Chris Lee, a Democratic state representative from Hawaii, made international headlines when he passed legislation creating a working group to study Universal Basic Income.
Lee recently joined the UBI Podcast to discuss the legislation.
He said the working group will analyze Hawaii’s exposure to automation and the potential for solutions, such as basic income, to address this issue. The working group will also look at the efficacy of Hawaii’s current social services system and whether it is adequate for the challenges of the future.
“It’s safe to say, that if we do nothing…these programs that we are already spending money on are going to go through the roof. To say nothing of unemployment and other changes in the economy that is going to exacerbate income inequality and limit the opportunity for people to work and make a living,” Lee said.
There is no end-date to the working group, and Lee said the key players will likely be organized by the end of this summer. Lee said he hopes that by the next legislative session in January the working group will have produced enough research to push for funding for deeper research into evaluating various proposals.
A potential outcome of the working group is to create a pilot program that is “not necessarily administered by the state,” but is tailored to the local economy, he said.
While the United States had a debate over basic income during the Nixon Administration, Lee said he hopes that initiatives like this working group can bring the discussion to a new generation.
“I think this is definitely an inflection point where we have to acknowledge that the challenges that face us are far larger than our existing infrastructure and economic system is equipped to deal with,” Lee said.
Lee said there must be some changes in the system.
“I think that ultimately we have no choice and it is inevitable that we see some sort of paradigm shift in the way we are doing things,” he said.
The legislation passed unanimously, and Lee said he has not encountered opposition to the proposal. The legislation had support from labor unions, the business community, social justice advocates, and regular Hawaiians.
There were even a handful of legislators Lee worked with on the working group that already had exposure to basic income previously, he said.
“I think that respect for one’s neighbor, that ‘aloha spirit’ is something that drives our value set so that when we come together and say that everybody should have the right to basic financial security — that’s something I think is meaningful to people. So I think everybody has at least been open to the idea of having this discussion and seeing where it will go,” Lee said.
On Wednesday, April 12th, Philippe Van Parijs, co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network, Emeritus Professor at the University of Louvain and former Director of the Hoover Chair in Economics and Social Ethics, presented his latest book on Basic Income at Stanford University.
He offered a powerful defense of UBI as an instrument of freedom and argued that it can be economically sustained and politically achieved—especially if political communities consider starting with a small UBI. Basic income should be designed, he argues, to go alongside publically funded services, such as quality healthcare and education, and should be given to all fiscal residents of a country.
“I’ve listened to criticisms and questions about basic income in five continents and seven languages,” Van Parijs told an audience of more than a hundred students, teachers and members of the broader community. He remains convinced that the policy has no fatal flaws.
Co-written with Yannick Vanderborght, and with the heroic title Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy, the book is an absolute must read for basic income enthusiasts and critics, advanced and beginners alike. As the idea of UBI spreads faster than ever throughout the world, it can be hard to keep track of all the major developments in the academic and political worlds. Their book is a seamless solution to this problem.
Over eight insightful chapters, the authors offer the most comprehensive survey ever produced of the scholarship surrounding the recent and less recent revivals of the old idea. Van Parijs and Vanderborght trace back the roots of the policy proposal in the history of public assistance and social insurance, as well as in utopian thinking from Thomas Paine to Charles Fourier, and Martin Luther King. As a scholar, writing and teaching on basic income, I cherish the more than 100 pages of notes and references at the end, which prove to be inexhaustible sources of knowledge.
We learned from Philippe’s talk more about the long journey that led Philippe where he is now. From his first (disappointing) encounter with Rawls over breakfast to his (equally disappointing) encounter with Dworkin in a taxi. On those occasions, both political philosophers challenged the view that liberal egalitarian justice requires a universal cash payment. He recounted for us how he nonetheless ended up convinced that basic income was the instrument of freedom.
In the book, the authors argue that UBI enables a fairer distribution of the most important good of all – the real freedom to lead one’s life as wished, through work and outside work. They make the case that UBI is ethically justifiable by taking on the most pervasive objection of all – that unconditional cash would allow an unfair freeriding of some on others.
Vanderborgth and Van Parijs also offer answers to the many other questions and objections to UBI that come up again and again in political debates. For a start, how would people who believe that work is a moral duty and see the welfare state as a moral hazard ever agree to a system where we don’t even require recipients to demonstrate a willingness to work? And even if we could get them to agree, how could we afford it? And how could such system be sustained? Presumably, if people get money for doing nothing, they will stop working, which will in turn make it impossible to afford a generous UBI. Should we give it to migrants? Won’t it create a dangerous pull effect? And, what about the global poor anyway? Each time, they dissect the objections and scrutinize the questions with the rigor of philosophers, the wise perspective of historians, the rationality of economists and the pragmatic outlook of political advocates.
