by Guest Contributor | Apr 21, 2022 | Opinion
The idea of Basic Income is catching on around the world as it is getting more and more support, especially after cash payments many countries paid during the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
A Basic Income is a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without a means-test or work requirement. This is the first phrase you can see when you open BIEN’s website. So where should states get money for it? For example, from natural resources, as Alaska Permanent Fund does, and from taxes including a tax on robots, carbon tax, as well as a tax on cryptocurrencies, etc. The view that the state should supplement the income of the poor has a long history. For example, one way to increase the incomes of the poor proposed by Milton Friedman is a negative income tax. The idea is quite simple: richer people pay taxes and poorer ones get some percentage of this.
Ukrainians receive financial aid in the amount of 6500 hryvnias (just over US$200) under the program “ePidtrymka” for loss of part of wages (income), work (economic activity), which are temporarily stopped because of military actions during the current military struggle in Ukraine. It’s just a one-time payment with several strict conditions, including a territorial one. The deadline for submitting applications was March 31, 2022. So, what should other people do after April 1? Why shouldn’t children, women, single parents, young people, the disabled, and the unemployed be taken care of? Every Ukrainian needs to be paid because of the economic collapse and losses of income.
But is $200 enough to help someone who lost a family, home, or job? Is $200 enough to help anyone start life over in Europe or in an almost destroyed country? If this person is gravely ill? What about mental health, which was destroyed, of children, women, and youth? Every Ukrainian needs to be paid at least 500 Euros every month at best for the war’s duration until normal life is fully restored. I believe these brave people deserve more! Ukrainian people should be rewarded with UBI forever. This will be the greatest social experiment in history as well as a clear example for other countries and peoples.
Not only thousands of Ukrainians but also thousands of Russians are dying because of the actions of the Russian authorities. Let’s remember the dramatic events in Bucha, Ukraine, and in other cities. The Ukrainian government suspects soldiers from Khabarovsk, Buryatia, the Far East, and others of committing crimes. These are depressed regions with low incomes and high unemployment, despite their vast territories and natural resources. Residents have little choice: either to serve in the army and security services or to migrate to richer regions of the country. So, these hungry soldiers saw that people in Bucha were living their normal comfortable life. Maybe that’s why they were so cruel? Of course, it’s hard for me to reflect on why they acted like animals. But I strongly believe that they wouldn’t invade another country if they were receiving a basic income.
The situation is similar in other Russian regions like Tuva, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, Altai, Jewish Autonomous Region. That doesn’t mean that in other regions the situation is better. Maybe just a little. Official statistics (according to the “new methodology”) indicate that there were more than 16 million people below the poverty line at the end of 2021 in Russia. According to the old methodology, there were more than 20 million people in need. Official Russian statistics are underestimated by two to three times, according to the experts. Anyway, what will happen to Russians after the war and devastating economic sanctions? Of course, I’m not making a comparison between “lost a job” and “lost a life”. However, in my opinion, very few people would participate in an unjust war if they had a basic income and a stable and prosperous life. Therefore, Russians also need a basic income. People would be critical of the propaganda if they have more opportunities.
Ukraine is a brave country that is fighting against Russia’s military intervention and is protecting the entire world from danger. Of course, the other countries support Ukraine. Ukrainians need to be paid basic income. I may repeat it forever. Basic Income has the potential to eliminate the need for war, and that’s why it is important to raise awareness of what Basic Income can do. Ukrainians need to live their calm normal life instead of hiding in their basements as they do right now. Millions of people were forced to flee Ukraine, many had to bury their children or parents in the yards. Nobody knows their feelings. I hope that nobody will ever do that again.
The war has affected the entire global community. Does the world forget the Chernobyl accident in 1986? Doesn’t the world read or hear about Russian soldiers in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant? Quoting a CNN report, “Although Chernobyl is not an active power plant, the sarcophagus above the reactor that exploded nearly 36 years ago needs to be maintained to avoid further radiation leaks. There is also a considerable amount of spent nuclear fuel that needs to be looked after”.
These miserable soldiers were ordered to dig trenches in that area, which is particularly radioactive. This zone right now is under the control of Ukrainian soldiers, but Russian soldiers may come back. This may be a bigger ecological problem than CO2 emissions for the whole world. What about the threat of Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons? Why do people worry about CO2 while so many people keep dying right now: young, old, children, men, and women? What could happen to the world after nuclear weapons are used?
