by Andre Coelho | Feb 3, 2017 | News
Photo: Nick Pearce. Credit to: Bristol Festival of Ideas.
In this audio recording of a conversation, in front of a live audience at the Bristol Festival of Ideas on the 17th of November, 2016, Louise Haagh, Anthony Painter, Nick Pearce and Torsten Bell discuss the pros and cons of the basic income idea, chaired by Jonathan Derbyshire.
In this talk, Anthony Painter, the Director of the Action Research Center at the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), starts by describing what he calls the “gig economy” (one economy driven by tasks, not by jobs). He also refers to the great changes in the distribution of work which are occurring right now, and in the relationships with intelligent machines. According to him, people are feeling increasingly uncertain and powerless, which generates stress. That is his first argument for basic income: it is an agent for freedom. He says politics for basic income must be based in solidarity, empathy and compassion, and that basic income should not be pursued as an end in itself, but as a test and a measure for the betterment of society.
Nick Pierce, professor of Public Policy at the University of Bath (and former Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research), goes on to say that he considers himself to be a “friendly skeptic” of basic income. He recognizes qualities in the basic income movement, led by many activists, who defend tackling problems with current welfare states and pursue a vision/trend for the betterment of society; not simply reacting to problems. On the other hand, he does not agree that basic income can liberate individuals (from entanglement with the State and with the market), nor that it can liberate individuals from work. According to Pierce, work is a way to gain personal fulfillment and, as such, looks at basic income proponents as “anti-work” in a sense. He also fears basic income might lead people to disengage from one another, hence he considers it a dangerous form of dependency, particularly towards the State (seen as a provider). Pierce also points out that basic income, as a policy, will be a result of the social forces that have forged the different welfare states, hence may differ considerably from region to region. He advises basic income advocates to consider all of these regional differences, in order to propose meaningful basic income strategies.
Louise Haagh
Louise Haagh, as Reader at the Department of Politics in the University of York and co-Chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), replies that basic income is a “natural outgrowth of social democracy”. This comes despite Haagh’s agreement that, in fact, the basic income movement has failed to detail the implementation realities of basic income around the world. However, she feels it has succeeded in getting basic income out of academia and into mainstream discourse. She also points out that other welfare features, such as public education and health, do not contain as many conditions as income support (e.g. behavioral conditions), but agrees that basic income should not be seen as a replacement for organized fulltime employment. Rather, they should be seen as a complementary feature to guarantee full citizenship. She also sees basic income as a small but crucial strategic element that enables societies to think about their development with a more long-term approach.
On the critical side against basic income, Torsten Bell, Director of the Resolution Foundation, says that basic income interest has appeared due to two anxieties: robot anxiety (human jobs are being “eaten” by machines) and Left Existential anxiety (real wages stagnate or dropped, plus support for the traditional Left is fading). However, he perceives this interest as waning progressively. Bell is convinced basic income is not going to happen in the UK, reasoning that robots are systematically underperforming compared to their human counterparts, and that there have never been more jobs in the UK. Moreover, he says, statistics show that part-time jobs are not rising, or have not been, since records have existed. Bell detaches the United States case from the European reality, stating that what is happening in the former is not likely to happen in the latter, and equates basic income to higher taxes and higher poverty. He further reasons that it makes no sense to give a basic income to rich people, and that generally the public does not like the idea that “you should be paid not to work”. Finally, he disagrees with a political organization system where an elite at the top own the robots and make all the money, which is then redistributed to everyone else (assumed idle).
Replying to criticisms, Anthony Painter underlines that the world of work is getting more precarious, less paid and more insecure; hence something – like basic income – must be done about it. Contrary to Torsten’s assertion, he highlights that basic income advocates usually justify basic income as a way to validate work, giving people the opportunity to contribute to society in a meaningful way. He also points out that any basic income implementation cannot possibly surpass the already tremendously bureaucratic welfare state in the UK, so it is only bound to reduce it. On the other hand, Nick Pierce disagrees that basic income is waning, but agrees that politicians are constantly searching for “big ideas” to hold on to. Finally, Louise Haagh agrees that fortunately the basic income idea is not defended on a pure philosophical ground anymore, but instead has progressed to a more hands-on, practical approach. As Nick, she also disagrees that the notion of a basic income is waning, judging from the daily activity at BIEN.