We also learned more from the talk about how UBI can help build a sane economy. Automation and globalization are important threats to employment and workers’ rights. Van Parijs argued that UBI could be a possible solution to support displaced workers – allowing them to retrain, and giving them access to the means to lead a decent life. He also shared his vision of a form of work-sharing that could help prevent two opposite problems – the fact that so many work too much and burnout, and the fact that so many are depressed for being out of work. A ‘sane economy’, then, is one that works for the many and does not make so many of us stressed and unhealthy.
I remain convinced that one of the most exciting promises of basic income is that it can help us see a way out of the current dominant regressive mindset on public assistance. Existing benefits systems often condone an obsession with screening out a supposedly undeserving underclass: the “welfare queens” and benefits scroungers. At worst, politicians take advantage of this paradigm to get elected, promising to screen out the free riders. At best, they address the problem in a shortsighted way, making benefits even more conditional to show that they are preventing scroungers from abusing the system. In doing so, they strengthen the myth that benefit claimants are indeed undeserving of assistance. Van Parijs and Vanderborgth’s book proposes to try out the opposite strategy to help rebuild the welfare state: doing away with conditionality to avoid benefits traps while also rejecting means testing, so that more workers also benefit from public assistance.
The authors would prefer if everyone had access to the highest sustainable basic income, but they fear basic income will only work with a great deal of realism and pragmatism. The challenge is to strike the right balance between the ideal and the feasible – without compromising the vision and without wishful-thinking on what is achievable. For basic income to work, Van Parijs said at the end of his talk, the world needs visionaries, enraged activists, and opportunistic thinkers to work together. But don’t worry, he added, “I am sure that all three kinds can be found in this room”.
*** All Pictures are a courtesy of Christine Baker-Parrish
*** A longer review of the book by Juliana Bidadanure can be found on the Stanford Social innovation Review website here.
*** For more on the event, please read Sara Button’s review here.
The book opens up a global topic of interest: the links between the fourth industrial revolution, robotics and artificial intelligence, platform capitalism, and basic income rights – to the Italian populus. The publication documents a debate that involved a large group of academics, scholars, researchers and activists who were ready to make a say in favor of basic income as a social guarantee. This is particularly important at the time of technological innovation, which requires new mental and cultural paradigms, even before political and institutional ones.
Within the book fifteen authors reveal variant perspectives, beliefs, and views on basic income. The contributors agree that social protections and its mechanisms need rethinking, in order to bring forth a guaranteed basic income.
A fil rouge runs through the words and ideas of the books essays: in the digital age, look at the present and toward the future in order to recognize a collective right that allows each individual to participate in the redistribution of wealth produced by social networking, among other rights. The political and social pushor a basic income is thus understood to challenge social injustice and enable an individual and collective self-determination within a new type of society.
Because, most probably, as is quoted by Philippe Van Parijs in this book: “One day we will wonder how we could live without a basic income…”
Authors / articles in the book:
Gianmarco Mecozzi, Mutanti senza reddito garantito (Mutants without guaranteed income)
Giuseppe Allegri, Re UBI per una nuova società. Reddito di base, innovazione, tempi di vita (King UBI for a new society. Basic income, innovation, time of life)
Franco Berardi Bifo, Come attualizzare il possibile, ovvero: per l’autonomia progettuale della Silicon Valley Globale (How to update the possible: for the autonomy of the Global Silicon Valley)
Luigi Corvo, BIM – Basic Income Matters. Reddito di base e innovazione sociale (Basic Income Matters. Basic income and social innovation)
Giuseppe Bronzini, Reddito di base, lavoro, automazione: appunti per un nuovo garantismo sociale (Basic income, work, automation: notes for a new social security)
Francesca Bria, Reddito di cittadinanza nell’economia dei robot per dire no alla precarietà (Basic income in the robot economy to say no to precariousness)
Benedetto Vecchi, Il reddito di base oltre l’algoritmo digitale (Basic income beyond the digital algorithm)
Sandro Gobetti, Google al governo e reddito per tutti? (Google to the government and income for everyone?)
