by Rebecca Rosewarne | Apr 3, 2019 | News
Which analytical models exist to defend UBI, and how convincing are they? What would the introduction of an UBI mean for different parts of society? What would be the associated opportunities and risks?
To answer these, and many more questions, the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel has programmed a series of interdisciplinary lectures, in order to share both further directions of research and also to make some academic contributions. These academic events will happen between April 23rd and July 2nd 2019, at designated rooms and auditoriums at the University, as indicated below.
This lecture series come from various academic disciplines and touch on a broad spectrum of questions and aspects. They will also be accessible to interested members of the public. At the end of each 45-60 minutes paper presentation, there will be space for discussion between the authors and the audience. The papers will be recorded and made accessible after the event.
General and increasingly extensive discussions of the reforming idea of an unconditional basic income (UBI) seem to have come to stay, especially among the younger generations. One basic income experiment after another is springing up around the world. For the first time in Germany, the current state of Schleswig-Holstein has taken up the theme, and has introduced a ‘social security for work yet to be undertaken’ in the state parliament, alongside its coalition agreement. So, the idea of an UBI in particular, together with the Liberal Party’s [FDP = Freie Demoktratische Partei] concept of a citizen’s wage and further initiatives, are being discussed in Germany, and trials are being conceived.
Such a UBI would definitely represent a deep intrusion into the pre-existing architecture of the welfare state, the job market, the economy, the family life of both female and male citizens, and the whole community in Germany and abroad. The moral model of a ‘working society’, which developed alongside industrialisation and the rise of capitalism and whose scope has extended ever further in the last few decades, would be abandoned or at least significantly marginalised. That’s because UBI would change the normative way of life for every adult until retirement age, which still is paid employment. The broad distribution of material prosperity, mostly organised in accordance with the criterion of performance at work, would also change considerably.
Summary of lectures:
23rd April 2019 (Tuesday): Dr. Alexander Lorch – Philosophical reflections on an unconditional basic income.
26th April 2019 (Friday): Prof. Dr. Roswitha Ploch – Unconditional basic income – opportunities and hurdles in the political implementation of a good idea
30th April 2019 (Tuesday): Dr. Thieß Peterson – Macroeconomic effects of an unconditional basic income
10th May 2019 (Friday): Prof. Dr. Hilmar Schneider – Do we need an unconditional basic income or better Maths lessons?
17th May 2019 (Friday): Prof. Dr. Ute Fischer – Liberation or backwards roll? Opportunities and limits of a UBI from the perspective of gender.
24th May 2019 (Friday): Prof. Dr. Gesine Stephan – Field experiments in labour market research: potential, challenges and practical examples
31st May 2019 (Friday): Prof. Dr. Ueli Mäder – Social security democratised (rather than economised)
7th June 2019 (Friday): Prof. Dr. Michael Opielka – Basic income in the labour of the future. On the relationship between payment in cash, kind and service in the welfare state of the future.
11th June 2019 (Tuesday): Prof. Dr. Thomas Straubhaar – Unconditional basic income. From Utopia to reality.
21st June 2019 (Friday): Prof. Dr. Nicole Mayer-Ahuja – Unconditional basic income – an emancipatory response to changes in the world of work?
2nd July 2019 (Tuesday): Dr. Manuel Franzmann – Democritisation of leisure? Unconditional basic income from the point of view of educational theory.
Article reviewed by André Coelho
by Andre Coelho | Apr 1, 2019 | News
Richard Feynman (“If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it“)
If Martians did exist, they would know nothing about human endeavours (assuming they had not come to Earth in UFO’s before). They would look at humans from a place of absolute ignorance of what it means to be human, and – let’s assume – with a child-like curiosity for our habits and particularities as a species.
Taking inspiration from Richard Feynman’s “think like a Martian”, and Allan Watt’s inspirational thinking, Scott Santens wrote a speech for a keynote presentation at the Belfast Festival of Ideas & Politics in Northern Ireland, on March 26th 2019. Then he recorded it into a podcast.
