by Albert Joerimann | Nov 15, 2015 | Opinion
SUMMARY: In 2016, Switzerland is going to vote on a popular initiative that asks for the introduction of an unconditional Basic Income. Daniel Häni, one of the promoters of the initiative, wrote this book with Philip Kovce in order to gather support for the initiative. It is made for a lay audience rather than a scientific publication with some succinct arguments against popular criticisms of basic income, for instance that it would be killing personal initiative, promoting idleness, etc. The title gives an indication that the authors do not see the Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) primarily as a mechanism or institution to combat poverty. On the contrary: the UBI prepares for abundance which is the reality of modern societies (even if their actual structures do not yet correspond to this reality and still produce precariousness—but this is not the issue of Häni’s and Kovce’s book). By discussing these items as well as focussing on (paid) labour which our economic system is revolving around, they give several tips to rectify a number of current systemic prejudices: namely that within a society based on the division of labor, people do not work for themselves anymore, contrarily to all appearances; instead, all the others are working for oneself. Above all, the core questions of freedom and democracy are discussed: what are people going to do if they aren’t constricted to paid employment anymore? How will they materially realize this freedom? The main quality of the basic income scheme as discussed in this book is to raise these and other crucial questions for our present and our future.
Most of the arguments are known already from earlier publications and interviews of Daniel Häni, often in collaboration with Enno Schmidt, and in particular from the 2008 movie “Grundeinkommen – ein Kulturimpuls” [Basic Income—A Cultural Impulse]. As a matter of fact, the authors do integrate today more of the topics generally discussed in the context of the BI, above all in Germany, than they did some years ago. On the other hand side, they abstain completely from any discussion of the financing of the BI introduction, in Switzerland and in general.
Language: German
Daniel Häni, Philip Kovce: “Was fehlt, wenn alles da ist?” [What’s missing if everything is there?] orell füssli verlag, Zurich, October 2015, 189 pp., paperback, ISBN 978 3 280 05592 2
by BIEN | Nov 3, 2015 | News
German Writer M.D. Schuster recently published her new book Wärmesteine. The futuristic novel is set in a society where the survival is secured by an unconditional basic income. It portraits a family with members of two very different nations and deals with questions about identity, freedom and limitations as well as dependencies that have remained. The book can be downloaded for free here or purchased from bookshops.
Language: German
M.D. Schuster, “Wärmesteine – Ein Roman zum Bedingungslosen Grundeinkommen” [Heat Wave Rocks – A novel for an unconditional basic income], August 2015
by Adrian Planken | Nov 1, 2015 | News
The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs wants cities who are interested in experimenting with basic income to come up with a common plan.
The municipalities of Utrecht, Tilburg, Groningen and Wageningen will jointly submit a ‘ uniformly ‘ plan ‘ before they can get permission for their experiments, including ‘ free money ‘. That has a spokesman of the Ministry of Social Affairs Wednesday evening told. This summer it became known that Utrecht, Tilburg, Groningen and Wageningen did want to set up experiments around social security payments.
According to the municipalities the current rules for the social security are too rigid and they work sometimes counter-productively. There would be too many re-integration and interview obligations with high penalties, such as suspension of the benefit. Customization is not possible and the municipality would have lost a lot of time with the controls.
For this reason, the four municipalities do want to give some of their social assistance receivers an unconditional social security payment – what they call a ‘ basic income ‘-, i.e. a monthly income of the Government without an obligation to take paid employment, to be involved in community service. Persons entitled to this assistance may also reserve their extra earnings. Tilburg, Utrecht, Groningen and Wageningen want to examine whether this group will become more active than others with the current, strict regime.
The four municipalities spoke with to PvdA-Jetta Klijnsma State Secretary of Social Affairs during a ‘ first ‘ conversation to get approval for the experiments. Admittedly the current “Participatiewet” (=participation law, to which the social assistance belongs) allow some ‘room for experiment’, but that seems not spacious enough for what Tilburg, Utrecht, Wageningen and Groningen are heading for. Klijnsma now wants that the four municipalities come up with a common, unambiguous proposal, because their ideas are still far apart. Tilburg for example is planning a four years experiment in cooperation with the University, while Utrecht goes out of a year. Utrecht also wants, in addition to providing a basic income to some social assistance receivers and to compare the results of it with the results in other groups in which they use positive incentives. One of this groups will for example be rewarded with a bonus if they (volunteer) work.
A follow-up appointment with Klijnsma is planned in the first half of November this year. Then they will try on the basis of a new proposal to come to an agreement about the possibly stretching of the experiment space in the Participatiewet. In the meantime there is much discussion about the basic income in the Netherlands. Proponents commend on the aim to give social assistance receivers an unconditional social security payment as a means to free the recipients of the restrictions and humiliations they have to suffer and think that this freedom will lead to creativity. Opponents, such as the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB), warn that it will be prohibitive to give everyone a ‘basic income’ and thinks it will discourage the people who get it to be active.
Ria Cats, “Four municipalities have to make a uniform plan for ‘ free money ‘ “. Financieel Dagblad, September 23, 2015.
De Gelderlander, “State Secretary of Social Affairs ask for additional research welfare experiment Wageningen” De Gelderlander, September 27, 2015.
by Guest Contributor | Oct 28, 2015 | Opinion
Refugee support clothing depot (Hamburg)
by Rainer Ammermann
Much can be said about the possible links between the current refugee influx to Germany and the idea of unconditional basic income. Now, I want to highlight just one obvious intersection: thousands spend countless hours to build and maintain a support infrastructure for refugees independent from public services. They are not paid and they do in part work others might judge as stupid or heavy. They are driven only by the obvious need and the feeling to be part of a group or a movement of common interest. Although involvement in civil society activities in Germany is traditionally high, the challenge to support thousands of refugees and migrants at short notice shows once more the desire to work and to participate as a deeply rooted intrinsic and social value. With this in mind we do not need to worry about a lack of willingness to work once an unconditional basic income is implemented. But some have to worry that the jobs they offer may not provide the values necessary for real useful work.
