by Kate McFarland | Jan 17, 2017 | News
Juliana Bidadanure, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, has designed a graduate seminar on the philosophy of basic income, which she is currently teaching for the winter term.
According to the official course description, the seminar will address questions such as the following: “[I]s giving people cash no strings attached desirable and just? Would basic income promote a more gender equal society through the remuneration of care-work, or would it risk further entrenching the position of women as caregivers? Would alternative policies be more successful (such as job guarantees, stakeholder grants, or a negative income tax)? How can we test out basic income? What makes for a reliable and ethical basic income pilot?”
The seminar will analyze and critique basic income from multiple perspectives in political theory, including feminism, liberalism, republicanism, communism, and libertarianism. Initial readings include classic works by Philippe van Parijs and responses from his critics. Subsequent sessions will address contemporary philosophical work on basic income, as well as potential alternatives, such as job guarantees. Additional topics include empirical work on the health (and other) effects of basic income, the role of automation in motivating basic income, and basic income in relation to gender and racial justice, among others.
Explaining why she was inspired to develop the course, Bidadanure says, “It has been my dream for a while to teach a class on the Philosophy of Basic Income. First, because I am committed to the idea that everyone has a right to an income and because I think that UBI deserves serious treatment; second, because I think it is a great lens through which one can teach Political Philosophy. There is great writing for and against basic income from within pretty much each and every school of political thought. And so my idea was to introduce students of a variety of disciplines to a broad range of writers in political philosophy by focusing on UBI. Given the recent interest in Basic Income in the US, including by computer scientists, engineers and economists, I thought that the timing was right to launch the class!”
On February 8, a special panel on basic income experiments will be held in connection with the seminar.
The panel will feature guests Guy Standing (Professorial Research Associate at SOAS, University of London; BIEN co-founder), Elizabeth Rhodes (Research Director of Y Combinator’s basic income experiment), and Joe Huston (Regional Director at GiveDirectly). Standing, Rhodes, and Huston will speak about basic income research in (respectively) India, Oakland, and Kenya. The event will be presented as a roundtable discussion and open to the public. More information on this event is available here.
Reactions from Students
Although housed in the Department of Philosophy, the seminar spans topics of interest to students in many disciplines. The seminar group is constituted by 10 enrolled participants as well as a further 10 auditors, comprising students of philosophy, political science, psychology, economics, computer science, engineering, and business.
Asked about his interest in the seminar, one participant, a PhD student in Economics, remarks, “Basic income is such a hot topic, but I’ve not come across much rigorous academic thinking on the topic, in any discipline. I now discover there is a whole bunch in philosophy, which I was unaware of and which is really exciting!”
Commenting on his reactions after the first session, he adds, “It’s awesome that the class is about a third economists, a third philosophers, and a third computer scientists – it seems like the venue for a truly exciting exchange of views; and the arguments for and against basic income are so much richer and more diverse than this economist expected!”
Another student in the seminar, Sage, is currently working towards a masters in Symbolic Systems while also finishing an undergraduate degree in Computer Science. Her interest in the topic derives from her work in the technology sector:
“My masters thesis is a work of political philosophy analyzing the responsibility of tech companies to help those in poverty. I am interested in Universal Basic Income because it has grown increasingly popular in the US due to the fear that one day all of our jobs will be completed by robots. I am interested in exploring the other reasons for Universal Basic Income and determining if it is a viable choice in the U.S. given our trajectory in the tech sector. I was impressed by how diverse our class was by region, interest, and background. Having the opportunity to discuss topics in basic income with students so different from me is a fantastic opportunity to round out my research.”
Anusha, a graduate student in Computer Science says her love for data structures (especially the top view of binary tree) made her focus on natural language processing and computer vision. She became interested in the seminar due to her background in AI:
“I was really interested in this seminar because Universal Basic Income has been receiving a lot of attention lately, especially in the Computer Science and AI communities, due to the potential impacts of automation on the future of work. There have also been a lot of discussions around the joint responsibilities of Silicon Valley and policymakers to help those whose jobs are most at risk. I’m really excited about this seminar because it addresses Universal Basic Income from several different perspectives, and I’m eager to learn about the various arguments for and against UBI from those standpoints.”
Nishith, an undergraduate senior in Computer Science who works on computer vision and reinforcement learning, became interested in UBI following a discussion of the economic impact of self-driving trucks and President-Elect Donald Trump’s emphasis on bringing manufacturing jobs back to America. He is excited by Bidadanure’s seminar, adding, “I was surprised to learn that discussions about UBI need not revolve around automation (as they do in Europe) and had a great time talking about the potential benefits and pitfalls of this proposed policy [at the first class meeting].”