This recording starts with a provocative sentence, “Humans are born here, but without those pieces of paper [money], they seem to not be allowed to live here”. Further on, Santens reaches a conclusion on what money is (according to him): “Money is nothing but book keeping”. He continues to reason on that vein, and infers the corollary that money is trust. That we, as humans, trust in money to give us the opportunity to get what we need, in exchange for giving our contribution to what other people need.
Santens shows that “one of the most alien things of all” is the fact that a lot of the Earth’s vital resources are withheld from many people. But it wasn’t always like that. Once upon a time, the Earth was a free planet, where humans, other animals and plants simply shared the bounty of life and life-supporting conditions of this abundant planet. People gave and received objects and tasks from each other, and felt the social obligation to give back to the community for it. Now, however, and for a long time up to this moment, some people feel entitled to possessions over the Earth’s resources, forcing everybody else to sell their time for the right to live here, in relative comfort.
However, and because humans are animals who adapt and adjust, even to the harshest of environments, most people have gone accustomed to this reality. Poverty has come to be considered normal. Stressful lives have also grown as normal. Competition over resources perceived as scarce has developed into something normal. It seems that this state of things derives from one, and one only, scarce resource, among fellow humans: trust.
According to Santens, this is where the “thinking like a Martian” intersects with the universal basic income (UBI) concept. Because, at a fundamental level, the UBI idea only says: “I trust you”. It says that we, as a community, trust each other to share our life-energy and talents, given the unconditional access to the Earth’s basic resources, necessary for human living. It’s that simple. And it is about so much more than money (a quantified unit of exchange). Scott Santens believes that only free, conscious human beings will actually trust each other to make this happen and, in the process, free millions of other human beings.
Then the question: “how do get from here to there?” (“how do we start trusting each other?”) Santens argues that that is where basic income pilots come to be useful, as experiments in human trust. Data already shows how harmful poverty is, how destabilizing inequality is, and how unproductive our work can be when we’re not choosing to do it (but being forced into it, in order to get an income). “What we lack is will”, he determines. So, experiments can and should be done, as often as it takes, until humans get around to trusting each other on ever increasing scales. Because, at a fundamental level, that is what is at stake. He says: “[basic income is] a civilizing idea”. And it comes along at this moment in human history also as a way to recognize that everything a person gets when he or she is born, is not earned. It is not deserved. It is given to us. From nature and from thousands of human generations before us.
As a make-up Martian, Scott Santens concludes by blowing the question up to the stars: “Are you ever going to trust a species that has never learned to trust itself”?
by Andre Coelho | Mar 27, 2019 | Opinion
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also known as AOC, is a fighter. Ever since she was elected to the United States (US) House of Representatives, she has been doing much “ass kicking”. She made clear that energy transition in America was imminently necessary, and made a few headlines with her Green New Deal. A first draft of the Green New Deal also included the outline of some bold social policies, including a few measures to curb the racial inequalities that still plague the United States as well as a universal basic income (UBI).
This was not the first time AOC had mentioned UBI publicly. On one particular occasion at a Netroots event, she mentioned that a UBI was not a new idea in American politics, citing initiatives from Democrats in the past.
This is ground-breaking in contemporary U.S. politics, where things are often dominated by corporate interests. AOC’s fearlessness can feel refreshing to the general public, which also infuriates some special interest groups. Even as a Democrat, AOC is often critical of her Democratic Party colleagues for their “moderation” and submission to corporate donors. She says that American society has deviated far from where we collectively think we should be. Therefore, speaking up for what we believe is right can be considered “radical.”
However, there is a difference between speaking at a general-public event before being elected to the House of Representatives and speaking in that same House after being burdened with a formal political responsibility.
The Green New Deal draft bill presented to the House included the idea that the US government would take care of anyone who may be “unwilling to work.” That did not go well among AOC’s colleagues, Republican or Democrat.
This backlash has been documented, and it showed very clearly that for most politicians and political pundits, “unwilling to work” is simply translated as “lazy,” which was fatal for the program.
From that point of view, helping those “unwilling to work” simply does not make sense. That materialized into open ridicule from Republicans targeted at AOC and her Green New Deal, as well as silence from fellow Democrats. AOC was trying to demonstrate that people may wish to refuse degrading working conditions, starvation wages and other abuses from the marketplace. In that case, the government could ease their transition into something better by implementing a social policy similar to UBI.