Ukraine is a strong country. We are proud as well as terribly sorry about all the events that happen there. Crying and praying for it to end soon, to stop people’s unfair death. This is the whole world’s inexcusable mistake. We could have avoided so many deaths if a Basic Income had been introduced to the world. UBI will reduce humanity’s aggression and destroy the economic, political, and psychological causes of war.
Instability in the world is increasing. Food, gasoline, gas, and service prices are increasing all over the world, including in Africa and Asia. I know that heating prices are high right now in Europe. Soon it will be summer, but later fall and winter will come. The whole planet suffers from Russian military action in the center of Europe and is terrified at the thought of a world nuclear war. We should think about basic income today. No, that’s not right. We should have thought about it yesterday before these disasters. The 99% shouldn’t suffer from the decisions of the 1%. People need to be more independent from the government.
Article by: Irina Soloveva, Jr.
by Peter Knight | Feb 23, 2022 | Events, News
Unconditional basic income continues to be a subject of lively debate – both in academia and in the public and political spheres. From a philosophical and social science perspective, the questions it raises are: Would such an income increase our individual freedom? What impact would it have on fundamental forms of social esteem? And could it be consistent with notions of justice based on reciprocity? These systematic questions will be discussed at the conference, taking into account relevant historical and theoretical developments.
Conference website: https://www.tu-braunschweig.de/en/philosophie/basic-income
Conference Languages: English and German
Venue: The conference will be held online. Links will be sent after registration.
Registration: Participation in the conference is free. Please register by March 2, 2022 at
grundeinkommen2022@tu-braunschweig.de
Program:
March 3, 2022 (all times are CET – UTC+1)
11–11.30 Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch, Gottfried Schweiger: Welcome
11.30 –12.40 Matilde Cazzola (Frankfurt am Main): Beyond Poverty and the Coercion of Work: Thomas Spence and the Redistribution of Quarterly Dividends
2–3.10 Silke Bothfeld (Bremen): Eignet sich ein bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen für die nachhaltige Förderung individueller Autonomie? Ein Kommentar aus der Perspektive der Sozialpolitikforschung
3.30–4.40 Jürgen Schupp (Berlin): Das 2021 gestartete Pilotprojekt Grundeinkommen in Deutschland: Zum Stellenwert sozialwissenschaftlicher Feldexperimente
5–6 Philippe Van Parijs (Louvain): Prospects and Challenges for an Unconditional Basic Income: A Conversation with Philippe Van Parijs
March 4, 2022
9.30–10.40 Malcom Torry (London): Basic Income: A Brief History of the Idea
10.50–12 Peter Sloman (Cambridge): Redistribution or Revolution? Basic Income and Radical Politics in Britain, c. 1918-1950
1–2.10 Olavi Kangas (Turku): Possibilities to Plan and Implement Large Scale Social Experiments – Some Lessons from the Finnish Basic Income Experiment
2.10–3 Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch, Gottfried Schweiger: Final Discussion and Farewell
by Peter Knight | Jan 28, 2022 | Events, News
Enno Schmidt, Götz Werner Chair (GWP) of Economic Policy and Constitutional Economic Theory at Germany’s University of Frieburg, interviewed Karl Widerquist, Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University-Qatar, in October 2021. You can view the interview on YouTube here.
The interview covers a wide range of basic income topics, including the pros and cons of basic income experiments, options for funding basic income, and the ups and downs of public interest in basic income since the 1970s.
by Guy Standing | Jan 18, 2022 | Featured, Opinion
There are rare moments when a combination of threatening circumstances leads to a wonderful transformation that only a short time before would have been unimaginable. This year may be such a moment. The Republic of Korea could set an example to the world that would bring happiness to millions of Koreans, and to many more around the world.
The risks if politicians are too cautious are enormous. Before COVID-19, the global economy was already heading towards a crisis. For over three decades, more and more of the income and wealth were going to the owners of property, financial, physical, and “intellectual”. The commons, belonging to everybody, were being converted into the source of profits and rents. A new class, the precariat, was growing everywhere, suffering from multiple forms of insecurity, drifting deeper into debt. It was incredibly high debt – private, corporate, and public – that made the global economy uniquely fragile.
Meanwhile, the public across the world were realizing the threat posed by global warming and destruction of the environment. Nothing was being done. If that continues, life for our children and grandchildren will be impaired. And it is clear that mistreatment of nature has helped make this an era of pandemics. The COVID-19 outbreak is the sixth pandemic this century.