Dr. Bidadanure, who holds a PhD in Political Philosophy from the University of York, has research interests at the intersection of philosophy and public policy.
She has written on the theory and practice of equality, including, in particular, age-group justice and what it means to treat young people as equals. She has written on the specific arguments to give a basic income to young adults as well as on hybrids of basic income and basic capital.
Bidadanure plans to teach an undergraduate course on basic income at Stanford in the next academic year. She is also working to launch a basic income research initiative at Stanford as part of the Center for Ethics in Society in 2017.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan.
Information and photo provided by Juliana Bidadanure.
by Kate McFarland | Jan 15, 2017 | Research
The quarterly Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare (based at Western Michigan University) published a symposium on the basic income guarantee (BIG) in its September 2016 issue.
The symposium includes five articles on the topic, plus an introduction written by two members of BIEN: Richard K. Caputo (Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University) and Michael Lewis (School of Social Work at Hunter College, CUNY). The first three articles present arguments for the adoption of a BIG in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, respectively. The fourth argues that a BIG is more politically feasible in the United States than alternative approaches to economic security, such as a Swedish-type welfare state. The fifth proposes a feminist argument for a BIG, although cautioning that more empirical work is needed.
Titles and abstracts, with brief descriptions of the authors, are given below. Links to manuscripts are provided where available.
Jennifer Mays and Greg Marston – “Reimagining Equity and Egalitarianism: The Basic Income Debate in Australia”
“Reimagining equity and egalitarianism calls for rethinking traditional welfare responses to poverty and economic security in Australia. Similar to other advanced Western democracies, Australia has pursued policies underpinned by neoliberal economics in an effort to curtail perceived excesses in public expenditure over the past three decades. In response to these policy settings, commentators and policy activists have increased their attention to the potential of a universal and unconditional basic income scheme to address economic insecurity. This paper positions basic income within the context of Australia’s welfare state arrangements and explores the potential of the scheme to respond to economic insecurity, particularly precarious employment and poverty traps created by a highly targeted social security system.”
May is a Course Coordinator in the School of Public Health and Social Work at the Queensland University of Technology, and Marston is Head of School at the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland.
Mays and Marston are both active members of Basic Income Guarantee Australia (BIGA), BIEN’s Australian affiliate, and were co-editors (with John Tomlinson) of Basic Income in Australia and New Zealand: Perspectives from the Neo-Liberal Frontier (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
James P. Mulvale and Sid Frankel – “Next Steps on the Road to Basic Income in Canada”
“Canada has had recurring debates about guaranteed or basic income over several decades. This article outlines reasons for implementing basic income in the Canadian context–reducing poverty and inequality, addressing precarious employment, and building an ecologically sustainable economy. Recently there has been a strong renewal of interest in basic income in Canada. Expressions of interest have come from the Liberal federal government elected in 2015, from provincial governments, from political parties not in power, and from municipal governments. Support for basic income also is found in a growing range of prominent individuals and organizations. While basic income advocates are encouraged by recent developments, several large and complex questions remain on how this approach can be implemented in Canada. These questions encompass the specifics of design, delivery, funding, and political support. How can basic income build on existing income security programs and leave Canadians better off in the end? How can we ensure that basic income is not used as an excuse to cut vital services such health care, social housing, early childhood care and development, and social services for those with disabilities and other challenges? How can basic income be set in place in Canada,given its complicated federal-provincial nexus of responsibility for, delivery of, and funding for social programs? The article concludes with principles that might help guide the implementation of authentically universal, adequate, and feasible basic income architecture in Canada.”
Mulvale is Dean and Frankel an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba — the site of the 2016 North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress, which they helped to organize.
Keith Rankin – “Prospects for a Universal Basic Income in New Zealand”
“New Zealand is a small liberal capitalist country with a history of egalitarian values and political reform–including the early introduction of universal welfare benefits–and with an uncomplicated relatively flat income tax structure. As such, it has sometimes been seen as a “social laboratory,” a theme of writing about New Zealand and of New Zealand social historians. It therefore has all of the elements in place that could make New Zealand a candidate to become a world leader in integrating income tax and social welfare regimes into a form of universal basic income. Nevertheless, through a combination of intellectual inertia, media cynicism, and the requisite elements not all coming together at the same time, the outlook for an open and healthy discussion around public property rights and unconditional benefits remains constrained. Despite this unpromising intellectual environment, New Zealand may yet stumble upon such reform as a political compromise, as it might have done in 1988.”
Rankin is a Lecturer of Business Practice at the Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand.
