by BIEN | Oct 2, 2016 | News, Testimonies
How’d you get an interest in Basic Income (BI)?
My interest in BI started back around 2013 after reading a Reason article. It described how a BI would provide a much more efficient social safety net. It intrigued me at the time and over the next couple of years I periodically would seek out the latest research on BI. I was hooked by a documentary on the basic income featuring Guy Standing.
Standing’s discussion of the “precariat” and the need to counter the challenges of automization convinced me of the BI’s approach. The day after watching the documentary, I reached out to Standing to see how I could get involved with BIEN. He put me in touch with Karl Widerquist and André Coelho. André was my trainer and his patience and encouragement is what kept me on with the team initially.
What makes the BI plan of action unique?
That is a difficult question because there are many ways to implement the BI. I think what unites the BI movement, though, is that we want to fundamentally alter people’s relationship with the market and the government. We do not have to have a job in the traditional sense to contribute to ourselves and society. The basic income liberates us to take on the projects or activities that we are truly passionate about, instead of being forced into a certain line of employment.
There are a host of reasons I think this is good for sustainable economic development. But more importantly, this would be a positive development for human happiness. A basic income would also reorient our relationship with the government. Instead of ceding individual choice to government bureaucrats, a basic income provides freedom of choice to everyone. Centralization of power and resources swallows our humanity, and basic income is an enormous step in bringing that power back to the people.
What are the most common success stories of BI or similar programs?
What has been overlooked in the mainstream press (and what I first tell people skeptical of BI) is the recent release of a meta-analysis of 15 years of cash transfer research across 165 studies. It looks at the best research available and determines there is a consistent reduction in poverty from these cash transfers. It also determined there is no real evidence of lowered work hours while showing some evidence that cash transfers may increase work hours and intensity. For BI advocates, I think it is important to get familiar with this meta-analysis.
In the United States, the most famous example of an actual BI-like program is the Alaskan Permanent Fund. This program is funded by Alaska’s oil reserves and is provided to nearly every Alaskan resident. The experience in Alaska, and most BI programs, is that the policy rarely creates negative unintended consequences and has a much greater potential to create a positive ripple effect throughout society.
What is your work on BI?
I am the features editor for BI News. I will personally write opinion, interview and news-based articles. I have the privilege of working with and seeking out some amazing writers and thinkers, helping to edit and post their features articles. When the need arises, I help to train newcomers to BI News, including contributors and editors. I am currently in Taiwan completing a Master’s degree where I am working with the Taiwanese Basic Income organization. For the future, I have some ideas to promote basic income in Taiwan that will be forthcoming.
What are the main lessons for about BI that should be out in the public domain more?
Everyday around the world there are billions of interactions, transactions and events that would be made simpler by the establishment of the basic income. It helps to take these billions of events and simplify it to one individual to better understand the depth of change this policy would have on everyday life. Among those close to me, I can think of a clear instance where a basic income would dramatically improve a family’s circumstances, much more so than traditional welfare.
Think of how a basic income would help the person with a sick mother, the person whose car gets totaled, the person who wants to take more time to raise their child, the person who wants to find a better suited job…All of these situations would be more easily managed with a basic income, especially for those who are of modest means. Perhaps more significant are the new and unpredictable opportunities created by basic income that would otherwise never occur.
Who are the people to watch – the major BI players?
Here are a couple that come to mind:
Matt Zwolinski is my favorite libertarian scholar, primarily because of his work on the basic income. He has done a lot to bring on the libertarian side of the political spectrum to consider the basic income. The next generation will have significantly more libertarians than the current generation, so I think the philosophical marriage on this issue with libertarians will be increasingly important as we pursue the basic income’s implementation.
Kate McFarland is one of my favorite writers at BI News and a great person to work with. I think she will be a big figure in the BI movement in the coming years because of her non-stop dedication to the cause.
Any advice for would-be policy makers or activists about strategies for the implementation of BI?