Listen to the full conversation:
Bristol Festival of Ideas, “Basic Income – An idea whose time has come?”, in association with the Institute for Policy Research and the University of Bath, November 17th 2016
by Kate McFarland | Jan 24, 2017 | News
The Indian Statistical Institute hosted its 12th Annual Conference on Economic Growth and Development (ACEGD) on December 19-21, 2016. ACEGD’s plenary sessions included a 90-minute panel on universal basic income and its relevance for India.
Universal basic income (UBI) has become a hotly debated issue in India. At the end of January, the Ministry of Finance will release its Economic Survey, which is expected to include a chapter addressing UBI. Leading economists have defended various forms of UBI for India (see, for example, a recent e-symposium in Ideas for India), and MPs such as Varun Gandhi and Jay Panda have voiced support.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, a panel on UBI was also held as part of the latest Annual Conference on Economic Growth and Development, held in December at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in Delhi. This conference included a panel on UBI, featuring five economists: Debraj Ray (New York University), Kalle (Karl Ove) Moene (University of Oslo), Rajiv Sethi (Columbia University), Himanshu (Jawaharlal Nehru University), and Amarjeet Sinha (Government of Bihar).
Ray and Moene have jointly developed a proposal for what they call a “universal basic share” (UBS) in India. Like a UBI, a UBS would provide each citizen with regular unconditional cash transfers of an equal amount. However, in contrast to most UBI proposals, a UBS fixes the amount of these transfers to a fraction of the GDP rather than a specific monetary amount. Ray and Moene recommend that India dedicate 12% of its GDP to the provision of a UBS. They calculate that, at present, this would provide each adult citizen with a basic income approximately equal to the country’s poverty line.
At the ACEGD panel, Ray introduces the idea of UBS, after briefly outlining the present worldwide interest in UBI, precursors such as the Alaskan Permanent Fund and Dividend and the Government Pension Fund of Norway, and several sources of the present interest in UBI in India, including the pilot studies in Madhya Pradesh, the Goan permanent fund, and political and popular “exasperation” with the nation’s current subsidies for the poor. Following Ray, Moene elaborates upon the UBS proposal and some of its advantages, such as encouraging risk-taking and allowing individuals to do the work they want. Moene also replies to the common objection that a basic income would discourage work, stressing that this is not what is observed in the most generous welfare states, nor what’s observed when wealthy people receive an inheritance.
Sethi, who has studied UBI primarily in the US context, presents additional arguments in favor of the policy, including its cross-partisan appeal and its ability to mitigate economic shock due to automation. He also raises questions concerning the precise design of a UBI, such as whether the basic income should extend to minors and how it would be linked with macroeconomic policies.
The last two panelists, Himanshu and Sinha, argue that India should prioritize public spending on universal basic services, rather than simply distributing cash to individuals. About UBI, Himanshu states that the question is not whether it should be adopted, but why and when. While allowing that UBI is a good idea in principle, he maintains that it is not yet time to introduce such a policy in India, given that many in the country lack clean water, access to education, and other essential public goods. Sinha, expanding on Himanshu’s thesis, stresses that “we should not lose sight of the need to craft credible public systems” — and worries that a UBI would divert money and attention from necessary improvements of education, health, housing, and public infrastructure.
Video, Part 1: Ray, Moene, Sethi
Video, Part 2: Sethi (cont’d), Himanshu, Sinha
The five presentations were followed by a 30-minute Q&A session, touching on such topics as private versus public provision of services (which Ray eventually describes as a distraction from the real issues), immigration and basic income, UBI versus UBS during economic downturns, and others.
Video: Q&A
Reviewed by Danny Pearlberg
Photo: Delhi, India CC BY 2.0 Ville Miettinen
by Kate McFarland | Jan 23, 2017 | News
On Monday, January 30, BIEN Co-Chair Karl Widerquist will deliver a public lecture on “Basic Income: the centrepiece of a just society” at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU).
The event is hosted by Steady State Manchester — a community group dedicated to exploring the limitations of economic growth with a view towards an alternative “viable economics” — as well as the Research Center for Social Change and Community Wellbeing at MMU.
Details about Widerquist’s lecture, including registration information, are available on EventBrite. The event is free and open on the public.
The Social Change and Community Wellbeing research group is currently preparing a report on the psychological impact of a universal basic income. This report will be launched on February 18, 2017, at the Fair Living Festival at MMU. Information about this latter event will also be available on EventBrite.
Reviewed by Dave Clegg.
