If it looks like our profit will be so strong that it will force us to pay taxes we can put a new roof on a house, deduct the cost from our earnings, see the value of our home increase (thought property taxes will not), and earn more rent. People who actually have to work for their money can expect a quarter or a third of it to go to income taxes. This is not some brilliant shelter that our accountant devised. This is how people who own stuff are treated by the tax rules from Key West, Florida to North Slope, Alaska.
Assuming no compound interest and no new investments on my part, the rent on the property I have accumulated in eight months of saving and investing will add up to $84,000 over 10 years, $840,000 over the next 100 years. If you would like to invest in some new real estate, you may want to check out The Florence Residences Pricing which is a great money investment. Assuming compound interests and new investments that amount would go up exponentially-possibly increasing by 10 times in a dozen years.
Of course, $8,400 is a very small basic income. It doesn’t tempt me to quit my job and spend the rest of my life surfing off Malibu. Yet, it is nearly as large as what a very optimistic basic income supporter would hope to start out with. It is far larger than anything Congress is likely to approve for people who need it. People are likely to say we “can’t afford it” even though there are many people, who own much more than I do, taking in money just as easily.
Compare my personal basic income to the only regional basic income in the world today. Last year, the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend paid $1305 to each resident of Alaska. That means that after eight months of saving, I am able to pay myself a dividend more than six times the amount that the oil-rich state of Alaska can pay its citizens after more than thirty years of saving and investing. But Alaska taxes almost nothing else but oil, and they use only a small portion of their oil revenue to support the Permanent Fund. Mostly they used their oil wealth to give people who own other things in Alaska a big tax cut. If they had used all of their oil royalties to support the fund, the dividend would be at least four times what it is now.
What can I possibly have done in eight months of investing to have earned a perpetual stream of income from now until the end of time?
Not much really. Lucked into a situation. As much as people believe that we must keep taxes low to reward people who do stuff and produce stuff, our property laws and tax laws most favor people who own stuff. In part, laws are set up this way because people who own stuff are very powerful. They have an enormously disproportionate control over government policy, and very often choose policies in their own self interest. Owners have successfully pushed most of the tax burden off onto people who make salaries.
But another important reason why the laws so greatly favor people who own stuff is that most people do not understand the difference between rewarding people who produce stuff and rewarding people who own stuff. A lot of what we spend goes to reward production, but it’s a mistake to think all income is earned. What can any investor do in a finite amount of time to “earn” a stream of income that lasts forever?
Supposedly investors are paid for their forbearance and parsimony. Because investors have the discipline to put money away instead of spending it on consumption now, they earn a return on that savings. But I didn’t save money because I was frugal. I saved money because I had money. I have spent money more extravagantly in the past year than at any other time in my life. Because I made so much more than I was used to, I was able to buy pretty much whatever I felt like, and still have a lot left over to invest. This seems to be true of a lot of investors.
Supposedly investors are paid for taking risks, but many of the vest investments are not very risky. There is no chance that this business will go bankrupt, because we don’t owe any money. There is some chance that rental prices in South Bend will fall slightly, but probably not much. If the South Bend real estate market stays depressed I can expect my rental income to rise with inflation. If the market gets better I can expect it to rise more quickly than inflation.
Supposedly investors are paid for providing a valuable service. To some small extent this is true of me. If I hadn’t invested this money, the South Bend real estate market would be just a little more depressed. Rental properties would be just a little less available; purchase prices would be just a little lower; rental prices would be just a little higher, and other landlords would make just a little higher rate of return. That’s something. But it hardly justifies a stream of income from now until the end of time.
Supposedly the stream of income is justified by the continued maintenance and improvements that owners put into their properties. But those all come out of the stream of income. The need for maintenance or improvement might decrease the size of my returns, but there is no necessity for any new investment or even action on my part to maintain them. I can just sit back and collect. Over time, the renters pay for the maintenance themselves.
Investors might have to do something or produce something to obtain ownership of a resource, but once they own it, anyone who wants to do anything with that resource has to pay the owner for the privilege. The owners of the past get a cut of all current production whether they personally contribute anything or not. The existence of so much unearned income reorients our economy away from productive activity so that you can’t be sure that the initial investment was necessarily something productive. Much of what people do, especially in the financial, insurance, and real estate sectors revolves not around the provision of services but around using financial resources as leverage to obtain more financial resources.
Renters pay me because I own stuff that other people don’t. I’m in that position, because I just happened to have a brother who needed an investor just when I happened to have money to invest. I was in that position because I just happened to get a job in Qatar. The Emir of Qatar just happened to be able to give me that job because arbitrary decisions made long ago by the British Empire just happened to have worked out so that he owns stuff that other people don’t.
Lucky break upon lucky break upon lucky break determines who owns resources and who does not. Those who do not own will pay those who do, year after year, from now until the end of time or until we decide to change the rules. We don’t need to eliminate property to change the rules in an important way. How about a little rebate from those who own stuff to those who do not? It would compensate them for all that they have to pay just because others control the resources we all need to use.
-Karl Widerquist, begun in New Orleans, completed in Buenos Aires, May 2010
Following the recent creation of the Basic Income Korean Network (BIKN), Koreans have now launched the Basic Income Coalition (BIC). According to BIEN, BIC held its inaugural event in Seoul on April 25. Fifty civil organizations and more than 770 people participated in this coalition. The aim of the BIC is to support candidates in favor of Basic Income in the upcoming local elections on June 2. There are 28 candidates who are members of the coalition: 23 from the Socialist Party, 3 from the Democratic Labor Party, and 2 from the New Progressive Party. Participants in the event also announced the declaration of BIC’s inauguration. According to BIEN, organizers argue that BIC is the first coalition in Korean political history to focuses on a future-oriented alternative such as Basic Income. Most committee members of the Basic Income Korean Network (BIKN) are involved in the coalition.