During this stage, I think it is important that we maintain healthy disagreement in the movement. There are a lot of different motivations behind the BI which manifests in an array of different implementation methods. Despite this, I hope that we can retain this amazing civility that has united people from such diverse philosophical and personal backgrounds thus far.
On the long-term policymaking level, my hope is that in those areas we think must be earmarked (particularly healthcare and education). We will still utilize the basic income framework. For example, universal education savings accounts and health savings accounts (which there is evidence that these two programs are already effective where they are used). The basic income has the potential to really revolutionize the way we think about government services. The government is really efficient at issuing checks to everyone, but it is not great with creating innovative programs. That is why a basic income framework creates an ideal social safety net, as it brings the security of government distribution and the innovation of the market.
by Kate McFarland | Sep 26, 2016 | News
On September 9, the New South Wales Fabians hosted a discussion of universal basic income in Haymarket.
The event featured a lineup of three speakers. First, Ben Spies-Butcher (Department of Sociology at Macquarie University) argued that Australia should pursue a universal basic income as a way to provide individuals with more freedom and control over their own lives and work. Next, Peter Whiteford (Crawford School of Public Policy at Australian National University) outlined the cost of a UBI. Finally, Louise Tarrant (formerly of United Voice) laid out many of the pros and cons of the policy. The three individual speeches were followed by the question and answer session with the audience.
About 80 to 90 people attended the event, which had been widely publicized on social media. Lachlan Drummond, president of the NSW Fabians, states that this crowd was the largest that the group has seen at any of its events over the past three years.
Among the unexpected attendees were two Italian members of the Five Star movement, who video-recorded the entire event:
The NWS Fabians have also released an audio-recording of the event as a podcast.
Drummond explains that several factors prompted the NSW Fabians to organize and host the event. First, the Fabians were interested in opening discussion of UBI simply because it is a “big transformative economic idea” that is already being talked about by the British Labour Party and some think tanks in the UK, as well as by other groups in Europe, Canada, and elsewhere. Second, the group saw a gap in Australian political discussion surrounding UBI:
We’ve seen some far-left and even some right wing groups talking about it here in Australia but none on what we might call the “mainstream centre left”. We wanted to help push that debate along. We know there are people in both the Greens and the ALP [Australian Labor Party] who are keen on the idea, but as yet we hadn’t seen one event where everyone was all brought together to discuss it.
Third, Drummond notes that many members of the Fabians are personally undecided on the issue of UBI–and yet, previously, UBI had never been given a fair hearing at any NSW Fabians event. When previous guest speakers had broached the issue, their comments were negative and dismissive. Notably, at a March event on The Future of Work, Dr. Victor Quirk of the University of Newcastle spoke against UBI in favor of a return to full employment.
Not content with such a swift rejection of UBI, Drummond said that the NSW Fabians “wanted to look at the policy in a systematic way–to go through the positives and negatives, to look at the numbers, and the political realities, and whether pilot studies have shown it to actually work”.
According to Drummond, the main goal of the event was to leave the audience better informed about the issues surrounding UBI–both moral and practical–and that, by this measure, the event was a “big success”:
I think when you see a big progressive idea like this, it can be easy to jump on it and say it’s a great idea without knowing the arguments and practicalities (or even some potential alternatives).
Ben Spies-Butcher was great on the moral arguments, and how it should interact with other parts of the welfare system. Peter Whiteford gave us some useful numbers on how much it would cost and what pilot studies had actually discovered. Louise Tarrant was also very clear headed on the positives and negatives, both practical, economic and political.
We also had great impromptu contributions from Eva Cox on shorter working hours, and Luke Whitington who rebutted the argument about inflation by stating we are currently in a deflationary environment, and by outlining some creative and progressive ways it could be paid for. The audience was really engaged and asked great questions.
