by Karl Widerquist | Mar 21, 2012 | News
The Basic Income Canada Network has released the tentative schedule for the Eleventh Annual North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress: “Putting Equality Back on The Agenda:
Basic Income and Other Approaches to Economic Security for All.” The conference will take place at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, May 3-5, 2012.
While Canada, the United States, and many other OECD countries have grown increasingly unequal in recent years, equality has not been on the political agenda. Yet evidence shows that income inequality is accompanied by a range of significant negative consequences. Putting Equality Back on the Agenda will examine this growing trend of inequality and consider the option of a basic income to reduce economic disparity.
More than 50 researchers, activists, and political practitioners will present research on the economic, political, sociological, and philosophical issues of poverty, inequality, and basic income.
Featured speakers include:
- Richard Wilkinson, Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham Medical School and co-author of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better;
- Charles Karelis, Research Professor of Philosophy at The George Washington University and Author of The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-Off Can’t Help the Poor;
- Erik Olin Wright, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin – Madison, author of Envisioning Real Utopias, and American Society: How it Actually Works;
- Armine Yalnizyan, Senior Economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives;
- John Rook, Chair of the National Council of Welfare and CEO of Potential Place Society;
- Evelyn Forget, Professor, University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine, author of a major forthcoming study on Mincome (the Manitoba minimum income experiment);
- Simon Lewchuk, Centre for Public Justice;
- Senator Art Eggleton, Former Mayor of Toronto;
- Trish Hennessey, Director of Strategic Issues for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives; and
- Dan Meades, Director, Vibrant Communities Calgary.
The North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress is a joint Conference of the U.S. and Canadian Basic Income Guarantee Networks. It takes place in Canada and the United States on alternating years.
The registration deadline is April 15, 2012. The registration fee is: $150 for Private, Corporate, University, and Government Registration, $90 for Not-for-Profit Registration, $40 for Low income, students, and seniors.
The entire schedule is online at:
https://biencanada.ca/content/11th-north-american-basic-income-guarantee-congress-schedule.
Registration, hotel, and venue information and an overview of the Congress are online at:
https://biencanada.ca/content/11th-north-american-basic-income-guarantee-congress-registration-now-open
by Karl Widerquist | Jan 14, 2012 | News
The deadline for the call for proposals for the 2012 NA-BIG conference has been extended to January 31, 2012. The conference will take place in Toronto on May 3-5, 2012.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS:
The 11th North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress
May 3-5, 2012 at the University of Toronto, on the theme of:
Putting Equality Back on the Agenda:
Basic Income and Other Approaches to Economic Security for All
While Canada, the United States, and many other OECD countries have grown increasingly unequal in recent years, equality has not been on the political agenda. Yet evidence shows that income inequality is accompanied by a range of significant negative consequences. Putting Equality Back on the Agenda will examine this growing trend of inequality and consider the option of a basic income to reduce economic disparity.
Featured speakers will include:
- Erik Olin Wright, Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin (Madison), author of 11 books from The Politics of Punishment: A Critical Analysis of Prisons in America (1973) to American Society: how it really works (2010).
- Richard Wilkinson, Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham Medical School and co-author of The Spirit
Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better
- Charles Karelis, Research Professor of Philosophy at The George Washington University and Author of The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-Off Can’t Help the Poor
- Armine Yalnizyan, Senior Economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
- John Rook, Chair of the National Council of Welfare and CEO of Potential Place Society
- Evelyn Forget, Professor, University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine; and
- Trish Hennessey, Director of Strategic Issues for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
The North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress is a joint Conference of the U.S. and Canadian Basic Income Guarantee Networks. It takes place in Canada and the United States on alternating years. Please consider submitting a proposal – activists, academics and interested citizens welcome!
Scholars, activists, and others are invited to propose papers or presentations, organize panel discussions, or submit posters. Proposals are welcome on the following topics:
- What are the costs of economic disparity (economic, social and political)?
- What are the implications for pursuing (or not pursuing) basic income options?
- What are possible models for generating revenue to sustain a basic income and what are their implications for economic disparity?
- What are the practical issues for implementing a basic income policy and what are their implications for economic disparity?
- What communication and engagement strategies are necessary to raise awareness about economic disparity and basic income in the public sphere?
