by Karl Widerquist | May 9, 2013 | Research
The North Wind
[Aynur Bashirova – Bi News – May 2013]
Westrick, Brian. (2013). “Basic Income Guarantee Solution for Social Welfare.” The North Wind, Thursday, Apr 11 2013
Brian Westrick, in his article published in the North Wind, argues that the social safety nets in the US are inefficient and can be replaced by a more efficient system of the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG), which will supersede the desperation to find work with desire to work. According to Wesrick, BIG would give people the incentive to work with the principle of the more you work, the more you get and eradicate extreme poverty by making sure that no one stays without income. The author concludes that BIG is not perfect, but comparing its benefits to unemployment benefits, it makes more sense overall.
Online at: https://www.thenorthwindonline.com/?p=3867309
by Karl Widerquist | Apr 30, 2013 | Research
This special issue of Homo Oeconomicus, edited by Ao Yumin and Ulrich Steinvorth, requests submission of papers answering questions such as:
- What are the reasons to demand a basic income?
- What would be the consequences of its introduction?
- What are the reasons or motives to reject or distrust it?
- Can, or how far can, basic income counteract unemployment?
- Should it, or how far should it, promote a life independent of salaried jobs?
- What kind of activities should basic income promote or can it be expected to promote?
- What should be the amount of basic income?
- What are alternatives to basic income?
- What can established institutions of basic income tell us about its future and possibilities?
Papers can be written both in an academic and in a more popular style accessible to a broader public and apt to impact the public opinion. Proposals are to be sent to aoyumin@gmail.com and ulrich.steinvorth@uni-hamburg.de. The deadline for the papers, which must be preceded by an abstract, are expected for December 1st, 2013.
Homo Oeconomicus, is online at: https://www.homooeconomicus.org/
by Yannick Vanderborght | Apr 29, 2013 | Opinion
Considering that the ongoing global crisis has led to massive unemployment, particularly in Europe, and has left many people in despair, groups of citizens from 15 European Union countries have launched an initiative to request the EU to examine the feasibility of an Unconditional Basic Income.
The idea behind an Unconditional Basic Income is to allow for a better distribution of work opportunities, thus supporting decent living conditions for everyone. Such an Unconditional Basic Income must be universal, individual and high enough to be a radical tool for fighting inequalities and poverty.
The Basic Income would also be a way to simplify many welfare benefit rules and procedures, and would not replace the welfare state but would transform it from a weak compensatory one into an emancipatory welfare state.
The broad collaboration of European groups and citizens from 15 countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom) that has been preparing this campaign shows that the long-standing idea of a Basic Income is gaining momentum.
After registration of the European Citizens’ Initiative by the EU-Commission early this year, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have also joined the coordinating group of the campaign.
In addition to those of the coordinating group (“European Citizens’ Committee”) we have already obtained signatures from all 27 countries of the EU (see Figure: “Statistic for the first month of online signatures”).
The organizers of the initiative invite everybody to sign their support on the joint website https://basicincome2013.eu
It is also possible to support the campaign by filling in forms. In other words, you do not need to have internet access. We must maximize the number of signatures by 14 January 2014, to be given for evaluation to the national authorities in all 27 Member States.
Our next European coordination meeting will take place on 27 May 2013 (with a public event on the evening before) in Köln. One item to be considered will be the proposal for an International Week of Unconditional Basic Income, to be held from September 16 to 22, 2013.
So we hope we will obtain the required 1 million signatures, while reaching a minimum threshold in at least 7 Member States, which is a necessary condition to reach the first step of the European Citizens’ Initiative. Once that has been achieved, there must be a public hearing in the EU-Parliament, offered by the EU-Commission, and then the EU-Commission will decide what will be done further.
Please sign the European Citizens Initiative and inform other persons by your media (e-mail, Newsletter, Website, facebook, twitter, print media, etc.) asking for support!
https://basicincome2013.eu
by Karl Widerquist | Apr 25, 2013 | Research
This special issue, guest-edited by Michael Lewis, features a debate on whether it would be better for government to guarantee a job or an income. It features articles by Philip Harvey, Guy Standing, Michael Lewis, Eri Noguchi, and Pavlina Tcherneva (see more information below).
