by Kate McFarland | Jan 29, 2017 | News
Germany’s basic income political party, Bündnis Grundeinkommen, will be on the ballot for the first time in the federal state of Saarland, which holds state elections on March 26, 2017.
Founded in September 2016, the German political party Bündnis Grundeinkommen (“Basic Income League”) is devoted to a single issue: the establishment of an unconditional basic income in Germany.
Unlike Switzerland–which held a national referendum on basic income in June 2016 after campaigners collected more than the necessary 100,000 signatures–Germany does not allow national referenda. Thus, basic income supporters decided to launch a dedicated political party as a means to put the issue on the ballot in the nation’s federal elections, to be held on September 24, 2017.
The party achieved a significant step forward in January, when the election commission of the federal state of Saarland announced that Bündnis Grundeinkommen would appear on the ballot in the state’s election on March 26, 2017.
In a press release announcing the achievement, press officer Ronald Heinrich said:
Bündnis Grundeinkommen will be on the ballot [in] one of three electoral districts, but it is the first real test for the idea of basic income in Germany in an election. To fulfill the legal requirements in Saarland was a real stunt. The federal chapter was just founded six weeks ago, and to get everything sorted and done over the Christmas holidays is a huge achievement for everybody involved.
Ronald Trzoska, chairman of the party, added:
Every casted vote in Saarland for the basic income party in March will help to get the attention of the citizens towards the idea of an basic income. In September are the national elections in Germany. It is the great goal of Bündnis Grundeinkommen to get the word of basic income spreading on over 45 million ballots, and we are eager and confident to get the job done.
To date, Bündnis Grundeinkommen has established chapters in 11 of the 16 federal states of Germany, with the other five in progress. Along with establishing chapters in each state, the party must collect 23,000 signatures to be admitted to the national elections. Signatures are being gathered in each state in which Bündnis Grundeinkommen is established.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan and Dawn Howard
Image: Saarbrücken, Saarland, Germany; CC BY-NC 2.0 Wolfgang Staudt
by Kate McFarland | Jan 16, 2017 | News
A group of basic income supporters in Germany is about to launch a nationwide “tour”, featuring a series of events and speakers on the topic.
BGE Tournee 2017 will commence in Bonn on January 21, with a series of lectures and discussion periods. (BGE is an abbreviation for “bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen”, the German term for unconditional basic income.)
Invited speakers comprise members of three different German political parties — the Greens (Grüne), Pirates (Piraten), and “the Left” (die LINKE) — as well as representatives from several advocacy groups promoting an unconditional basic income:
– Dagmar Partenoga of the advocacy group Attac.
– Sascha Liebermann, professor of sociology and founder of the “freedom instead of full employment” initiative.
– Ulrich Buchholz of the Bonner Initiative for a Basic Income.
– Winfried Gather, secretary of the Catholic Worker Movement in the Diocese of Cologne.
– Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn, MP, economist and member of the German Bundestag; member of the Grünes Grundeinkommen (Green Basic Income) network.
– Charly Hörster of the democratic-socialist party DIE LINKE.
– Jürgen Jack_R of the basic income workgroup of the German Pirate Party.
Following the inaugural event in Bonn, BGE Tournee 2017 will continue with events in Kiel (March 25), Eisenach (April 8), Frankfurt (April 22), and Berlin (April 29). Later events are currently being planned in Bremen, Hannover, Rostock, Stuttgart, and Würzburg.
The idea for BGE Tournee 2017 grew out of a meeting of basic income supporters in 2016 in the small city of Andernach, initiated by Claudia Laux of the German Green Party. Founding member Kostas Thomopoulos says that, at the meeting in Andernach, “we created a movement, and we hope to win the struggle for freedom and justice. Because, we think, the basic income is the right solution for everyone in the future.”
Currently, leaders of BGE Tournee 2017 are continuing to meet with other German organizations sympathetic to basic income, and hope recruit an even broader range of speakers for future events.
Post reviewed by Danny Pearlberg.
Photo (Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 jaime.silva
by Kate McFarland | Jan 12, 2017 | News
Economist Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, expressed optimism about unconditional basic income (bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen) in an interview with Hamburger Abendblatt, a daily newspaper in Hamburg, Germany. Schwab called the idea “basically plausibly” and predicted that discussion about it would develop over the next decade.