All points of view are welcome. Anyone interested in presenting, organizing a panel, or displaying a poster should submit an abstract of their proposal to the chair of the organizing committee at: basicincome2012@gmail.com
Please include the following information with your proposal:
1. Name(s)
2. Affiliation(s)
3. Address
4. City, Province/State, Postal/Zip Code, and Country
5. Telephone
6. Email Address(es)
7. Paper/Presentation/Panel/Poster Title
8. Abstract of 50-150 words
(REVISED) DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: January 31st, 2012
Proposals for panel discussions should include a title, topic, and description of the panel and the information above for each participant. If the participants are not presenting formal papers, the title of the paper and abstract may be omitted. Panels should be limited to four presentations.
by Karl Widerquist | Jun 13, 2011 | News
Fred Block, one of the founding members of the USBIG Network, has resigned from the USBIG Committee and joined the USBIG Board of Advisors. He will be taking a less active role in USBIG, but he will still be giving us the benefit of his great experience. Block is professor of sociology at the University of California-Davis. He has written many books and articles, such as Free Market Utopianism: From Market Fundamentalism to the Reality of Society, with Margaret Somers (Harvard University Press, forthcoming), The Vampire State and Other Myths and Fallacies about the U.S. Economy. (New Press, 1996), Postindustrial Possibilities: A Critique of Economic Discourse (University of California Press, 1990), The Mean Season: The Attack on the Welfare State, with Richard A. Cloward, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Frances Fox Piven (Pantheon, 1987). His publications on the basic income guarantee include, “In the Shadow of Speenhamland: Social Policy and the Old Poor Law” with Margaret Somers (Politics & Society, 2003), “Reforming the Labor Market Through Guaranteed Incomes: A U.S. Perspective,” with Jeff Manza (Employment and Unemployment, 1998), and “Could We Eliminate Poverty in a Postindustrial Society?: The Case for a Progressive Negative Income Tax,” with Jeff Manza (Politics & Society, 1997).
by Yannick Vanderborght | May 19, 2011 | News
Palgrave-MacMillan Publishers has announced a new book series on the Basic Income Guarantee. They expect to publish two or three books per year starting within the next year or so. Books will be nonfiction monographs and edited volumes. They are currently accepting proposals from authors and editors with ideas for books for the series. The series announcement is repeated in full below:
Basic Income Guarantee Series
Series Editors: Karl Widerquist, Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University-Qatar James Bryan, Professor of Economics at Manhattanville College, Michael A. Lewis, Associate Professor at Hunter College School of Social Work
Basic income is one of the most innovative, powerful, straightforward, and controversial proposals for addressing poverty and growing inequalities. A Basic Income Guarantee is designed to be an unconditional, government-ensured guarantee that all citizens will have enough income to meet their basic needs. The concept of basic, or guaranteed, income is a form of social provision and this series examines the arguments for and against it from an interdisciplinary perspective with special focus on the economic and social factors. There will be contributions from individuals in the fields of economics, philosophy, sociology, history, and social policy studies as well as from activists and practitioners in the field. By systematically connecting abstract philosophical debates over competing principles of basic income guarantee to the empirical analysis of concrete policy proposals, this series contributes to the fields of economics, politics, social policy, and philosophy and establishes a theoretical framework for interdisciplinary research.
The series will publish both high-quality monographs and edited collections. It will bring together international and national scholars and activists to provide a comparative look at the main efforts to date to pass unconditional basic income guarantee legislation across regions of the globe and will identify commonalities and differences across countries, drawing lessons for advancing social policies in general and BIG policies in particular. The series editors additionally are open to considering proposals that address other policy approaches to poverty and income inequality that relate to the Basic Income debate.
Karl Widerquist is a Visiting Associate Professor in philosophy at Georgetown University-Qatar. He is co-editor of The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee and co-author of Economics for Social Workers. He has published more than a dozen scholarly articles in the fields of economics, political theory, and philosophy. He is also an editor of the journal, Basic Income Studies. James Bryan is Associate Professor of Economics at Manhattanville College specializing in Microeconomic analysis of public policy, public finance, and economic education. Michael A. Lewis is Associate Professor at Hunter College School of Social Work with specific expertise in Quantitative Methods, Social Policy, and Civic Engagement. He is co-editor of The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee and co-author of Economics for Social Workers.
We strongly encourage scholars, practitioners, and activists to send us proposals for books to be added to the series. Contact the series editors for the series proposal guidelines.
Karl Widerquist
karl@widerquits.com
Laurie Harting
Executive Editor Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10010 (USA) Laurie.Harting@palgrave-usa.com
Distributor of Berg Publishers, I.B.Tauris, Manchester University Press, Pluto Press and Zed Books
by Yannick Vanderborght | May 18, 2011 | Research
DE BENOIST, Alain (2011), ‘Un revenu pour tous les citoyens?’, Eléments, issue 138, March 2011, pp.28-35.
Alain de Benoist is one of the most prominent figures of the French “new right”. Since a few decades, his controversial writings have dealt with political theory, sociology, literature, international affairs, and many other topics. This article is mainly aimed at giving an overview of the basic income discussion in France and beyond. De Benoist seems supportive of the idea.
See: https://www.revue-elements.com/
