by Kate McFarland | Jul 2, 2017 | News
Photo: Political Laboratory on Basic Income at The Alternative’s convention (credit: Louise Haagh).
“The Alternative Facts”
Denmark’s green political party The Alternative (Danish: Alternativet) has adopted basic income as an aspirational goal and established a working group to investigate a precise model and implementational strategy for the policy.
These decisions were formalized at the party’s 2017 convention, which took place May 27-28 in Odense, where basic income was a prevailing theme. Since its founding in November 2013, The Alternative has developed its policy positions through what it describes as a “political open-source process,” centered on political laboratories [link: Danish] at which party members and other interested individuals discuss and debate proposed policies. Its initial party program, for example, was influenced by the contributions of over 700 people who participated in political laboratories and workshops in early 2014. The recent convention in Odense featured such a political laboratory on the topic of basic income, which was attended by over 300 delegates.
Haagh at the Alternative’s political laboratory on basic income
The political laboratory began with presentations of opposing views on basic income.
First, BIEN Chair Louise Haagh laid out reasons to support the policy, including, fundamentally, the idea that basic income is a democratic right. Haagh emphasized that basic income can be seen as a natural extension of the Nordic welfare model, an enhancement of the existing welfare state rather than its replacement. She also argued that, among other advantages, a basic income could provide an improvement for unemployed job seekers, as Denmark’s existing job centers are inefficient, producing a low employment rate and forcing customers to spend a large amount of time in administrative processes.
Following Haagh’s presentation, Kristian Wiese, Director of the think tank Cevea, offered reasons to be skeptical of basic income. Wiese worried that basic income is merely a palliative that fails to address the underlying problems of unemployment and precarious employment, and expressed concern regarding the policy’s support from neoliberals and Silicon Valley technocrats.
After the presentations, participants broke into small groups to discuss the relative merits and drawbacks of basic income. The discussion was framed around several questions–whether a basic income is a good idea if it can be introduced without extra cost, whether a basic income is likely to lead to more socially productive activity or less, and what new policies and procedures could be introduced alongside basic income to promote community and entrepreneurship–and responses from each group were collected. While no formal vote was taken, the general consensus of delegates was favorable to basic income, and the party decided to proceed with the development of a precise model to adopt as party policy.
To the latter end, the assembly established a working group tasked with the project of drafting a policy proposal on basic income for the party within one year. In addition to the proposal of the working group, The Alternative will await precise calculations from the Ministry of Taxation before endorsing any model of basic income as party policy. (Basic Income News will publish a follow-up report on the activities of the working group later in the year when more details are known.)
The Alternative’s current political program endorses the provision of benefits without work requirements or other conditions to uninsured social security recipients as well as to those covered by insurance through union membership. Basic income will be the third and final step in the party’s social policy reform. Even prior to the recent convention and political laboratory, party leaders such as MP Torsten Gejl have described The Alternative’s advocacy of the former policies as steps toward its eventual promotion of a universal basic income for Denmark (cf., e.g., Gejl’s talk at the book launch of Philippe van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght’s Basic Income).
Torsten Gejl at UBI Nordic Conference (credit: Michael Husen)
The party has shown increasing interest in basic income in recent years, and has established close ties with BIEN-Danmark, BIEN’s Danish affiliate. The party was the official host for the two-day Nordic Conference on Basic Income Pilots, held at Christiansborg Palace, the seat of the Danish Parliament, in September 2016. Leading members of the party have continued to participate in basic income events in 2017. For instance, party leader and cofounder Uffe Elbæk spoke at the world premier of the basic income documentary Free Lunch Society, Josephine Fock participated in a debate at a seminar on basic income and the future of work, and Gejl spoke at BIEN-Danmark’s annual meeting, in addition to the aforementioned book launch.
The Alternative currently holds 10 out of 179 seats in the Danish Parliament, making it the sixth largest party in terms of representation.
Thanks to Louise Haagh and Karsten Lieberkind for information and suggestions for this article.
Post reviewed by Dave Clegg.
by Andre Coelho | Jun 30, 2017 | News
The Green Institute in Australia has just released a report named “Views of a universal basic income – perspectives from across Australia”. Published under the Creative Commons, it is a compilation of articles by several Australian authors, namely Tim Hollo, Tjarana Goreng-Goreng, Millie Rooney, Lyndsey Jackson and Amy Patterson, Michael Croft, Patrick Gibb, Luke van der Muelen, Petra Bueskens and David Pledger.