In these circumstances, policies that merely try to go back to the old normal will not work. We need a bold transformative vision, one of courage, one designed to give people basic economic and social security, one designed to make the economy work for society and every citizen, not just for the bankers and plutocracy, and one designed to revive the commons and our natural environment.
Jae-Myung Lee is campaigning for the Presidency in the March 2022 presidential election with an exciting and feasible strategy, based on a promise of a basic income for every Korean man and woman, paid equally, as a right, without conditions. It is affordable. What is important at this stage is not to set some ideal amount, but to be on the road towards living in a society in which everybody has enough on which to survive, even if they experience personal setbacks.
What makes the proposal for a basic income so profound is that Jae-Myung Lee has come from a humble background, knowing poverty and insecurity from his childhood. He understands two fundamentals. First, the income of every Korean is due to the efforts of all those Koreans who lived beforehand, and it is based on the commons, nature and resources that make up the country, which belong to all Koreans. Those who have gained from taking the commons, most of all, the land, owe it to all Koreans to share some of the gains. A modest Land Value Tax, or levy, is justifiable and fair, and should help fund the basic income.
He also understands that pollution and global warming must be combated by a carbon tax or eco-taxes. The rich cause more pollution than the poor, the poor experience the bad effects more than the rich, including bad health from exposure to poisonous air. So, the solution must include carbon taxes to discourage global warming and polluting activities. But by themselves such taxes would hit the poor harder, because the tax would amount to more of their income.
The only sensible solution is to guarantee that the revenue from eco-taxes will be recycled through a Commons Capital Fund to help pay for the basic income, as Carbon Dividends. The poor will gain, while society will be on the road to fighting global warming and ecological decay. A basic income will also encourage more care work and ecological work, rather than resource-depleting labor. It will stimulate the desirable form of economic growth.
The second fundamental Jae-Myung Lee and his advisers have understood is that basic security is essential for rational decision-making and mental health. There cannot be individual or societal resilience against pandemics or economic crises unless there is basic security, so that people can behave rationally rather than in desperation. Experiments have shown that a basic income improves mental health and the ability to make better decisions, for oneself, one’s family, and one’s community.
In the Korean edition of my book Plunder of the Commons, I paid respect to the ancient Korean ethos of hongik ingan, which helped found Korea in 2,333 BC. It expresses a historically-grounded wisdom that Koreans should be re-teaching the world in an era of self-centered individualism and consumption-driven “success”. It conveys the sense of not just sharing in benefits of production but sharing in the preservation and reproduction of a sense of community, our sense of participation and our relationships in and with nature. A basic income would pay respect to that ethos. Jae-Myung Lee should be commended for having pioneered it in Gyeonggi Province, and would set the country on a new progressive road if elected President on March 9.
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A Korean translation of this article was published by Pressian – a political news website headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.
by Peter Knight | Jan 6, 2022 | News
The UBIEXP research group, from the Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society, together with the Portuguese Basic Income association, invite submissions for the international essay prize competition on the following topic:
“Unconditional Basic Income in Portugal: How Can We Afford It?“
The moral objections to UBI and how it could re-shape a society grounded on work are some of the most puzzling but also most important discussions on the topic. However, they are often side-lined with an important instrumental discussion: can we afford an Unconditional Basic Income? Some microsimulations have been conducted, discussing possible cost structures in the UK (Widerquist & Arndt, 2020), and only one study has been conducted for the Portuguese case (Teixeira, 2019). This essay competition aims to fill this gap, and contribute with additional possibilities to answer the question of whether an Unconditional Basic Income is feasible in Portugal or not.
The organizers welcome submissions that focus on discussing possible scenarios for implementing an Unconditional Basic Income, and how much can those scenarios cost (net and gross). They will value submissions who also look into the possible funding strategies, and incorporate them in the analysis.
Deadline for receiving the essays: April 25 2022.
Contributions may be sent as email attachments in word format to: nrbmerrill@gmail.com
The winner of the best essay will receive €750 and the essay will be published in the journal Ethics, Politics & Society.
- The journal EPS welcomes essays of 8,000 words or fewer addressing this topic.
- The essays must be written in English.
- All submissions should be headed “Unconditional Basic Income Prize Essay Competition 2022” (with the author’s name and address given in the e-mail, but NOT in the essay itself).
- Submissions are blind reviewed.