The debate is online at:
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/issue-files/bis.2013.7.issue-2.xml
“Introduction to the Special Issue on the? Right to Work and Basic Income”
Lewis, Michael A. Page 1-2
Published Online: 12/31/2012
“As I write these lines, the US economy is about 4 years out of the Great Recession of 2008–2009. Yet, unemployment is estimated to be at a stubbornly high 7.8% and the poverty rate is around 15%. That is, an estimated 12.2 million people are currently unemployed and about 46.2 million are living in poverty. … The two economists whose articles are featured in this special issue take fundamentally different approaches to these problems…”
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0011/bis-2013-0011.xml?format=INT
“More for Less: The Job Guarantee Strategy”
Harvey, Philip. Page 3
Published Online: 12/31/2012
Abstract: The cost and effectiveness of a basic income guarantee and a job guarantee (combined with conventional transfer payments) are compared with respect to their ability to eliminate poverty and unemployment. It is argued that a BI guarantee provided in the form preferred by most advocates of the idea (a universal basic income grant or equivalent negative income tax) would be both more costly and less effective than a job guarantee—if the latter is properly designed to secure the right to work and income security recognized in in the Universal Declaration of Human Right. It is further argued that the job guarantee strategy configured in this way also would do more to promote the real freedom goals of the basic income advocacy movement.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0006/bis-2013-0006.xml?format=INT
“Why a Basic Income Is Necessary for a Right to Work”
Standing, Guy. Page 19
Published Online: 12/31/2012
Abstract: This article makes the proposition that a right to work can only exist if an individual has a prior right to a basic income. It criticizes the perspective that maximizing the number of jobs is a meaningful way of advancing the right to work, since activity in subordinated labour is scarcely consistent with a freedom-enhancing right to work. In recalling the historical right to practise an occupation, it rejects the notion of a “job guarantee”, as neither feasible nor desirable in a free society or as part of a progressive vision of a Good Society.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0007/bis-2013-0007.xml?format=INT
“Cost, Compensation, Freedom, and the Basic Income – Guaranteed Jobs Debate”
Lewis, Michael A. Page 41
Published Online: 12/31/2012
Abstract: In this volume Harvey argues that guaranteeing people the right to work would be a better policy approach than guaranteeing people an unconditional basic income. This is because a guaranteed job would provide many of the benefits that a basic income would but at far lower cost. I argue that Harvey’s analysis of the relative cost differences between guaranteeing one a job or an income is misleading if not flat out wrong in some places. I also argue that there is one benefit that BI could promote that his jobs strategy, at least as presented in the paper in this volume, could not – the right of an able-bodied person to lead the kind of life they desire even if they desire not to sell their labor.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0008/bis-2013-0008.xml?format=INT
“The Cost-Efficiency of a Guaranteed Jobs Program: Really? A Response to Harvey”
Noguchi, Eri. Page 52
Published Online: 12/31/2012
Abstract: Responding to Harvey’s argument that a Guaranteed Jobs program would be more cost-efficient than a Guaranteed Income program, this paper points out several costs related to the latter that are not included in Harvey’s cost comparisons, mostly related to the administrative costs of operating a Guaranteed Jobs Program, which tends to be much more complex and high maintenance. This paper also points out that the unemployment rate would shift in response to the program, and that some unnecessary jobs would most likely need to be created if the program is to guarantee a job for everyone. However, the paper concludes that the public projects imagined as part of a guaranteed jobs program have merit on their own grounds, and should not be dismissed.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0009/bis-2013-0009.xml?format=INT
“The Job Guarantee: Delivering the Benefits That Basic Income Only Promises – A Response to Guy Standing”
Tcherneva, Pavlina R. Page 66
Published Online: 12/31/2012
Abstract: The present article offers three critiques of the universal basic income guarantee (BIG) proposal discussed by Standing in this volume. First, there is a fundamental tension between the way income in a monetary production economy is generated, the manner in which BIG wishes to redistribute it, and the subsequent negative impact of this redistribution on the process of income generation itself. The BIG policy is dependent for its existence on the very system it wishes to undermine. Second, the macroeconomic effects of BIG on contemporary economies that use modern money are destabilizing. The job guarantee (JG), by contrast, stabilizes both the macro-economy and the currency while helping transform the nature of work itself. Finally, the employment safety-net in Standing’s piece is not an accurate representation of the modern JG proposals – a confusion which this paper aims to remedy.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2013.7.issue-2/bis-2013-0010/bis-2013-0010.xml?format=INT
by Sandro Gobetti | Mar 14, 2013 | News
[by Sabrina Del Pico – BIN Italia]
In January 2013, a few weeks before general elections, Beppe Grillo, the colourful leader of Movimento 5 Stelle – M5S (5 Star Movement) declared: “The first thing we will do, after entering the Parliament, is to introduce a citizen’s income for those who lost their jobs or do not have a job”. During the campaign for the national Parliament M5S presented its agenda including 20 points, the second of which was what Beppe Grillo improperly called a citizen’s income.