AOC was deserted. And that must be hard to take in.
AOC and her colleagues tried to amend the Green New Deal. In the process, they erased any mention of basic income in the Green New Deal’s final proposed bill, while declining to reference this aspect of the program at public events. One example is AOC’s speech at this SXSW 2019 event.
First, she now defends a “jobs guarantee,” a policy more in line with the Democrats’ mainstream political thought, explicitly backed by Dem “heavy-weights” such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Second, she does not mention basic income anymore, not even when questioned about social solutions to things like automation and human rights issues such as racism, sexism, and inequality. In other circumstances, it would be obvious to reference basic income as someone who had already defended the principle on previous occasions.
We are left to watch her avoid the basic income issue. This can be exasperating knowing how enthusiastically she had already spoken about it. To me, this is the product of fear. She is afraid of being ostracized, particularly by her Democratic peers.
The result is hypocrisy. That is because her belief has remained unchanged. It would make no sense to assume that in a couple of weeks she had completely abandoned UBI in favour of its political competitor, the Federal Jobs Guarantee. A jobs guarantee has not brought significant results in other places. She only orbited back to a more front-and-centre endorsement of a Federal Jobs Guarantee because that is the “official” position of the Democrats.
Her professed courageous rebellion and uncompromising talk have gone down the drain, at least in part. In her defence, this behaviour is understandable. Deep down, no one likes to be abandoned. On the other hand, it is also disappointing for those who saw in her the possibility of radical change in American politics and the rise of “anti-establishment” discourse in America’s political landscape.
Courage includes managing the isolation and the criticism from other politicians and pundits while continuing to defend what she believes in. It may be a strategic pull-back, but the message that comes through is one of cowardness and submission to the “moderation” she so often criticizes in her fellow Democrats.
This does not imply I lost interest in AOC or that she is now politically dead to me. It means that no one is exempt from weakness and that there are moments when the pressure is just too much to bear. I am sure AOC will return to her formal vocal support for basic income. She is young, intelligent and restless, so I am sure that basic income will still play an important role in her political career. Perhaps she will follow in the footsteps of Andrew Yang, a not-much-older Democratic colleague of hers and rising-star presidential candidate.
More information at:
André Coelho, “United States: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: uncompromising, intelligent and courageously, she is driving progressive values in the US like we haven’t seen in a long time”, Basic Income News, January 23rd 2019
André Coelho, “United States: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mentions basic income at a Netroots Nation event”, Basic Income News, December 29th 2018
André Coelho, “United States: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets to the point of what it means to be “unwilling to work””, Basic Income News, February 22nd 2019
André Coelho, “UNITED STATES: Joe Biden believes that jobs are the future, rather than basic income”, Basic Income News, September 27th 2017
Karl Widerquist, “Obama speaks favourably about UBI but stops short of endorsing it (for the second time)”, Basic Income News, July 18th 2018
André Coelho, “Germany: The HartzPlus experiment is starting, and the basic income discussion is there to stay”, Basic Income News, March 3rd 2019
by Andre Coelho | Mar 21, 2019 | News
It was in September 2017 that the Scottish Government decided to support local authorities – namely Fife, City of Edinburgh, Glasgow City Council and North Ayrshire Council – so these could conduct feasibility studies on potential basic income pilots within their districts. A 250 000 £ fund was made available by the government, complementing the common resources shared by these localities for this innovative pursuit.
The feasibility phase is projected to end in March 2020, precisely a year from now. Although the study is being managed locally, within the cited localities, it is being developed together with governmental institutes like the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Her Majesty’s (HM) Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland, without which future basic income pilot schemes in the UK cannot be rolled out. This initiative is even more important, within UK’s internal organization, knowing that employment, health and safety, and social security policy are reserved matters, which means these are dealt centrally at Westminster Parliament.
Responsible officials for the study, also named the Steering Group, have been engaging with all the cited governmental institutes, plus learning all available information on other basic income-like experiments around the world, and attending Conferences focused on basic income (such as the last BIEN Conference in Tampere, Finland). These officials, and their associated team, are expected to present an interim report in autumn 2019, culminating at the presentation of a final report by March 2020.
