by Josh Martin | Jul 2, 2014 | Research
[Josh Martin]
In this opinion piece in the New York Times, Associate Professor of Political Science Christopher Blattman of Columbia University discusses the viability of directly giving cash with no conditions to homeless people. While the subject of handouts to the poor often raises concerns about funding substance abuse, Blattman highlights multiple studies that found no correlation between unconditional cash transfers like the basic income and expenses that would be categorized as wasteful. To Blattman, unconditional cash transfers must continued to be used.
Christopher Blattman, “Let Them Eat Cash.” The New York Times, 29 June 2014.
Image by Amanda Lanzone
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 21, 2013 | News
Lecture in Copenhagen
Philippe Van Parijs, professor at the Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, will give two lectures in Copenhagen on November 1 – 2. In the first, on Nov. 1, he will talk about his idea of financing a European Unconditional Basic Income through the European tax system, the so-called Value Added Tax or VAT. The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion headed by associate professor Christian Rostbøll from the Centre for European Politics, a branch of the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen. The title of this lecture will be “No Euro-zone without EU-dividend”.
In the second lecture, titled “Basic Income and Social Justice”, on Nov. 2, Van Parijs will discuss the reasoning behind his Basic Income proposal in a more generalized form. The lecture will take place at the Danish Film Institute in Copenhagen in collaboration with the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University. As an introduction to the seminar, the Swiss Basic Income film “Grundeinkommen – ein Kulturimpuls” will be shown on a big cinema screen with Danish subtitles. This will be followed by the lecture itself and another panel discussion with invited participants, among others a former colleague of Van Parijs, professor Robert van der Veen and associate professor Søren Midtgaard.
Lecture 1:
Time and date: 2-4pm, 1. November 2013
Place: Room 35.01.06. Building 35, CSS, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5.
The lecture is open to all, but registration is necessary.
Language: English
Website: https://www.cep.polsci.ku.dk/lecture_with_phillipe_van_parisj/
Lecture 2:
Time and date: 12-2pm (film), 2:15-4pm (lecture), 2. November 2013
Place: The Danish Film Institute, Gothersgade 55, 1123 Copenhagen K
Detailed information about the second lecture is listed (in Danish) at the following website: https://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket/Billetter-og-program/Serie.aspx?serieID=9259.
by Karl Widerquist | Jul 29, 2013 | News
The New Left Forum include a panel session on BIG in its meeting on June 9, 2013 in New York City. The panel examined the feasibility and desirability of basic income proposals from a number of disciplinary viewpoints, including history, economics, and comparative political science. Panelists included Frances Fox Piven, Lena Lavinas, Almaz Zelleke, and Benjamin Kunkel.
More information about the event is online at: https://www.leftforum.org/content/basic-income-all-0
by Yannick Vanderborght | Feb 5, 2013 | Research
In this paper, Andrés Felipe MORA CORTÉS criticizes the “contribution principle” in order to rediscover the transforming dimension of the social policy in the process of configuring a society that ensures the “right to existence”. Progress, the author argues, must be made towards breaking the “wage dependence” over economic and social rights and advance towards the guarantee of voluntary full employment. Vindication of the transforming dimension of the social policy lies in scorning the liberal notion of citizenship and breaking the close and deep connection between contribution principle, the myths that support it, and the social policy. Today, the individual, unconditional and universal basic income model constitutes a fundamental element for contemporary renewal of the social policy in terms of its reunion with its transforming dimension. The citizen’s basic income also offers an alternative to the diverse institutional configurations of the State of welfare and the social protection systems “moving a step forward”.
Available online at: https://www.uclouvain.be/325318.html
Full references: MORA CORTÉS, Andrés Felipe (2012), ‘Social policy and social transformation: the citizen’s basic income and the end of the contribution principle’, CriDIS Working paper 31, December 2012, Louvain University, Belgium.
Andrés Felipe MORA CORTÉS is a Political Scientist (Master in Economics from the National University of Colombia), PhD Candidate in Political Science in the Université Catholique de Louvain, and Researcher of the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires Démocratie, Institutions et Subjectivité CriDIS <andres.moracortes@uclouvain.be>
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 29, 2012 | News
“Pathways to a Basic Income,” Munich, Germany, September 14-16, 2012
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), the parent organization of USBIG, will hold its 14th biennial Congress in Munich Germany on September 14-16, 2012. It will have an additional “host-nation” day on September 13. According to the conference website, “Every other year researchers, scholars, policy makers and politicians from different parts of the world get together to discuss alternatives that could lead to the promotion and implementation of an elementary principle of social justice: the guarantee of a monetary income. Ideas, experiences and new designs for public policies will be addressed by specialists and several guests for three days.” The 14th BIEN Congress will take place at the Wolf-Ferrari-Haus in the Munich suburb of Ottobrunn.
Plenary speakers include the following people: Mylondo Baptiste is a French philosopher and political scientist. He is the founder of the nonprofit association “Conso-age.” Bruna Augusto Pereira is cofounder of the non-governmental organization ReCivitas, which runs a unique project paying a basic income to every resident of the Brazilian village Quatinga Velho. Claus Offe is a Professor of Political Sociology at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, Germany. Gotz W. Werner is a German entrepreneur and founder of the drugstore chain, “dm.” He is a prominent basic income advocate in Europe. Guy Standing is an economist and professor at the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath in Great Britain. Min Geum studied law in Seoul and Gottingen. He was candidate of the Socialist Party for president in South Korea in 2007. He founded the Basic Income Korean Network, the BIEN affiliate in South Korea. Philippe Van Parijs is professor at the faculty of economic, social and political sciences of the University of Louvain. Renana Jhabvala is one of the best-known representatives of women’s interests working in the informal sector in India. She has held several positions at the Self-Employed Women’s Association of India, which represents the interests of self-employed women at risk of poverty. Rolf Kunnemann is the Human Rights Director at the Secretariat of FIAN International (FoodFirst Information and Action Network) in Heidelberg. He has been working on human rights to adequate food, especially in rural areas of the Global South, since 1983. Tereza Campello is Minister for Social Development and Hunger Alleviation in Brazil.
The language of the main conference will be English, but some plenary sessions will have simultaneous translation into German. The language of the host-nation day will be German. Organizers recommend that people register for the conference early because of the limited number of available places available.
More information is available on the conference website:
https://www.bien2012.de/en
Even more information is available from the conference organizers at:
office@bien2012.de