Manchester Ship Canal photo CC BY-SA 2.0 David Dixon.
by BIEN | Jan 21, 2017 | News
(Image Credit: The Hankyoreh Media Company)
According to business writer Kwack Jung-soo, South Korea will need to make fundamental changes to its operations due to the nation’s prolonged low growth and lack of new growth engines.
In a new book entitled 2017 Grand Forecast for the South Korean Economy, 43 economics experts provide analyses and possible solutions to the economic crisis in South Korea.
One contributor, Professor Lee Keun of Seoul National University, believes that the present situation is a “crisis of South Korean capitalism” rooted in income inequality. He maintains that part of the solution is a “basic income system” in which “sufficient livelihood benefits would be paid to all citizens to keep them out of poverty, regardless of assets, income, or working status” (in the words of reporter Jung-soo).
Read the full article here:
Kwack Jung-soo, “Economists saynin 2017 will enter “long-term low growth conditions“, The Hankyoreh, November 23, 2016.
Reviewed by Kate McFarland
by Tyler Prochazka | Jan 8, 2017 | Opinion
While many basic income advocates concentrate on shifting government policy, some in the tech world are taking the fight into their own hands.
Cyrptocurrencies have the potential to dramatically disrupt the government system of fiat issued currency. When new money is created, some cryptocurrencies are planning to distribute the dividend as a basic income to its members. This is a very exciting time because cryptocurrencies are completely separate from the government and the more it becomes mainstream, the more people are investing in it. Many investors are looking to comprar bitcoin (BTC) for their long-term investments because they can only see the prices of the cryptocurrency to increase. Many are interested in investing in it, and instead of jumping straight in they are rightly researching some useful tips from xCoins and other online sites on how to invest in it properly, successfully and safely.
However, despite this positive potential outcome people are still nervous about doing it all digitally and with their money, luckily now there are VPNs that can be put in place here that can keep traders’ privacy safe and secure if they so choose to do it. It’s not just Bitcoin that’s making big waves in the crypto industry. Reading up online resources about investing in cryptocurrencies could be a good place to start. Someone looking to buy Bitcoin and Ethereum could also look up a few great review of crypto exchanges on the internet.
Duniter (formerly known as uCoin) is helping to push this monetary revolution. Duniter would evenly distribute all of the money created, potentially even on a daily basis, to add up to 10 percent growth each year.
One of the lead developers of Duniter, Gaël, said he was inspired by the basic income after the financial crisis in 2008, when he realized something was wrong with the global economic system.
“We needed a system that would let people create without having to prove to the institutions, be it the banks, or the state, that what they were doing was useful,” Gaël said.
The full interview can be found below:
1. What is your involvement in Duniter? What is your background?
My name is Gaël and I’m known as “inso” in the Duniter project. I am the Lead Developer of Sakia, a desktop client for Duniter networks.
I am an engineer in Software and Systems. I have been working as part of the Duniter team in my free time for 3 years. At the beginning, I was building the only client existing on Duniter network, so that advanced users could see and test it for real. I gave cgeek (the founder of Duniter) some feedback about his developments and the API (a set of functionality for the developers) of the Duniter network. Our goal at this moment is to help more developers to contribute to the project, by testing and working with us.
Apart from the technical stuff, I communicate about the project as much as I can on Twitter and diaspora (inso@framasphere.org). I translate our French articles into English on our blog. I try to explain what we are doing and why : what are the problems with modern money systems (debt-money, crypto-currencies, etc.) and what we are trying to fix by developing Duniter.
2. What inspired you to get involved in this project ?
I grew up with the Internet and I have always been passionate about the decentralized aspect of it.
When the 2008 financial crisis hit the planet, I suddenly realized that something was inherently wrong in modern economics. I discovered that if banks disappeared with their debts, the common money we were using would disappear with them. The banking system was too important — “Too Big To Fail”. At the same time, the Universal Basic Income was starting to become a real topic on the social networks. Automation was going to replace a lot of manual jobs really fast, what is called “Disruption” today. We needed a system that would let people create without having to prove to the institutions, be it the banks, or the state, that what they were doing was useful. Because if the society was not agile enough to adapt, social crisis were going to hit soon or later.
This is where I discovered the Relative Theory of Money (Here in French or here for a basic English translation). This theory describes a money which is issued by every individuals, using a symmetric distribution in space and time. It means it is decentralized and growing regularly. There is no one who has the power of money issuance on others. It understands the fact that nobody can definitively say what is valuable, and so it is respectful to what humans want to do with their own life.
