by BIEN | Oct 2, 2016 | News, Testimonies
How’d you get an interest in Basic Income (BI)?
My interest in BI started back around 2013 after reading a Reason article. It described how a BI would provide a much more efficient social safety net. It intrigued me at the time and over the next couple of years I periodically would seek out the latest research on BI. I was hooked by a documentary on the basic income featuring Guy Standing.
Standing’s discussion of the “precariat” and the need to counter the challenges of automization convinced me of the BI’s approach. The day after watching the documentary, I reached out to Standing to see how I could get involved with BIEN. He put me in touch with Karl Widerquist and André Coelho. André was my trainer and his patience and encouragement is what kept me on with the team initially.
What makes the BI plan of action unique?
That is a difficult question because there are many ways to implement the BI. I think what unites the BI movement, though, is that we want to fundamentally alter people’s relationship with the market and the government. We do not have to have a job in the traditional sense to contribute to ourselves and society. The basic income liberates us to take on the projects or activities that we are truly passionate about, instead of being forced into a certain line of employment.
There are a host of reasons I think this is good for sustainable economic development. But more importantly, this would be a positive development for human happiness. A basic income would also reorient our relationship with the government. Instead of ceding individual choice to government bureaucrats, a basic income provides freedom of choice to everyone. Centralization of power and resources swallows our humanity, and basic income is an enormous step in bringing that power back to the people.
What are the most common success stories of BI or similar programs?
What has been overlooked in the mainstream press (and what I first tell people skeptical of BI) is the recent release of a meta-analysis of 15 years of cash transfer research across 165 studies. It looks at the best research available and determines there is a consistent reduction in poverty from these cash transfers. It also determined there is no real evidence of lowered work hours while showing some evidence that cash transfers may increase work hours and intensity. For BI advocates, I think it is important to get familiar with this meta-analysis.
In the United States, the most famous example of an actual BI-like program is the Alaskan Permanent Fund. This program is funded by Alaska’s oil reserves and is provided to nearly every Alaskan resident. The experience in Alaska, and most BI programs, is that the policy rarely creates negative unintended consequences and has a much greater potential to create a positive ripple effect throughout society.
What is your work on BI?
I am the features editor for BI News. I will personally write opinion, interview and news-based articles. I have the privilege of working with and seeking out some amazing writers and thinkers, helping to edit and post their features articles. When the need arises, I help to train newcomers to BI News, including contributors and editors. I am currently in Taiwan completing a Master’s degree where I am working with the Taiwanese Basic Income organization. For the future, I have some ideas to promote basic income in Taiwan that will be forthcoming.
What are the main lessons for about BI that should be out in the public domain more?
Everyday around the world there are billions of interactions, transactions and events that would be made simpler by the establishment of the basic income. It helps to take these billions of events and simplify it to one individual to better understand the depth of change this policy would have on everyday life. Among those close to me, I can think of a clear instance where a basic income would dramatically improve a family’s circumstances, much more so than traditional welfare.
Think of how a basic income would help the person with a sick mother, the person whose car gets totaled, the person who wants to take more time to raise their child, the person who wants to find a better suited job…All of these situations would be more easily managed with a basic income, especially for those who are of modest means. Perhaps more significant are the new and unpredictable opportunities created by basic income that would otherwise never occur.
Who are the people to watch – the major BI players?
Here are a couple that come to mind:
Matt Zwolinski is my favorite libertarian scholar, primarily because of his work on the basic income. He has done a lot to bring on the libertarian side of the political spectrum to consider the basic income. The next generation will have significantly more libertarians than the current generation, so I think the philosophical marriage on this issue with libertarians will be increasingly important as we pursue the basic income’s implementation.
Kate McFarland is one of my favorite writers at BI News and a great person to work with. I think she will be a big figure in the BI movement in the coming years because of her non-stop dedication to the cause.
Any advice for would-be policy makers or activists about strategies for the implementation of BI?
During this stage, I think it is important that we maintain healthy disagreement in the movement. There are a lot of different motivations behind the BI which manifests in an array of different implementation methods. Despite this, I hope that we can retain this amazing civility that has united people from such diverse philosophical and personal backgrounds thus far.
