by Kate McFarland | Oct 11, 2016 | News
The official launch event of Guy Standing’s new book, The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay (Biteback Publishing), will be held on October 26. It will be held at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London, where Standing is a Professorial Research Associate.
From the event description:
There is a lie at the heart of global capitalism. While claiming to promote free markets, governments and international agencies have constructed the most unfree market system ever, fostering a plutocracy alongside a growing precariat mired in insecurity. This book shows how rentier capitalism, which Keynes predicted would die, is causing growing inequality. The income distribution system has broken down. A new one is needed, anchored on basic income (social dividends) and democratic wealth funds.
Guy’s talk will be followed by a “drinks reception”.
After the launch event, Guy will continue traveling to promote The Corruption of Capitalism. On November 1, he will head to New York City to speak about the theme of his book at a public lecture at the New School for Social Research. On November 8, back in England, he’ll present the book to an audience at the University of Huddersfield. And he’ll deliver a seminar on the book at Strathclyde University in Scotland on November 24. In addition, Guy will be speaking at the NOW Conference in Moscow (Nov 6), the Trade Union Leaders’ Summit in Nyon, Switzerland (Nov 15), and the Swedish Human Rights Conference in Malmo (Nov 16) — in addition to other talks and conferences. (Details on many of these events are forthcoming in Basic Income News.)
Guy Standing is a co-founder and honorary co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network, and was responsible for naming the organization (originally the Basic Income European Network). His previous books include The Precariat and The Precariat Charter.
For more information about the London launch event, and to register for free, see EventBrite. The event is sponsored by Biteback Publishing and the Movements & Development Cluster of SOAS Labour.
For a teaser, read Guy’s article in openDemocracyUK based on The Corruption of Capitalism:
Guy Standing (Sep 5, 2016) “The left must combat rentier capitalism” openDemocracyUK.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Guy Standing photo CC BY 2.0 BICN/RCRG Basic Income Canada
by Kate McFarland | Oct 10, 2016 | News
Former US Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich (now Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at University of California, Berkeley) has produced a short video on basic income.
In the video, Reich argues that a universal basic income is a solution to job loss and inequality caused by developments in technology and automation.
The video was made in collaboration with the charity GiveDirectly.
This is not the first time that Reich has spoken out in favor of a basic income, especially in response to technological unemployment.
For example, he spoke on the “inevitability of basic income” last May at the Future of Work conference in Zurich, Switzerland:
For links and discussion of earlier remarks from Reich about UBI, see:
Karl Widerquist (September 5, 2015) “Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich focuses attention on Basic Income” Basic Income News.
For a recent critical response to Reich’s recent video, written from the perspective of a right-wing UBI supporter, see:
Tim Worstall (October 1, 2016) “Robert Reich Sure Doesn’t Understand Economics – iEverything And The Universal Basic Income” Forbes.
Inequality Media, “Universal Basic Income“, YouTube; published on September 29, 2016.
Photo CC BY 2.0 HarvardEthics
by Kate McFarland | Oct 5, 2016 | News
The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (at the University of Toronto) is holding a discussion of basic income (guaranteed annual income [1]) on Wednesday, October 12.
Panelists include federal Senator Art Eggleton and scholar Michael Mendelson (Caledon Institute of Social Policy).
Eggleton and Mendelson will discuss the extent to which left-wing and right-wing proponents of “basic income” really do agree on policy –and, in light of this, whether a progressive basic income policy is practically feasible:
While the idea of a ‘Basic Income’ or a ‘Guaranteed Annual Income’ is attractive to many across the political spectrum, this attraction may be due to the idea remaining vague enough to encompass a range of what are actually very different programs.
On the one hand, those on the right see a relatively small unconditional payment to all adults replacing almost all other income security programs and many social services. Libertarian advocates of a Basic Income see it replacing even Medicare for the poor and the young. The right sees the Basic Income or Guaranteed Annual Income as reducing government expenditure or at the worst with the income guarantee low enough so that it is fiscally neutral.
On the other side of the spectrum, the left sees the program as offering an unconditional benefit large enough to lift everyone out of poverty, while leaving social insurance and many other programs, and certainly all social services, intact. In the left’s vision, taxes would rise radically to cover the costs and the beneficial result would be significant income redistribution.
For those looking for progressive change that can meaningfully reduce poverty and inequality, the question is whether there is a practical way to implement a Basic Income or Guaranteed Income, which might not accomplish immediately the full-scale goals of sweeping away all poverty and radically redistributing income, but which would represent significant progress from where we are today. Or, are progressives advocating for a Basic Income or a Guaranteed Annual Income, actually playing into the hands of a right wing agenda?
Senator Eggleton has been an outspoken advocate of the basic income guarantee (BIG) within Canada’s Liberal Party. Last February, he tabled a motion in the Senate calling on the federal government to fund a pilot study of BIG. (For more information, see Eggleton’s HuffPost article “Time for Canada to Test a Basic Income“.)
Michael Mendelson has served as a consultant for Canadian governments and institutions, in addition to publishing numerous articles on social and fiscal policy. Along with Ken Battle, Sherri Torjman and Ernie Lightman, Mendelson wrote “A Basic Income Plan for Canadians with Severe Disabilities” (Nov 2010), a proposal to replace Canada’s welfare programs for persons with disabilities with a guaranteed minimum income.
The event is open to the public, with no registration required.
For more information, see the event page (“Is it Time for Basic Income?“) at the website of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
[1] In the event description, as in much of the Canadian discourse, the terms ‘basic income’ and ‘guaranteed annual income’ are used roughly synonymously to refer to programs that, through the use of direct cash transfers, aim to ensure that no individual’s income falls below a level needed to obtain basic necessities (similar to the use of the term ‘basic income guarantee’ elsewhere).