This report is a compilation of several views on basic income, from very different social corners of the Australian society. Tim Hollo, this report’s editor, Executive Director of the Green Institute and contributor to the report with the article “Views on a UBI”, starts out by asking three fundamental questions:
“What would your life be like if you – and everyone around you – had a Universal Basic Income?
How would it change the choices you make to know that there was a no-questions-asked, non-judgmental, society-wide support in place that we all contribute to and all benefit from?
What would you do differently if our society explicitly valued unpaid contributions, recognizing that paid employment isn’t the only – or even necessarily the best – way to participate?”
The answers, views and thoughts of the above cited authors follow from these fundamental questions about the human condition. Their perspectives stem from their particular angles and walks of life, which vary from indigenous culture, caring, welfare experience, college studying to unionism, gender equality and art.
More information at:
Gareth Hutchens, “Universal basic income could greatly improve workers’ lives, report argues”, The Guardian, 14th June 2017
Tim Hollo (Ed.), “Views of a universal basic income: perspectives from across Australia”, The Green Institute, June 2017
The Green Institute website
by Sandro Gobetti | Jun 29, 2017 | News
Naples. Credit to: Numeri Pari
Many associations, collectives, social movements, students and activists have joined the “Rete dei Numeri Pari” (Even Numbers Network – to which BIN Italia (Italian Basic Income Network) is also a part of), promoting a social campaign for the “income of dignity”. There will be 1000 squares across the country hosting public initiatives, debates and meetings where people will talk about the income of dignity proposal (a sort of guaranteed minimum income).
From the appeal: 1000 squares for the income of dignity
“Poverty, precariousness and inequalities are the reality of social suffering of millions of people in Europe and Italy, who pay the burden of a crisis they did not produce. All these people try to evade blame and responsibility, but we have not forgotten that it is the result of precise political and social choices. […] Over the years, we have witnessed the collapse of social policies: cuts in health, public transport, and social cooperation. We witnessed the rising cost of education and saw the right to study disappear from government agendas. Working conditions have worsened: the generations are divided between those who struggle to find a job and those who work in unacceptable conditions. This is evidenced by statistics on poverty, which now affects one Italian on three, while five million people are in absolute poverty.
We cannot wait anymore. […] Against growing social inequalities, it is necessary to affirm a new idea of society and solidarity.
It is necessary to break the chains of solitude imposed by this economic system. We must guarantee the fundamental right to a life worth living. The introduction of a guaranteed minimum income and the provision of quality and universal public services are the bases for a new system of social welfare and social security to protect people from poverty, mafia and work without rights. […] Despite the mobilization of so many, many of whom have in the last few years created a proposal for “guaranteed minimum income”, the government has instead chosen to promote “Inclusion Income”, a totally unsatisfactory proposal for the number of beneficiaries and resources invested, which does not even respond to the needs of a third of the population in relative poverty. […] Government and parliamentary measures have introduced an unconstitutional form of “selective universalism” […]
From the 16th of June, the “Rete dei Numeri Pari” will be in the squares […] We will act alongside women who want to get rid of a model of patriarchal and masked society. We will act alongside migrants to build together the right to a true and friendly citizenship. We will be in the streets with students for free education. We will mobilize with the impoverished labor force: employees, intermittent, precarious, and all workers who suffer due to the burden of the labor policies of these recent years.
We will be in over one thousand squares to say that an alternative society is emerging from the bottom and that we must mobilize together.”
More information at:
[in Italian]
Numeri Pari, “Appello: 1000 piazze per il reddito di dignità [Call: a thousand squares for a dignity income]”, Numeri Pari website, June 1st 2017
by Juliana Bidadanure | Jun 24, 2017 | Opinion
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.
A video of the event can be found here.
“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.
by Guest Contributor | Jun 16, 2017 | Opinion
The rising power of Amazon and Alphabet represents the dawn of a new era. We have to shape a new culture that fits our connected future. Giving people a basic income for taking part in this mega project is the next step we should take.
In a matter of days, both Amazon’s and Alphabet’s stock prices have crossed the $1,000 dollar mark, hammering one nail after another in the coffin of traditional brick-and-mortar business. Malls are collapsing as drones take to the air. Tens of thousands of employees are being fired as automated supermarkets take shape.
Online shopping has become the norm and consumer culture as we know it is going into the history books. People are now using websites such as BuyerImpact.co.uk to help them buy what they need and compare items, it’s easier, faster, and can save them money. And it goes on. Whatever the needs might be, people can find what they are looking for online. They could be looking for new furniture pieces, or perhaps some coats and jackets that are high quality; everything can be found on the internet if they know where to look. Plus, there is the added convenience of not having to leave the house to get new things. Statistically, people can be seen shopping at a much larger capacity as compared to the last decade, due to the availability of gift cards and coupons to stores like Macy’s (sneak a peek at these guys for instance), making items more affordable than ever.