That term is usually used synonymously with the term basic income for an unconditional income given to all without any means test or work requirement. Grillo instead used it essentially as a new name for unemployment insurance conditional on readiness to accept a job if one becomes available. Grillo himself said in a recent interview (in Italian), “the employment offices will offer people one, two, three jobs. If they don’t accept those jobs they will lose the benefit.” He did not even clarify whether the job offer must be appropriate for the individual’s skills.
M5S won an astonishing victory. It emerged as Italy’s biggest single party in the lower chamber with 8.7 million over, nearly a quarter of all votes cast. Its leader did not eat his words pronounced during the electoral campaign and went on talking about the introduction of a what he calls citizen’s income as one of the most important actions to be taken.
If on the one hand, it is unprecedented that Italian mainstream politicians put on their agenda measures addressing citizens’ economic conditions; on the other hand it added confusion to political language and therefore also to concepts and outcomes. See the link below for an article misunderstanding Grillo’s use of the term citizens income. M5S’ proposal considers a measure that provides unemployed with €1000 a month for 3 years. It is a quite vague proposal as regards the implementation process but as one point: the measure is entirely conditional to availability for work or some kind of commitment to a reintegration trajectory. It is clear, therefore, that what they call a citizen’s income is actually a kind of unemployment benefit, either contributory or non-contributory. This is not a mere linguistic issue. It actually hides – or reveals, according to the standpoint – an inadequate and shallow knowledge of welfare state policies by mainstream politics, which implies the risk to implement a workfare measure passed off as a basic income.
Nevertheless, this proposal opened a lively debate in the mainstream politics about the necessity to provide citizens facing economic problems with some kind of income support. Nearly all Italian political parties are now aware that the issue of introducing an income support scheme is an inescapable fact.
As a matter of fact, in July 2012, BIN Italia, along with many associations and grassroots organisations, already launched a campaign to propose a popular initiative bill on guaranteed minimum income in Italy. The campaign, which ended in December 2012, was a great success. It reached its target to collect 50,000 signatures, and therefore the popular initiative bill on guaranteed minimum income may not only represent an important contribution to the current debate but it may also help determine implementation and practical aspects of welfare reform in Italy.
RELATED LINKS:
The website, truthout.org, published a long article (in English) on M5S’s policy entirely under the misapprehension that M5S had endorsemed basic income: Ellen Brown, “QE for the People: Comedian Beppe Grillo’s Populist Plan for Italy,” Truthout, Thursday, 07 March 2013: https://truth-out.org/news/item/14953-qe-for-the-people-comedian-beppe-grillos-populist-plan-for-italy
An article (in Italian) by Roberto Ciccarelli appears in Il Manifesto briefly explaining the difference between a basic income and the unemployment benefit particularly in the light of the latest statements made by main mainstream politicians. He clarifies the positions of Bersani (Democratic Party), Vendola (SEL Sinistra Ecologia Libertà – Left Ecology Freedom), and Grillo (M5S) as well as those of some grassroots organizations such as BIN Italia and San Precario. Ciccarelli is one of the few in the mainstream media to highlight the haziness of Grillo’s proposal: https://www.ilmanifesto.it/area-abbonati/ricerca/nocache/1/manip2n1/20130302/manip2pg/06/manip2pz/336754/manip2r1/ciccarelli/