On the long-term policymaking level, my hope is that in those areas we think must be earmarked (particularly healthcare and education). We will still utilize the basic income framework. For example, universal education savings accounts and health savings accounts (which there is evidence that these two programs are already effective where they are used). The basic income has the potential to really revolutionize the way we think about government services. The government is really efficient at issuing checks to everyone, but it is not great with creating innovative programs. That is why a basic income framework creates an ideal social safety net, as it brings the security of government distribution and the innovation of the market.
by Roland Duchatelet | Sep 30, 2016 | Opinion
During the 20th century, the increase in purchasing power of the workers in Western Europe was negotiated by the labour unions and paid for by the spectacular increase in productivity of agriculture and industry: we made more and better products with less workers. This yielded generous increases of net salaries and on top of that it allowed governments to pay for schools and health care. This resulted in the general belief that the wealth of a nation is the result of labour, because it paid not only for salaries, but also for social security and other government spending. Since then, the world elite believes that labour participation is the basis of our social security system and our wealth.
There are a few problems with this belief, however.
The first problem is that with the collapse of communism in 1989, the size of the economy grew from 1 billion participants (Europe, the US, Japan and a few small countries) to 6 billion. Cheap labour supply became abundant while the world wide bargaining power of labour unions became irrelevant. Many manufacturing companies moved their production to low cost countries. The “low cost” of these countries was mainly due to the insignificant tax on labour there, compared to Western Europe, where the labour tax was between 100 and 200% of the (higher) net salaries. The saving of the high labour tax was a major cost reduction driver for companies which moved their production, much more than the net salaries of the highly qualified, well trained, loyal, productive local workers which lost their jobs. Political Europe was sleeping apparently, not realising that the corresponding financing of the social security was moving away with the factories.
The second problem is that increasingly machines, robots and computers used in production of goods and services decrease the need for human workers.
The third problem is that social security contributions from the rapidly increasing public and subsidised employment are not real, because the wallet which collects them is the same wallet which pays them: the state.
The fourth problem is that life expectancy is growing, affecting the cost for the state paid pensions. Since health care cost is much higher in old age, the cost of state paid health care increases as well.
The fifth problem is that income from savings is trending toward zero. Citizens owning property are mostly excluded from social aid provided by the state, since they are supposed to derive an income from their property. This induces a new type of poverty. Moreover, the decrease in income from capital affects overall consumer spending, also within the working class.
As a consequence, the purchasing power of the working class has stalled in Western Europe and the US since 2000. This is hidden in the national accounts because in those figures the “income” which households derive from labour is the “gross” income including social security contributions and income taxes. The latter have risen.
Some political parties start to plead the reduction of social security benefits, which would be the start of a negative spiral.
The labour tax based system is structurally unstable. When sales decrease due to economic slowdown and workers are laid off, their income decreases so they buy less leading to further sales decreases and job losses in other businesses. The “Labour Church” will tell you that the central bank then should decrease the interest rate to stimulate investment and spending. This is speculative and slow to start effect. In any case, the interest rate is now zero and hence cannot be reduced anymore. The “Labour Church” system is in deep trouble. They seem to hope for a miracle: I see no “Plan”.
There is however one stabilising factor, our social security, which makes people continue to spend money when they have no work. This hints to the fact that “Purchasing Power” could be the solution to our stalled economic system. When the economy weakens, we should inject additional purchasing power into the economy. When the economy gets overheated, we could reduce the purchasing power injection.
Purchasing Power injection, Basic Income, should replace “labour” as the motor and regulator of our economic system. The distributed purchasing power generates spending, entrepreneurship and work for those who want to earn more money. Tax on labour can only be an auxiliary source of funding if we want such a system to be stable.
Basic Income supporters are a minority still. But we have a Plan.
by Kate McFarland | Sep 28, 2016 | News
A Constituent Assembly of Mexico City is currently developing the city’s first constitution. A proposal for the constitution, currently under deliberation, includes an article specifying a right to a basic income to secure a dignified life.
Miguel Ángel Mancera CC-BY-SA 4.0 ProtoplasmaKid (Wikimedia Commons)
On September 15, Mexico City Chief of Government Miguel Angel Mancera delivered a proposal for the city’s constitution, and a constituent assembly was formed to analyze, debate, modify, and ultimately vote on and approve a constitution.