Even though the feasibility study is still in its infancy, an update on the work’s progression has already been released (March 5th). It is scheduled as indicated below, in which Phases 1 and 2 have already been concluded (Phase 2 is just ending).
Phase 1 (ended)
May 2018-October 2018
- Local authority partners content with objectives
- Broad agreement
- Identified clear research questions
Phase 2 (just ending)
November 2018-March 2019
- Agreed on outcomes of interest (individual and household income; changes in adult and child poverty; labour market participation; individual and community empowerment; health, well-being and education; experience of the social security system)
- Identification of 11 possible models for basic income pilots
- Identification and commissioning of research activities (social benefits – basic income interactions; economic modelling of basic income; direct impact simulations on household income and poverty)
- Identification of appropriate funding and delivery mechanisms
Phase 3
April 2019-September 2019
- Upon evaluation, decision from the Scottish government to go ahead with the pilots
- Upon evaluation, decision from the included localities to support implementation (of the pilots)
Phase 4
October 2019-March 2020
- Presentation of detailed methods for the experiment, costing and baseline data identifies
- Secure funding and delivering mechanisms to start the pilot
As immediate next steps, the study team will now invest in understanding how to articulate the pilot basic income with the existent Social Benefits structure (in partnership with the Child Poverty Action Group). In parallel, it will also entail “economic modelling of broader and second order impacts on the local and national economy”, as well as “modelling (of the) the impacts of CBI (Citizens Basic Income) on income and poverty”. In this core stage of the feasibility study, funding and payment option will also be analysed in detail, while interaction with the several stakeholders and partners is deepened.
It seems that the Scottish approach to a basic income pilot is mostly from the bottom-up, in an attempt to articulate the operation of existing income distribution rules with the new element of basic income. This may not only be a necessity to effectively develop the basic income pilot, but makes sense in a more general and longer-term view of implementing a basic income in the region, further down the road. In any case, further important updates will come to us in September this year.
More information at:
“Scottish Citizens Basic Income Feasibility Study – Project Update Report”, Basic Income Scotland, March 14th 2019
Scottish Citizens Basic Income Feasibility Project – Update report to Scottish Government 5th March 2019
Sara Bizarro, “SCOTLAND: Scottish Government provides £250k to support feasibility work on BI pilots”, Basic Income News, December 2nd 2017
by Andre Coelho | Mar 13, 2019 | News
By: Rebecca Warne
This article by Alex Gray summarizes a presentation given by historian Rutger Bregman at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, January 2019.
Bregman would like to see ‘work’ redefined as ‘activity which adds value to society.’ He sees the starting point for this as more general recognition that some jobs are socially useless (at best). Bregman quotes Jeff Hammerbacher, an early employee of Facebook who apparently said: “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.”
Bregman’s interest in an UBI is twofold. Firstly, it would enhance individual quality of life by removing the necessity to work for money. Secondly, workers whose jobs are poorly paid but socially useful would be freer to draw attention to this fact by withholding their labour.
He rejects the further argument that an UBI will be necessary to offset the inevitable replacement of human beings by technology: “Automation throughout history has never meant mass unemployment. We should never underestimate the power of capitalism to come up with more socially useless jobs. Theoretically, it’s possible we will all just be pretending to work.”
Bregman doesn’t engage with economic arguments around the feasibility or impracticability of an UBI, so much as the ‘hearts and minds’ aspects: “The obstacle is not about economics or technology, it’s ideology. We have to redefine so many of our basic concepts.” According to Bregman, “We’re all basically nice, meaning-seeking creatures, and if you assume the best, that’s what you get out. It’s the power of expectation…. The first time I wrote about basic income was five years ago, and back then no one was talking about it. Now the idea is everywhere and there are experiments around the globe. The first talks I gave were for small groups of anarchists and now I’ve been invited to the World Economic Forum. It just shows how ideas change the world. Life-changing ideas never start in Washington, Westminster or Davos, they start at the fringes. In a basic income society, wages would better reflect societal value, and kids would live out their dreams.”
More information at:
Alex Gray, “This is our chance to completely redefine the meaning of work”, World Economic Forum, January 9th 2019