Luke Whitington, Deputy Chair of the NSW Labor Party Economic Policy Committee, found it “well-organized” but believes that all three features speakers overlooked one of the most important reasons to support UBI:
None of the speakers talked about deflation, either in relation to the specific term of falling prices, nor in relation to the more general term for a long term low growth period, as exemplified by Japan since the 90s and the world in the 30s, and in milder form, advanced economies since the 70s, compounded and accelerating now with financialisation and automation. That none of the panel speakers raised the necessity of basic income as a counter deflationary mechanism was a pity, especially as Yanis Varoufakis’ speech on the topic has been on YouTube for a number of months. They did, however, inform the audience on a wide range of ethical and economic issues that a BI would affect.
As Drummond pointed out, though, Whitington was eventually able to broach the issue of deflation himself, in response to issues raised by Tarrant. On Whitington’s view, based on his experience as an organizer in the Labor Party, the most politically viable approach to a UBI in Australia is to promote the policy as a counter-deflationary measure and to support its financing through a sovereign wealth fund. This, he notes, was not stressed by the pro-UBI speakers at the NSW Fabians event.
In Australia it would be much more difficult to argue that unemployment benefits be paid without any activity or eligibility tests (which Spies Butcher correctly pointed out would immediately improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people currently stuck in the welfare ‘safety’ net), than to set up a fund that collected mineral or other revenue and distributed it equally to all citizens as a dividend.
Douglas Maclaine-Cross, who has previously worked with Whitington to promote UBI, also attended the event. Maclaine-Cross was struck by the apparent level of agreement: “Generally nobody seemed to object to the policy [UBI]; on the contrary it seemed that most people were very keen on it”:
[P]eople generally agreed that it could be afforded though it would of course mean raising more revenue. The estimates and suggested amounts involved a more generous payment than I was thinking of, which I took as a positive sign. …
From the floor there was a plea on commercial grounds from a libertarian. There were a few very positive and inspiring comments. I heard the word utopia mentioned a few times. There seemed to be a consensus from the audience that growing inequality was a very real problem and needed to be addressed somehow. So perhaps it was a case of preaching to the choir. However having made the case to people from a broad spectrum of politics myself, there is a chance for bipartisan support; so I have very high hopes for the policy in Australia.
by Hilde Latour | Sep 22, 2016 | News
On the first day of International Basic Income week and just six months before the election of a new House of Representatives (“tweede kamer”) in March of next year, a debate on unconditional Basic Income was held in the Dutch parliament on September 19th. This debate was initiated by Member of Parliament Norbert Klein of the Cultural Liberal Party (Vrijzinnige Partij), who wrote a ‘note of initiative’ (“initiatiefnota”) in January this year, called “Certainly Flexible: about thinking differently about work and social security with an unconditional basic income”
Klein asked for three things:
1. The government’s reaction
The Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, Lodewijk Assher (Labour Party, PvdA), answered in writing on May 31st, that introducing a basic income is simply too expensive as the number of people paying taxes will decrease dramatically.
In addition to the economic arguments against a Basic Income, the Minister states: Having a job is more than having an income. (…) A job offers people a social network, structure in life, self esteem and personal development.” That participation in (paid) labour is good for everyone, is the broadly supported position of the Dutch government. This is what Klein refers to as a “one size fits all” policy.
In this context it is worth noting that in the current Dutch participation legislation (“participatiewet”), people are not allowed to choose the job or activities they like. The government decides which work is suitable, prohibiting many kinds and types of participation with extremely high penalties for people who participate in other activities without specific permission of the (local) government. There is very little freedom of choice and many people report to be forced into meaningless jobs. The Minister refers to this policy as “support with an activating character”.
Apparently the characterization “one size fits all” for the current policy hurts, because the minister bounces it back at Klein, by saying that a basic income is a “one size fits all” idea. He states that in case of an unconditional basic income, every citizen would receive the same income support, even if they don’t need it. He ignores the fact that the richer part of the population would be paying back most of it through taxes as was indicated by Klein in his note of initiative.
He also ignores the fact that people will regain their freedom of choice to either participate in (paid or non-paid) labour, education, caring roles or anything else that helps them create structure in their lives, build social networks, and nurture self esteem or personal development.