Mancera’s proposal draws much inspiration from the Mexico City Charter for the Right to the City, developed in 2007 by a coalition of organizations associated with Mexico City’s urban popular movement. The “Right to the City” charter includes a demand for the “right to sufficient income to guarantee a dignified life” (3.4.1). Additionally, another article in the charter’s section on ensuring a “productive city” states, “To democratize productive employment opportunities in the city, it is necessary to … promote the establishment of a universal citizen income” (3.4.3).
A more recent precedent was a seminar on basic income and wealth redistribution organized in April 2016 by the Senate of the Republic of Mexico and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) of the United Nations. In its position document released in the following month, ECLAC further encouraged its member states to investigate a basic income guarantee.
Meanwhile, there has been growing political interest in basic income in Mexico. For one example (amongst others), the young left-wing political party Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena) has expressed interest in advancing the policy.
These precedents lay in the background of the September 15 meeting to move forward the development of Mexico City’s constitution.
A major purpose of the constitution is to formally specify rights of all residents of the city. The stated objectives of the document include the following (emphasis added):
To include new rights such as those of families, non-salaried workers, the right to the city, to public space, to democracy, to proper administration, to a progressive basic income, to memory, to care, to the protection of animals and cultural rights, among others …
The specific article where basic income is proposed reads as follows:
Right to a dignified life
Every person is entitled to a standard of living that is adequate for him or herself and their family, as well as to the continuous improvement of their living conditions. The right to a basic income will be guaranteed giving priority to the persons in situations of poverty, and those that can’t fulfill their material needs by their own means, as well as priority assistance groups. The rules for accessing basic income will be established in this article’s common dispositions.
Note that, despite the potentially confusing wording of second sentence, the proposal here is not for a targeted or mean-tested benefit; instead, the constitution is recognizing a need to establish some priorities for accessing the basic income grants.
One model of the basic income under consideration is Mexico City’s pension program for individuals aged 68 and older. The pension is universal (among seniors), unconditional, distributed to individuals, and mandated by law. Among its proponents, the basic income is seen as an extension of the pension from the elderly to all.
Describing the proposed constitution, Pablo Yanes of BIEN Mexico states, “Without a doubt, we are at the outset of an intense debate around basic income, and unprecedented moment in the history of Mexico City.”
Yanes says that while “the specific wording [in the constitution] can be improved and made more precise”, the recognition of a basic income as a right is “an immense step forward”:
In addition to the federal constitution reform initiatives presented before Congress by Congresswomen Araceli Damián and Xóchitl Hernández and the one introduced before the Senate by the Senator Luis Sánchez, the inclusion to the right to basic income in the Mexico City Constitution project constitutes, without a doubt, a turning point for basic income’s recognition in Mexico.
A new starting point has been set. This is Mexico City’s contribution to the growing international movement for basic income.
The Mexico City Constitution ultimately approved by the constituent assembly will go into force in February 2017.
Debates will take place ensuing months, including on the topic of basic income.
Information from Pablo Yanes (personal communication).
Reviewed by Pablo Yanes and Cameron McLeod.
Featured image: Mexico City CC BY 2.0 Blok 70.
Special thanks to Kate’s supporters on Patreon.
by Kate McFarland | Sep 27, 2016 | News
The Canadian Initiative for Basic Income has created an online petition asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and members of the Canadian Parliament to “implement a basic income program for eligible Canadians in a timely manner”. As of Monday, September 26, the petition has gathered nearly 22,000 signatures.
The petition was developed last spring by a group of participants in the Leadership and Community Engagement training of North York Community House (NYCH). To conclude the training, participants were asked to select one important practicum issue and to develop an action plan to generate change within the community. As one member ofCanadian Initiative for Basic Income described in a blog of the NYCH, the idea originated in a class exercise that required attendees to use one of several tools to determine the priority of issues. The group selected a two-by-two matrix that measured importance against urgency:
Out of all, we deemed basic income to be the one with both the highest urgency and most importance. This was due to our belief that our existing income security system in place has become ineffective when it comes to helping people afford life’s basic necessities – food, housing, and other general expenses (“NYCH Participants Lead Basic Income Petition”; September 12, 2016)
Although originally designed just to fulfill a class exercise, the petition gained over 15,000 signatures in the first week alone–with signatories coming from across the nation. In light of the petition’s success, the Canadian Initiative for Basic Income decided to continue the project, developing a more detailed proposal to submit to the government of Canada (which the group eventually hopes to have translated into French).