Almaz Zelleke – “Lessons from Sweden: Solidarity, the Welfare State, and Basic Income”
“Progressive critics of a universal basic income argue that most nations face a budgetary choice between a full basic income and investment in public goods, including universal health care, free and well-funded education, and universal pensions, and have prioritized a robust welfare state, or the “Swedish Model,” over basic income. But examination of Swedish economic policy reveals that the welfare state is only one of the ingredients of the Swedish Model, and that another is an interventionist labor market policy unlikely to be expandable to larger states without Sweden’s cultural and demographic characteristics. Indeed, evidence suggests that Sweden’s own recent diversification–not only of race and ethnicity but of occupational strata–will make the Swedish Model less stable in its own home. What lessons can be applied to the case for a basic income in the U.S. and other large and diverse nations or regions?”
Zelleke is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at New York University’s campus in Shanghai. She has written multiple journal articles and book chapters on basic income, and has been an active member of BIEN.
Sara Cantillon and Caitlin McLean – “Basic Income Guarantee: The Gender Impact within Households”
“The potential of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) to contribute to gender equality is a contested issue amongst feminist scholars. This article focuses on the nature of BIG as an individually-based payment to explore its potential for reducing gender equality, specifically intra-household inequalities in material or financial welfare; economic autonomy; psychological well-being; and time allocation, especially leisure time and time spent in household and care work. We employ a gender analysis of existing BIG pilots/schemes as well as close substitutes (e.g., universal child benefits) to assess some of the key claims about the effects of a basic income (BI) on gendered inequality. We also present findings from empirical work on intra-household allocation and decision-making which underscore the role of independent income. The article finds some support for BIG as a feminist proposal with respect to mitigating intra-household inequality, but concludes that further empirical research is needed to argue persuasively for BIG as an instrument for furthering gender equality.”
Cantillon is Professor of Gender and Economics at Glasgow Caledonian University. McLean is a lead researcher at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California at Berkeley.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Cover photo by Christopher Andrews, CC BY-NC 2.0
by BIEN | Dec 30, 2016 | Bios & background Info, Opinion, Testimonies
José A. Noguera (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, International Advisory Board of BIEN)
I still remember quite clearly the first time I read something about the idea of a Basic Income (BI): it was back in 1991, when I was finishing my degree in Sociology in Barcelona, and spent most of my time reading abstruse texts of social theory. It was one of my favourite authors at that time, Jürgen Habermas, who gave me the clue in a chapter of his Political Essays, in which, somewhat cryptically (as is usual in him), he spoke of something like “decoupling income from work through a guaranteed income”. Obviously he was referring to the idea of an unconditional income guarantee that authors such as André Gorz or Claus Offe had been popularizing in certain circles since the early 1980s (at that time I did not even know who Philippe Van Parijs was).
My reaction, I remember well, was of the type: “Of course! How is it that the Left did not think of that earlier?” (Obviously, the Left – and the Right – had thought about it, but I did not know.) And then I went on to “I definitely have to read more about this!”
Indeed, in the following years I did so: I then read the famous article by Van Parijs and Van der Veen and some of the debates it generated. I began to talk to colleagues and friends about the subject, and I even spoke about BI at some meetings of the Eco-Socialist political party I had joined, Iniciativa per Catalunya-Verds (ICV), with ambivalent results: while some (the more veteran) described it as a “Martian proposal”, others (the younger) showed a lot of interest and asked me for readings and further clarifications. A decade later, ICV was the only party in Spain incorporating BI in its program as a long-term goal, so I am pleased to think that my efforts were not in vain!
To be honest, at that time I approached the subject rather as an amateur and a political activist convinced that the Left had to make big cultural and ideological changes to conquer the future. But when I finished my doctoral thesis in 1998, with more time and an academic career ahead, I decided to dedicate part of it to studying BI more seriously. I published an article (that today I see infamous) on BI in Spain and I got a post-doc grant to study the topic at the London School of Economics and Political Science. London’s weather favoured reading, so between one pint of beer and another, I really started to grasp all the implications (and complications!) of implementing a BI in an advanced welfare system.
That year 2000 I attended my first BIEN Congress in Berlin, where I first met some of the BIEN founders, and, to my surprise, I discovered more Spaniards and Catalans interested in the idea. When I returned to Barcelona, and together with some of them, we created the Spanish Basic Income Network, which soon became an active national member of BIEN. Before we could notice, we were organising the 2004 Barcelona BIEN Congress in which the network became a worldwide organisation.