Furthermore, the Minister argues that European legislation might be a roadblock on the way to implementing a Basic Income in the Netherlands. However, no definite answer is given about this possible hurdle, nor is the minister referring to any specific European legislation that might stand in the way of implementing a Basic Income in The Netherlands.
During the meeting the Minister confirms he is not in favour of new research, as enough research has been done. He indicates the possibility that the House of Representatives would have to order an investigation by itself.
2. More extended research on the effect of a basic income on the state’s budget
Klein states, the research on the impact on the state’s budget done so far, has been incomplete regarding the domains in which the effect of basic income can be expected. He questions the conclusions of previous research on the effect of a Basic Income on the state’s budget and formulates a list of examples of positive side effects that were not included in the calculations (i.e. effect on health, housing market, executional costs, increased entrepreneurship and participation in labour). He asks for new research where these effects will be included.
3. A debate in the House of Representatives
During the meeting of the Committee of Social Affairs and Employment on September 19th, seven political parties of the House of Representatives of the Dutch Parliament were represented: Socialist Party (SP), Green Left (GL), Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Democrats 66 (D66), Labour Party (PvdA) and of course Klein / Cultural Liberal Party (Vrijzinnige Partij).
The main decision to be made during the debate: Is the House of Representatives willing to order an investigation by the Central Planning Agency (CPB) and the Socio-Cultural Planning Agency (SCP) for an explorative study on the financial / socio-economic as well as the behavioral aspects of an unconditional basic income?
The VVD is firmly against a basic income, where in the past the option was openly supported by the VVD-Minister of Economic Affairs, Gerrit Zalm. An unconditional Basic Income is an unfair solution according to the right wing-party nowadays, arguing as follows: the working part of the population pays for the people sitting at home. It is senseless, anti social and unaffordable. What if everyone chooses to do fun things instead of going to work? The effect of an unconditional Basic Income will be less participation in labour, resulting in a decrease in tax-income. We already have too many regulations that discourage people to go to work. Freedom of choice for people that is paid by others is not a dream but a nightmare. No further research is needed according to the VVD.
All other parties first have questions about the note of initiative and ask for further information. What will happen to the current social security system, what will be the cost of a basic income and how will it be financed?
In response to these questions, Klein hands out an estimate of the cost (130 billion euros) of implementing an unconditional Basic Income of 800 euros per person and a proposal of how this could be financed. He also alters his initial inclusion criterion for a basic income (living 10 years in the Netherlands) towards people with a Dutch residence permit. He emphasizes the starting point is a positive image of citizens, where most people want to participate in society in a good way. A basic Income should be seen as a springboard, not a safety net. He states that unpaid work can be as beneficial for society as paid work.
Green Left is the party most positive towards researching the effects of a Basic Income, but does not support the idea of an income guaranteed for everyone. Green Left is in favour of a looser link between work and income but wants different options to be investigated, e.g. Basic Income, negative income tax and dividend on robotics.
All parties, except the VVD, asked for a suspension of the meeting to another date to be able to study Kleins’ financial proposal. A date will be chosen during the next meeting of the committee.
To be continued…
Info and links
A report of the meeting can be found here (in Dutch)
Both letters (Klein’s note of initiative and Assher’s response) can be found here (in Dutch).
Related Basic Income News articles:
NETHERLANDS: Basic Income debated for first time in Parliament
[Hilde Latour]
THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS: Expert Meeting on “Sense (and Nonsense) of a Basic Income”
[Florie Barnhoorn]
Special thanks to Josh Martin, and Cameron McLeod for reviewing this article.