The full text of the letter (sans footnotes) reads as follows:
Dear Prime Minister Trudeau and Members of Parliament,
As Canadians in poverty, we are calling for strengthening the income security system with the adoption of a Basic Income policy. Our petition for Basic Income has generated over 20,000 signatures from across Canada.
The sharp surge in basic living expenses, added to a large wealth and income gap, precarious work, stagnant wages, and diminishing social services is forcing Canadians to live with ever poorer access to basic necessities and the mental and physical deprivation that accompany this way of life. Currently, over 4.9 million Canadians are living in poverty. A report by Statistics Canada lists Canada as having one of the highest percentages of low-paid workers among industrialized nations.
Existing federal and provincial income security programs have not achieved their intended goals, as evidenced by their failure to provide vulnerable recipients with the ability to afford basic living needs such as adequate housing and food. These needs are basic human rights, as set out in The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ratified by Canada on May 19, 1976. Yes, that was four decades ago and we refer to; Part 3, Article 11.
We believe that a basic income policy in tandem with the existing income security system will be the most effective way of providing Canadians living with poverty the ability to afford basic living expenses. There is a rich history behind Canada’s existing income security system, and though some reform may be necessary for a basic income policy to be adopted, dismantling the existing welfare system would be dangerous and may leave those that already live in poverty in a similar or worse state.
A basic income program will cost Canada just over 1% of its GDP. This level of spending is within Canada’s means. We strongly believe that Canadians can afford this relatively modest expenditure, given the scope of the proposed policy and the significant benefits it will provide. Basic income will pay for itself in numerous ways; by decreasing healthcare costs, reducing social problems, boosting the economy, and providing low income Canadians with secure and productive job opportunities.
Basic income experiments are already being carried out in various European countries – but such experiments are not unique to Europe. The Croll Report, published under the Trudeau government in the 1970s put basic income policy in a favorable light, and the corresponding pilot program implemented in Dauphine, Manitoba yielded successful results. We are calling on your government to reintroduce Basic Income and move forward with its adoption. A basic income policy will not just mean upholding Canada’s human rights values and obligations, it will reduce poverty and create a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable society that will benefit every Canadian.
Sincerely,
Canadian Initiative for Basic Income
Feroza Mohammed is the lead coordinator for planning and organizing the group’s activities to move the petition forward. She comments on the inspiration and values behind this work:
We do believe that the existing income security system in place has become ineffective, by way of providing assistance that is unsustainable. People are struggling to meet their basic daily living expenses for food, housing, accessible services, transit, and good jobs, as recommended by residents through local community consultations, across the City of Toronto. I believe that a Basic Income is necessary to improve the living standards for the most vulnerable population within our society. Currently there are about twenty percent, or approximately five million people in Canada living in poverty. To quote from comments on the petition, “Poverty should not exist in Canada”. This resonates with my belief, and I hope the government will act to implement a strong Basic Income policy that will improve lives for all Canadians. A basic income will provide people with the ability to afford life’s basic necessities.
Reza Hajivandi, the lead policy research and analyst behind the petition, adds:
We believe that the time for the reform of income security is overdue. Current programs are not providing people with the basic resources to survive, let alone live in dignity. In this light, a Basic Income policy could be the right step to take. A BI would not only provide people with resources to live a dignified life, but it can also reduce the discriminatory surveillance mechanisms and other conditions that are prohibiting recipients from achieving their aspirations and goals in life. A BI would also act to create and extend solidarity amongst people. However, with all the positive impact of BI, we need to be very careful about how or what we dismantle from the existing system. This system is the culmination of many years of thinking and history, and without first having a thorough understanding and discussion of its history and design, notions of wiping out certain components or wiping the whole slate clean can be counterproductive and unhelpful to the basic income and larger social justice movement.
Created on the Change.org platform, the Canadian Initiative for Basic Income petition is not an official e-petition of the Canadian government. Thus, the petition is not en route to be presented in the House of Commons, and the government has no formal requirement to take any action in response. However, as Change.org points out in describing its function, “When hundreds or even thousands of people raise their voices about an issue they care about, the message is very hard to ignore.”
Read–and sign–the petition here.
Thanks to Feroza Mohammed and Reza Hajivandi for contributions to this article.
Photograph: Canadian Initiative for Basic Income.
Thanks, as always, to Kate’s supporters on Patreon.
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.