A first crypto-currency project began, called Open-UDC. But it was complicated and I did not understood exactly how it would work. This is were cgeek forked Open-UDC by creating what was called by then uCoin, now Duniter. He used technologies I could understand, and it was based on concepts which were proven to work (Web of Trust, Blockchains), so I was willing to work with him.
3. What is the goal of Duniter ?
The Duniter project wants to create a Libre Money, as defined by the Relative Theory of Money. A Libre Money is issued as a Universal Dividend, which is a percentage of the existing monetary mass, shared to all the money members. For a Libre Money to issue a valuable Universal Dividend, it will need a lot of users. We would like the first Libre Money to be issued by 1 million to 10 million users. So Duniter has to be easy enough to use and secure enough to be trusted.
4. How does Duniter work ?
The Duniter network is decentralized. It is using a blockchain to synchronize the money state across its nodes. As opposed to Bitcoin, there is no power race in Duniter. In Bitcoin, because of the CPU race, the power is given to the ones who own the more computing power. In Duniter, it is democratic; because every user is identified as a unique human, they can write in the blockchain in turns. Simply put, each node is associated to a member of the money. When a member writes data in the blockchain, he has to wait before being able to write again. This is what ensures that the blockchain does not end in the hand of a few users, and that it does not burn too much energy.
To identify users, Duniter makes the choice of a self-regulated system by its own members. This is the Web of Trust. Each member can certify new users. When a user receives enough certifications and is not too far away from the existing members in the web of trust, he becomes a member.
For example, if I certified cgeek and that cgeek certifies you, your distance from me is two steps. This distance is checked with all the members of the Web of trust, and if it is below a given limit, let’s say four or five, you join the web of trust and start to issue your own Universal Dividend. Simple as that!
5. How much of a basic income does Duniter include for each member ?
Duniter issues around 10 percent of new money each year. This new money is shared to all the members. The rhythm can be faster: for example, we can issue every day 0.026 percent of new money, and at the end of the year, it will be a growth of 10 percent.
Ten percent is not a number chosen randomly. It respects the symmetry in time. If a new user join the Duniter network in 35 years, he will start to issue the Universal Dividend at the same speed as we did before. Ten percent is calibrated so that in half a human life, 40 years, you create the same share of the monetary mass as every members did before. One should not be privileged and create a bigger share of money during his life just because he joined Duniter earlier or later.
6. What are the reasons Duniter is utilizing a basic income and how did the team first get introduced to the basic income concept?
I think most of the team discovered Basic Income before reading about the Relative Theory of Money. One of the biggest debate within basic income community is “how much should we give to individuals?”
The Relative Theory of Money demonstrate that to consider individuals equals and free, a money has to be issued symmetrically between individuals, in space and time. It means that it has to be issued by a Basic Income called Universal Dividend.
Yoland Bresson (an early advocate and participant in the Basic Income Earth Network), who wrote the preface of the Relative Theory of Money, is the author of the theory of “Time-Value”. Interesting enough, both theories, applied to the euro-zone, result in almost the same Universal Basic Income amount.
Another interesting thing is the Theorem of equivalence between a Libre Money and a Universal Basic Income. This demonstration states that a Universal Dividend, based on money issuance, is strictly equivalent to a Universal Basic Income based on a tax with a lower issuance rate of money. Basically, issuing 10 percent of new money each year is strictly the same as issuing three percent of new money and taxing seven percent of every accounts. But the Occam’s razor principle states that the simpler a system is, the better. The Universal Dividend is really simple: no taxation is required, no administration is necessary to check for the redistribution. It is only about issuing new money. And it is strictly equivalent to a Universal Basic Income! You can analyze on the website of cuckooland how it works (in french).
7. How many members does Duniter currently have and what is the utilization rate? What have the trends been so far?
Our current testing money is issued at the rhythm of 10 percent per day. This is huge because we do not want this money to take any value: we are just using it to test Duniter network. This money currently has 200 members. This is pretty good for a test. We have seen a growing interest for Duniter recently. In France we are doing events every six months to work on Duniter and find new contributors. More and more people are coming each time, so this is really encouraging.
We will start a new test money at the beginning of January, called “GTest”, and then the first real money, calibrated at 10 percent growth a year, will be started. We expect a lot of people to register at this time. For the first time in history, we will be able to create our own Universal Basic Income without having to wait for governments and banks to understand its importance!