Cover photo:
Meeting of Committee of Social Affairs and Employment – Hilde Latour 19 sep 2016
by Andre Coelho | Sep 18, 2016 | Opinion
(image credit to: The Economist)
IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) Deputy Director for Capacity Development Andrew Berg, Research Department Senior Economist (at IMF) Luis-Felipe Zanna and Edward Buffie, a Professor of Economics at Indiana University Bloomington, just published an article articulating an analysis revolving around technological development and its implications on society, particularly regarding labor, capital and (in)equality. At the end of the article they refer to basic income as a possible solution, in order to redistribute the excess capital brought by the computerization of production.
But what do we have here? A miracle conversion of hard-core capitalist economists into soft-hearted left-wing liberals? Can we, after all, turn lead into gold? No, of course not. What we have here is textbook capitalist economy, with a new ingredient: basic income.
So their logic goes like this: We have inequality, but that is fine. Inequality is merely a result of market forces; we can live with that because we belong to that fortunate group of people who have not experienced poverty and cannot imagine experiencing poverty. But there are a couple of challenges with too much inequality: people revolt and cannot buy all these wonderful things corporate capitalism churns out daily. You see, this humanity thing has one big problem: it is full of humans. And humans, unlike machines, have two amazing features, which these brilliant economists have just discovered: they tend to fight back if pressed too much and cannot survive without their basic needs met.
The reason for this sudden, latent, realization has to do with the one thing all capitalists share: they are not entirely human. They hold this strange belief that there’s nothing wrong with trying to extract more water from the well than the amount that exists there. It is like writing a three-thousand-page essay and drawing this sole conclusion: 1+1=3.
But back to the logic. So, inequality is tolerable, but not too much. The solution? Give these poor people a basic income and, all of a sudden, they stop being such bad loser crying babies and resume buying enough stuff to maintain this completely absurd system of domination, privilege and exploitation. Shut them up, so we can keep doing our thing without distraction. Note that I have not, until now, said a single thing about robots, computers or automation. Because at bottom it has nothing to do with that. With robots or not, the capitalist mind just wants to extract wealth. How they do it is irrelevant, or relevant only to the extent as it is efficient in doing so.
What these enlightened IMF economists, and possibly other IMF officials do not realize is that basic income is a complete game changer. It will allow people to say “no”, to enjoy enough freedom to completely turn the capitalist system on its head. And these people will start doing much more bizarre things, like volunteering for causes close to their heart, or starting their own businesses (refusing to be slaves to some capitalist boss), and enjoying more leisure time, and time to care for family and friends (go figure out why). Living out their own lives, for a change.
I predict that, after basic income is implemented, in part following up these economists’ recommendations, capitalism will hardly resemble its own shadow in 10 to 20 years. Society will barely recognize itself, when looking back at today’s world. Mark my words.
More information at:
Andrew Berg, Edward F. Bufie and Luis-Felipe Zanna, “Robots, Growth, and Inequality”, Finance & Development, vol. 53 nº3, September 2016
by Kate McFarland | Sep 16, 2016 | News
BIEN cofounder Philippe van Parijs (Professor at the Université catholique de Louvain) delivered a TEDx talk on basic income earlier in the year. A video of the talk is now available online.
Van Parijs’ talk, “The Instrument of Freedom”, was organized as part of a TEDx event called “Bits of Love”, held in Ghent, Belgium on June 18, 2016. The topics discussed at the event were not restricted to basic income or even political and economic issues. Titles and themes of other talks range from “Why We Don’t Need Oil for Plastics” to “How Farm Dust Protects from Allergies” to “My Secret Ingredient for Classical Musicians: Stage Presence” — and many more.
In his talk, which he frames as a critique of the goal of continuous growth, Van Parijs recounts the worries that led him to conceive of basic income as a better alternative to “capitalism as we know it”, and describes how basic income is an essential part of a society that delivers “real freedom for all”:
For more information about the surrounding TEDx event, see the “Bits of Love” page at the TEDxGhent website.
TEDx Talks, “The instrument of freedom | Philippe Van Parijs | TEDxGhent“, YouTube; uploaded August 18, 2016.
Reviewed by Cameron McLeod
Philippe van Parijs photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Bibliotheek Kortrijk
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