But it doesn’t end with shopping. The evolution of technology is like a fractal phenomenon – the pattern repeats itself in different shapes and colors. Autonomous cars are threatening drivers, artificial intelligence is spreading through the services sector, 3D printers are redefining manufacturing, and talking smartphones are becoming personal secretaries. I suppose a good thing to come out of it is drones, like the ones from https://www.drdrone.ca/pages/dji-mini-2 which can help reduce crime rates, and increases security, and for entertainment purposes is an excellent creation of technology.
The prospect of a jobless future is looming, and the concept of Universal Basic Income is making headlines left and right. But underneath the cold technological surface, a profound human question is brewing: What is going to be the role of the human being in the near future and where are we going as a society?
Human Evolution. The Bigger Picture.
So far we humans have been busy establishing our physical existence on this planet. We hunted mammoths, lived in caves and started fires for quite a while. Then we moved into houses with heating systems and industrialized our food production. Gradually, we are delegating the catering to our physical needs to devices and machines that do the job for us.
We are nearing a turning point in human evolution where a new realm is opening up for us. As we discover that we can largely automate the production of food, water, housing and clothing for all, our time, energy and focus can be invested in what matters most: Developing the essence of the human being within us alongside healing and nurturing humanity as a society.
The Advantage of Man Over the Robot?
Changes are happening faster than we realize since technological progress is accelerating. And if we once asked what is the advantage of man over the animal, soon we will be asking what is the advantage of man over the robot.
Answering this question will not be a matter of philosophy. It will be a pressing issue that determines no less the fate of the human race. The level of tech that will be at our disposal paints two possible futures: We could use sophisticated technology for countries to fight each other and destroy the planet, or we could build the means to provide for every basic human need, and create a reality of abundance for all.
If we wish to move towards the latter, then a lot has to change. And that change starts within us. We have to recognize that our egoistic drive to put our self-interests above all is in contrast with our interdependent future. We have to become aware that the world is a globally integrated system that requires us to move towards unity.
To that end, our social values and the purpose of human culture, our personal aspirations and what we actually do with our time, must all be focused on nurturing our human connections. By doing this, we will unlock a new source of prosperity and fulfillment, and set society on the right track.
Creating a New Connected Culture
Multiple fields of social and biological science have been saying this for decades – we are all wired for human connection. It doesn’t matter where we come from or what values we currently hold, as human beings, we find happiness and fulfillment when we feel connected to our fellow man. And that’s also when we become the best version of ourselves: Productive, creative, healthy, and resilient.
However, creating this new connected culture means a lot of work. The outbursts of human egoism need to be continuously balanced with the uplifting of pro-social values. As human beings we instinctively gravitate to our egoistic drives, but at the same time we’re social creatures that will go out of our way for social recognition. So instead of fighting for self-hoarding and self-maximization, in a connected culture, the social climate will drive us to compete for social contribution.
To achieve that, many people will need to undergo training and later work as educators and community organizers to create and maintain a positive social climate.
Back to the Present: The UBI Dilemma
The voices calling for governments to counter technological unemployment by providing a Universal Basic Income are mostly seeing the economic side of the equation. On the social side of it, it’s not as clear to UBI proponents that the new source of human fulfillment and progress is no other than positive human connection.
If we wish to prevent chaotic developments and move pleasantly towards the inevitably connected future of our societies, I recommend that a basic income will not come by itself. Rather, it will be coupled with socio-educational training. Instead of having people living on welfare while they struggle to compete with ever-advancing robots, they should be receiving a salary for the new jobs of the future: The social and educational roles required to shape a positively connected human culture.
In my view, this is what most people will be doing if we consciously get on the right track as a society. Our intelligence, ingenuity, and creativity can all be utilized to raise the quality of human connections. This is not a pipe dream, but rather the only realistic and pragmatic endeavor we can undertake to avert a dystopian future and make the right turn at the crossroads we are in.
If we work together, we might just have an advantage over the robots.
Michael Laitman is a Professor of Ontology, a PhD in Philosophy and Kabbalah, an MSc in Medical Bio-Cybernetics, and was the prime disciple of Kabbalist, Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag (the RABASH). He has written over 40 books, which have been translated into dozens of languages.