Since then, I have been discussing BI mainly from an academic (maybe even ‘technocratic’) point of view, more than from political advocacy, since I felt that was how I could honestly contribute better. That option, on the other hand, has also made me see all the complications and nuances of the debate about the BI, as well as the complexity of its practical implementation. Through the years I have published articles, participated in conferences and workshops, given talks, and together with Karl, Yannick and Jürgen, compiled the first comprehensive anthology on BI for Wiley-Blackwell (which was born and designed during memorable beer sessions at Turf Tavern in Oxford).
The Great Crisis of 2008 pushed me back from academic to political concerns. Widespread corruption, poverty, inequality and unemployment reached socially unbearable levels in my country. A new political movement, Podemos, emerged from the roots of the 15M demonstrations in order to fight the rampant cynicism of the political and economic elites and their policies. I immediately felt I should help that cause as I better could. They were sympathetic to BI from the start, so I start to work with them and by 2015 we finally designed a feasible proposal to progress in the right direction: a nationwide Guaranteed Income with no work condition attached, plus a wage supplement for low-income workers. The proposal created a sort of bandwagon effect by which many other political parties started to include income guarantee proposals in their programs.
BIEN has been during almost 20 years a source of intellectual excitement and political stimulation for me. I am confident that it will continue to be so. I believe that the future prospects of BI will depend on its supporters being able to combine the necessary doses of pragmatism and impartial analysis (thus resisting sectarian or self-serving attitudes), with the conviction that this is a good and just idea and it is worth defending it.
José A. Noguera is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He serves on the Board of the Spanish Basic Income Network (RRB) and on the International Advisory Board of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN).
At the end of 2016, the year in which BIEN celebrated the 30th anniversary of its birth, all Life Members were invited to reflect on their own personal journeys with the organization. See other contributions to the feature edition here.
by Dave Clegg | Dec 25, 2016 | News
UC sociology professor Fred Block, and CUNY political science professor Francis Fox Piven, author of Challenging Authority, are scathing in their indictment of “…archaic economic ideas…” in the online opinion journal article on The Nation. Yet they also insist that a Basic Income – an idea as old as the Capitalistic system that dominates the world today – is an idea whose time has truly come.
B&FP applaud the broad appeal to both left and right political spectrums, support from influential economists, advocates for social reform and, most importantly, the technological community who understands the dramatic changes coming to the workplace as robotics and automation continue to free human beings from the office cubicle and the assembly line.
B&FP decry the right’s vociferous claims that ‘free money’ will demoralize the poor and offer, instead, that a BI does just the opposite by empowering people with a modicum of financial security in their lives during fiscally challenging times.
B&FP rail against the imposition during the last few centuries of the premise that one’s life must be dependent upon the exchange of one’s labour for wages or become destitute. B&FP see the holding of this premise as religious-like in the unflinching devotion of so many of its modern day adherents.
B&FP offer no illusions about how difficult implementing a BI will be. But they are confident that a BI would result in a significant transformation of our existing class relations. What that transformation will look like is dependent upon each and every one of us.
by Guest Contributor | Dec 23, 2016 | News
Professor Krustyo Petkov, a prominent Basic Income advocate in Bulgaria and the former Chairman of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions, passed away on the night of Friday, 23 December, after a painful illness.
In the past years the professor struggled with cancer but continued to work.
Krustyo Petkov Petkov is a Bulgarian scholar and politician, chairman of the United Labour block, founded in 1997. He was Chairman of Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria from 1990-1997.
He was also an MP from the parliamentary group of Coalition for Bulgaria in the 39th National Parliament.
Professor Petkov was born on 18 November 1943 in the village of Knyaz Aleksandrovo (now Dimovo). He graduated from the School of Irrigation in Pavlikeni and in 1968 graduated with a degree in “Political Economy” at the University of Economics “Karl Marx” – Sofia (now the University of National and World Economy).
In 1986, he defended his doctoral dissertation on the issue of labor relations and was appointed professor of sociology at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.
Professor Petkov specialized in sociology, sociology of labor economics and social policy at the Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk, the International Institute for Labour in Geneva, at the University of Economics and Political Science in England.
He has participated in university programs and seminars in the US, the University of Michigan, Berkeley, Duke and others.
Professor Petkov is renowned for advocating the idea of Basic Income in Bulgaria and beyond. Thanks to his active support, Bulgaria gathered 300% signatures above the quota for the European Citizen’s Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income from 2013 through 2014.
He helped a lot with his huge public and policy experience in creation of a modern political party, which included in its program the introduction of an Unconditional Basic Income in Bulgaria: the Bulgarian Union of Direct Democracy, BUDD.
He was a speaker at the meetings of Unconditional Basic Income Europe 2014 and 2015.
May he rest in peace!
Photos from “Почина проф. Кръстьо Петков – след тежко и мъчително боледуване” (epicenter.bg).