For further information: https://basicincome.kr/.
The 20th Basic Income Earth Network Congress will be hosted online from Wednesday 18 – Saturday 21 August 2021. The theme for the Congress is Idea to Reality. We want to consider how we take Basic Income from a big idea for big change to a reality. All are welcome to join us in discussion at this exciting time for the Basic Income Movement.
The conference will be hosted on Whova, a specialist online conference platform. You’ll be able to view the programme and pick which sessions to attend, securely view all the presentations on the platform, as well as take part in discussions and message boards and re-watch anything you might have missed for up to 6 months afterwards.
Basic Income Network Scotland, in partnership with the University of Strathclyde, are excited to be putting together a programme packed with perspectives on Basic Income in Scotland, the wider UK and around the world. We will present insights into the status of Basic Income in Scotland, including: the feasibility study into a Scottish Basic Income experiment, political attitudes and work on Basic Income, civil society perspectives, and creative and cultural demonstrations that represent the Scottish debate.
More about the Programme
The programme will be a dynamic mix of academic paper presentations, workshops, and special events showcasing the work of artists and Basic Income activists across the world. There will be strands focussing on Scotland; Canada; funding Basic Income; Basic Income and Health; Basic Income and the environment; the Philosophy of UBI, and more. Across four days we’re looking forward to welcoming nearly 200 speakers to share their work.
Our highlights include:
Annie Miller, co-founder of Basic Income Network Scotland, will be presenting at the Congress. Economist, academic, lecturer, Basic Income advocate and author, Annie has written several important books on Basic Income: A Basic Income Handbook (2017), A Basic Income Pocketbook (2020) and Essentials of Basic Income (2020).
You’ll also get the chance to hear from Guy Standing, another exciting author who’s made important contributions to literature on Basic Income, including his book Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth – which Brian Eno called ‘one of the most important books I’ve read in years’!
Representatives from Scotland’s Basic Income feasibility study;
Hearing from Scottish Universities Insight Institute project about Basic Income and Mental Health, Peace of Mind;
Representation from the United Nations Development Programme
Follow Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland on twitter and facebook and on its blog for more information about the programme.
Basic Income Network Scotland welcome donations to support their volunteer-led work on the Congress.
This will be the first time the Congress has taken place online and we’re happy that this means more people than ever will be able to attend. However there are still costs we need to cover – running an online conference has unique demands and requires just as much in terms of resources as an in-person conference! We’ll be providing moderation, technical support and any other required assistance to speakers and attendees throughout. The costs we need to cover include volunteers’ expenses and fees for software and web hosting.
Online conferences of a similar scale usually cost between £50 and £200 to attend. With the programme we’ve got lined up – four days of paper sessions, workshops and special events, hearing from leading thinkers on UBI, we think our suggested contributions are great value for money!
We’re asking all attendees to donate some of what you would have spent on attendance, travel and accommodation to support Basic Income Network Scotland, a volunteer-led organisation educating and advocating for Basic Income in Scotland and your local hosts for this edition of the BIEN Congress.
We’re asking for the following contributions, depending on your situation:
Individual/self-funded – £5-£10
Professional, attending one day only – £30
Professional, attending whole Congress – £50
Attending on behalf of an organisation who are supporting you to attend – £100
But of course, if you want to donate more, you’re welcome to!
We’re looking for volunteers to support and shape the delivery of this year’s BIEN Congress. This opportunity provides you with an instrumental role in hosting Basic Income experts and a conference of people from around the world determined to take Basic Income from idea to reality.
For obvious reasons the Congress this year will be online, but we’re determined to use this as an opportunity to increase the accessibility and diversity of attendees, infusing a traditional international academic conference with fresh ideas. The virtual platform will be used to create a dynamic and interactive community reflective of the Basic Income movement in Scotland.
Just before the congress begins a new comprehensive history of Basic Income will be published. Further details can be found here. In connection the congress, the publisher is giving a 50% discount on the hardback price until the end of August. Details can be found here.
On this page, I attempt to keep an updated list of media appearances, big or small; basic income related or not; audio, video, or text; starting with the most recent. It’s not exhaustive, but it’s extensive.
Lessons From Alaska (video 1:02:15). Presentation by Karl Widerquist followed by panel discussion with Cliff Groh, Michael Howard, and Bethany Anne Burum. Moderated by Alex Howlett. Boston Basic Income #156, June 16, 2021
Community & Technology (video 58:21). Panel Discussion with Stu Reid, Diana Blackwell, Enno Schmidt, Ruth Westcott, and Karl Widerquist. StreamingUniversity, June 16, 2021
Introduction to Indepentarianism (video 52:05). Karl Widerquist explaining his research to a class in Contemporary Political Thought. YouTube, recorded February 21, 2021, posted June 13, 2021
United States and Basic Income & Covid (video). Louise Haagh, Sarath Davala, and Jamie Cooke (hosts) in conversation with Karl Widerquist and Scott Santens, BIEN Conversations, June 5, 2020
Six Lessons from the Alaska Model: Karl Widerquist in Duesseldorf (video in four parts. Posted by Oliviatawiah, on DailyMotion.com, 30 September 2011 –Part 1 –Part 2 –Part 3 –Part 4
Lending a Lasting Hand. By David Glenn. The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 16, 2004“Widerquist Volunteers in New York,” The Dowagiac Daily News.Vol. 104, No. 175, October 11, 2001; reprinted: The Niles Daily Star Vol. 115, No. 150, October 11, 2001; and in The Cassopolis Vigilant Vol. 136, No. 42, October 18, 2001
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