One impressive project of refugee support is the clothing depot in a Hamburg trade fair hall. Within days and weeks it has become a well equipped logistics centre completely run by hundreds of volunteers. Of course, people in the core team bring in some professional experience, but no extra money drives them. Most volunteers in the store sort clothes, pack boxes and stack pallets. Some organize free drinks and food for the volunteers, others run and further develop the software used to process packages and orders, and so on. The centre is open 7 days a week from 9 to 9. New in this project is not the fact that volunteers work in a clothing depot, but the large scale of the project and that it is managed independently of established aid organizations with a fluid and self-organizing crowd of supporters. One can start working there without formal registration and without becoming a permanent member of a team or social group. Many people there work in anonymity apart from the first name on their chest.
I work there several hours about twice a week. I am impressed by the atmosphere of a relaxed but effective bustle based on freedom and mutual respect. Although I feel some kind of duty to contribute to this kind of community work (a socialist value), at the same time I enjoy the total freedom of choice each day to start and stop working whenever I like outside public service structures (a libertarian value). No formal accountability undermines my motivation while I can trust in the self-organizing crowd of people that the service is going on well in the time I focus on other things. I call this “my libertarian-socialist working feeling” (while this doesn’t fully reflect my personal political stance) and I feel it bears a huge potential for a more humane and effective world of work. May it stimulate somehow the inevitable way towards unconditional basic income.
Have some insights here and here.
Rainer Ammermann is an activist in the Basic Income Network Hamburg.
by Vito Laterza | Oct 14, 2015 | News
Debora Serracchiani, President of Friuli-Venezia Giulia
The center-left government of the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia is about to roll out a minimum income experiment – the actual wording used in the legislation is “measures of active inclusion and income support”. It was approved in June by the regional parliament. The cabinet finalized the implementation guidelines at the end of September.
This is far from a universal basic income, but institutes a basic floor for all families below a certain income, regardless of family members’ current or previous occupational status. Families that earn 6000 euros per year or less, and have been residing in the region for at least twenty-four months, will receive a monthly sum between 70 and 550 euros for twelve months in the first instance. The monthly payment is determined by existing family income – there are six income bands – and the number of dependent children.
They can apply for a second period of twelve months, after a two months break. The award is conditional on signing an “inclusion pact”, which is a plan beneficiaries agree with social services to improve their financial situation. It can include training courses, further education and other labor market integration activities.
Local newspaper Il Piccolo reports that the scheme roll-out is expected to start in November this year. It is estimated that there are up to 10,000 beneficiaries eligible for this measure. Italian newspapers do not clarify whether this figure refers to the total number of individuals in the receiving families, or the number of applicants. Either way, it is clear that only the very poor will be covered.
Italy, like Greece and unlike most European countries, does not have a universal unemployment subsidy or a national guaranteed minimum income (GMI). A GMI scheme was piloted at the national level in the late 1990s, but discontinued in the early 2000s. Some of Italy’s 20 regions experimented with similar measures throughout the 2000s, but none of them went beyond the experimental phase. Friuli-Venezia Giulia center-left government had already instituted a five-year experiment in 2006, but the scheme was interrupted prematurely by a center-right government in 2008.
Friuli’s reintroduction of a minimum income is not an isolated case. Another region, Basilicata, adopted similar measures in recent months, and others, like Piedmont and Lombardy, are expected to do so in the near future.
Friuli’s law was promoted by the regional president Debora Serracchiani and her cabinet, and approved with votes from across the political spectrum. The center-left Democrats, who lead the regional coalition government, and their regional allies of Left, Ecology and Freedom, supported the measure, with the favorable vote of the opposition party 5 Star Movement – a populist formation with increasingly far right views about migration and borders.
The 5 Star Movement is the main opposition party in the national parliament, and has been campaigning for a “citizenship income” (a form of GMI) at the national level for some time now. In recent months, they have intensified their campaign. Popular support for a national GMI is growing, fuelled by increasing poverty and social discontent caused by the combined effect of austerity and lack of economic growth.
Matteo Renzi, Italy’s Prime Minister
Three legislative proposals to this effect have been deposited in the national parliament, but none of them has reached the stage of a parliamentary vote. The 5 Star Movement proposal is the most far-reaching of them and calls for a GMI of up to 780 euros per month. Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister and leader of the Democrats, has rejected this proposal, but promised to include in the next budget more modest measures to mitigate poverty.
If you want to find out more, here is a list of relevant sources:
Marco Ballico, “Sei ‘scaglioni’ per l’assegno antipovertà [Six bands for the antipoverty payment],” Il Piccolo, September 22, 2015.
Roberto Giovannini, “In Friuli sussidio per i poveri, i grillini votano con il Pd [Subsidy for the poor in Friuli, 5 Star Movement votes with Pd],” La Stampa, July 2, 2015.
Friuli-Venezia Giulia, “Legge regionale 10 luglio 2015, n.15 [Regional law July 10, 2015, n.15]”.
“Renzi: no al reddito di cittadinanza, per combattere la povertà serve il lavoro [Renzi: no to citizenship income, we need jobs to fight poverty],” September 30, 2015.
Josh Martin, “ITALY: Conflict over report of a basic income experiment in Lombardy”, Basic Income News, May 18, 2015.
For a brief history of GMI experiments in Italy, see Varvara Lalioti’s academic article “The curious case of the Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI): highlighting Greek ‘exceptionalism’ in a southern European context”, forthcoming in the European Journal of Social Policy. An earlier version is available here.