Reviewed by Ali Özgür Abalı
Photo: Monument to Multiculturalism (a sculpture unveiled by Art Eggleton during his time as mayor of Toronto) CC BY 2.0 Shaun Merritt
by Kate McFarland | Oct 4, 2016 | News
BIEN co-founder Guy Standing will be speaking on basic income and the precariat at Oktoberdans–a well-regarded contemporary dance festival held biennially in Norway–on October 25.
Held every two years, Norway’s Oktoberdans is an internationally-regarded contemporary dance festival. The eleventh Oktoberdans will be held in Bergen from October 20-29, 2016.
Oktoberdans incorporates occasional events falling outside the usual scope of dance and performance art. This year, in connection with the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Moore’s Utopia, the festival will include a workshop called “Changing Utopia”, featuring six speakers over the course of three days (October 25-27).
A utopia is defined as a “non-place” and is itself impossible. Yet it is a concept most of us can relate to; the ultimate goal, something to strive for. Is it part of human nature to always long for the next, something better? Can this urge explain why we, as a species, have come to a point in our technological development where we are beginning to question if we are making the human workforce unnecessary?
Is it viable to argue that the discussion about what we want with our world has stopped? Is it possible to discuss a utopia for community and a utopia for the individual in the same breath? …
In this discursive program we will plunge fearlessly into the above-mentioned questions, hoping to generate new perspectives for artists, students, and a general audience attending Oktoberdans 2016.
The opening speaker on the first day will be economist Guy Standing, a co-founder and honorary co-president of BIEN. Standing will speak about the “precariat revolt” anticipated in his latest book, The Corruption of Capitalism. Specifically, he will explain what this revolt entails with respect to “reversing the trends of insecurity, inequality and the growth of the precariat.”
Rune Salomonsen, an organizer of the workshop, states that the organizers asked Standing to focus on his “politics of paradise”. Explaining the decision to invite a researcher and advocate of basic income, Salomonsen says,
The subject of basic income needs definitely a more frequent highlighting within the art field, but then again this subject is of universal importance, and this utopia as we now call it, has other important ingredients in addition to the basic income, it involves essential democratic structures.
Salomonsen mentions philosopher Jacques Rancière’s speech at the 2004 Summer Academy in Frankfurt as a precedent in which a thinker from outside the arts world delivered a presentation at major arts conference to great results. In this case, Rancière’s speech led to his book The Emancipated Spectator, which has become influential in both philosophy and the arts (especially performance art).
To enhance the dramaturgical elements of the presentation, the organizers have asked Standing to deliver his speech without printed notes and stand atop two Euro-pallets–creating a setting like a Speaker’s Corner.
Other speakers at Changing Utopia include Norwegian journalist Linn Stalsberg, Swiss artist Christophe Meierhans (who “showcased a complete political system” for a recent performance), and Wolfgang Heuer of the Institute for Political Science at the Free University of Berlin.
At the time of this writing, two speakers have yet to be announced (although they are specified to be “very exciting”).
BIT Teatergarasjen presents the Changing Utopia seminar in collaboration with House on Fire.
For more information, see the homepage of the 2016 Oktoberdans and the page for the Changing Utopia seminar.
Information, photo, and proofreading from Rune Salomonsen (Bit Teatergarasjen).
by Kate McFarland | Sep 26, 2016 | News
The Trades Union Congress, a federation of trade unions that represents nearly six million workers in the UK, has passed a motion endorsing basic income.
As previously announced in Basic Income News, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) voted on a motion to endorse universal basic income at its 148th annual congress held from September 11 through 14.
The TUC is a federation of trade unions in the UK, currently representing 51 unions and a total of more than 5.8 million workers [1].
The full text of the successful motion on UBI is as follows:
Universal Basic Income
Congress notes the growing popularity of the idea of a ‘Universal Basic Income’ with a variety of models being discussed here and around the world. Congress recognises the need for a rebuilding of a modern social security system for men and women as part of tackling poverty and inequality.
Congress believes that the TUC should argue for a progressive system that incorporates the basis of a Universal Basic Income system paid individually and that is complementary to comprehensive public services and childcare provision.
Congress believes that such a system would be easier to administer and easier for people to navigate than the current system which has been made increasingly punitive and has effectively been used to stigmatise benefit claimants. The operation of sanctions pushes people into destitution for trivial reasons.
Congress recognises that until the housing crisis is resolved there would also be a need for supplementary benefits to support people on low incomes with high housing costs and that there will always be a need for supplementary benefits for disabled people.
The transition from our current system to any new system that incorporates these principles should always leave people with lower incomes better off.
Congress believes that our social security system must work in tandem with our agenda for strong trade unions and employment rights and secure, decently and properly paid work.
The motion was introduced to the TUC by Unite, the UK’s largest individual union, which passed a motion endorsing basic income on July 11.
Becca Kirkpatrick — a UNISON and Unite member whose Regional Sector Committee was responsible for moving the successful motion at Unite’s policy conference — had this to say about the TUC decision:
This important decision is only the beginning of a big conversation to be had across the unions, about our preferred level of UBI, how it should be funded, and what additional policies must go alongside it to ensure that it is progressive. But most importantly, no great social change has ever been won by working people passing a motion in a conference room. We must organise and build a powerful movement in order to see the kind of Basic Income — and the kind of future — that we want [2].
To stay up-to-date with future news and announcements, follow Basic Income UK Trade Unionists on Twitter and join their discussions on Facebook.
[1] According to the TUC’s website (accessed September 15, 2016).
[2] Personal communication.
Photo CC BY-NC 2.0 xpgomes12.
Special thanks to Kate’s supporters on Patreon.