Silvano Cacciari, Potere deflattivo, tecnologia, (de-)globalizzazione e reddito di cittadinanza (Deflating Power, Technology, (de-) Globalization and Citizenship Income)
Franco Carlucci, Soft Machine 2.0. L’operaio sociale e l’uso capitalistico delle macchine (Soft Machine 2.0. The social worker and the capitalist use of machines)
Roberto Ciccarelli, Nel capitalismo digitale il reddito di base non si trova sugli alberi (In digital capitalism basic income doesn’t grow on trees)
Fabrizio Fassio e Giuseppe Nicolosi, L’aumento del tempo di lavoro nell’epoca della sua riducibilità técnica (The increase in working time in the era of its technical reducibility)
Mariano Di Palma, Robot n. 18, senza articolo. L’urgenza di un reddito minimo dentro la quarta rivoluzione industriale (Robot n. 18, without the article. The urgency of a minimum income in the fourth industrial revolution)
Andrea Fumagalli, Umani, macchine e reddito di base (Humans, machines and basic income)
June 15-18, 2017: New York, NY June 20-21: Brussels, Belgium June 27-29: Sheffield, United Kingdom July 5-7: Stockholm, Sweden July 9: Oslo, Norway July 11: Haugesund, Norway July 27-29: St. Louis, Missouri/O’Fallon, Illinois August 15: Canberra, Australia August 16: Sydney, Australia August 17-18: Melbourne, Australia August 31-September 1: Reykjavik, Iceland September 25-27: Lisbon, Portugal November 14: Doha, Qatar
So many conferences and seminars have agreed to let me give talks this summer and fall that I’m calling my usual working vacation a “Speaking Tour.” It’s (tentatively) 21 talks in 14 cities in 9 countries, which sounds like a lot, but it’s spaced out over 5 months interspersed with regular work at my job and/or vacation days.
I’ll discuss a variety of topics including the cost of Basic Income, why Basic Income is so important, a property theory I call Justice as the Pursuit of Accord, a criticism of influential political theories I call Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy, the political economy of Basic Income trials, and more. It sounds like a lot, but it’s based on work I’ve done over the last ten years or so.
It’s a hectic schedule, but I feel extremely lucky to be able to do this. All of the travel is sponsored either by my university or by institutions. If my expenses are paid, and my boss gives me time off, I’m willing to travel a lot more than this.
Most of these events are open to the public and most of them are free. So, if you’re anywhere near any of these places, meet me there. Come, tell me where I got it wrong. I’m looking forward to discussing some issues.
A Special Rapporteur of the United Nations will hold a panel discussion on universal basic income and the future of human rights on Thursday, June 8, 2017.
Organized by Professor Philip Alston, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, the event will explore the potential for basic income to mitigate global economic insecurity. The panelists include two cofounders of the Basic Income Earth Network — Professor Philippe van Parijs (University of Louvain, Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics) and Guy Standing (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) — in addition to Isabelle Doresse (People’s Universities in Northern Pas de Calais, ATD Fourth World) and Alex Praça (Human and Trade Union Rights Officer of the International Trade Union Confederation).
The panel will discuss a report prepared by Alston and submitted to the UN’s Human Rights Council. Alston’s report addresses the concern that “the human rights movement needs to address and respond to the fundamental changes that are taking place in economic and social structures at the national and global levels,” including precarious employment, automation, increasing inequality, and the obsolescence of traditional forms of labor market regulation.
As Alston describes the idea, a basic income “is explicitly designed to challenge most of the key assumptions underpinning existing social security systems”:
Rather than a system where there are partial payments, basic income guarantees a floor; instead of being episodic, payments are regular; rather than being needs-based, they are paid as a flat rate to all; they come in cash, rather than as messy in-kind support; they accrue to every individual, rather than only to needy households; rather than requiring that various conditions be met, they are unconditional; rather than excluding the well off, they are universal; and instead of being based on lifetime contributions, they are funded primarily from taxation.
The 20-page report describes each of these characteristics of a basic income, overviews the history of the idea, and describes various types of basic income and related policies, such as a negative income tax and cash transfers. Alston also lays out some examples of the possible cost of implementing a basic income scheme.
Alston holds that “the basic income concept should not be rejected out of hand on the grounds that it is utopian” and encourages further discussion of the policy as a means to alleviate economic insecurity and promote human rights and social justice. He additionally urges that the debate on basic income be united with that on social protection floors.
Further Viewing and Reading
The June 8 panel discussion will be broadcast live online here.
The full report on universal basic income of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights is available in the UN’s document repository or can be directly downloaded as a PDF here.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: Human Rights Council during 15th Session, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 UN Geneva
We also learned more from the talk about how UBI can help build a sane economy. Automation and globalization are important threats to employment and workers’ rights. Van Parijs argued that UBI could be a possible solution to support displaced workers – allowing them to retrain, and giving them access to the means to lead a decent life. He also shared his vision of a form of work-sharing that could help prevent two opposite problems – the fact that so many work too much and burnout, and the fact that so many are depressed for being out of work. A ‘sane economy’, then, is one that works for the many and does not make so many of us stressed and unhealthy.
Overview (details below)