The Hamburger Abendblatt interview covered a range of topics related to globalization and digitalization. At one point, the reporters asked Schwab about his assessment of US President Donald Trump’s contention that he will bring back jobs from Asia and Mexico. In reply, Schwab pointed out that some industry might return to the US in the form of “digitized factories”.
Schwab then broached the idea of unconditional basic income in response to a follow-up question about the future of work: if industry is becoming digitized, what should be done for “those for whom there is no longer any work”?
In Switzerland, there was recently a referendum about the unconditional basic income. At least 23% of the citizens voted for it. Even I assent the idea for a basic income is basically plausible. Furthermore, I believe in 10 years the discussion about it will be far more ahead than now.
In response to a question about the effect of a basic income on attitudes toward work, Schwab asserts that a basic income could be seen as recognition for certain types of work, such as care work, that are important to society but currently paid relatively low wages:
I deny that people would then put their hands in their lap and sit lazily at home. A nurse in Germany with 2000 euros gross pay might today feel worn out. If, however, she were to receive a basic income, she might see it as recognition, and she would have a different basic attitude towards her work. In the future, if jobs are swept away due to digitalization, we need on the other hand a humanization of society. Industrial jobs will be gone, but there will be more social work to be done, like medical and health care.
The World Economic Forum is best known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Held each year in January, the Davos meeting brings together approximately 2,500 invited guests, comprising top business executives, political leaders, and distinguished academics, for a series of panels and discussions of pressing global economic, political, and social issues.
The Davos meeting itself has already proven receptive to discussions of basic income. This year, the event will include a panel on basic income, featuring BIEN cofounder Guy Standing. Last year, the event held a forum on a “world without work”, in which Nobel laureate Sir Christopher Pissarides expressed support for a basic income guarantee, and was the site of the dancing “robots for basic income”.
Full interview with Schwab (in German):
Hannes Koch and Jörg Quoos “Schwab: ‘Gewinner müssen mit Verlierern solidarisch sein’,” Hamburger Abendblatt, January 9, 2017.
Translation assistance by Ronald Heinrich. Reviewed by Danny Pearlberg.
Photo CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 World Economic Forum
by Kate McFarland | Dec 29, 2016 | News
Timotheus Höttges, CEO of the multibillion dollar telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG, has previously expressed support of unconditional basic income. In December 2016, he again addressed the subject in an interview in the German business newspaper Handelsblatt.
In a recent interview with Handelsblatt, Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges talks about the changing nature of work, especially potential job loss due to digitization — to which, he admits, his own company is not immune — and the demand for more specialized skills. In response to a question about why he supports an unconditional basic income (“bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen”), he notes that jobs are becoming more project-based, with permanent full-time employment becoming less of a norm.
Timotheus Höttges
Between digitization and project-based work structures, we should expect that workers will need more time to retrain as well as more periods of unemployment or part-time employment — and, according to Höttges, Germany’s current welfare system is ill-equipped to support such workers. Thus, he believes that the government should replace its complex system of subsidies with an unconditional basic income [1].
Höttges adds that an unconditional basic income would promote more dignity (“Würde”) than Germany’s current welfare system — which puts the would-be recipient in the position of a supplicant, having to ask for aid — and that it could promote entrepreneurship.
Although he admits that some might take advantage of the basic income without contributing to society, Höttges denies that a basic income would create a “society of loafers” (“Gesellschaft von Faulenzern”), since it is through work that people find meaning and identity.
Höttges also points out that a basic income would encourage respect for those who choose to do work that is traditionally unpaid, giving the example of care for ailing parents. (It’s worth noting in this connection that, earlier in the interview, Höttges argues that revenue is no longer an adequate measure of productivity, given the extent to which information can now be created and distributed freely, as in Wikipedia.)
When asked about funding for an unconditional basic income, Höttges stresses that the policy needs to be seen as part of a broader package of a reforms, including tax reform. He maintains that corporate profits must be taxed and redistributed as a matter of justice, fairness, and solidarity (“Gerechtigkeit, Fairness, Solidarität”).
The interview also mentions top-ranked German CEOs who are sympathetic to basic income, including Götz Werner of dm-drogerie markt — with whom Höttges has discussed the idea — and Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser, who called for “a kind of basic income” during the Süddeutsche Zeitung Economic Summit in November (although he subsequently indicated in a Tweet that he did not believe the basic income needed to be unconditional).
If you read German, you can read the entire interview here:
Ina Karabasz, “Telekom Timotheus Höttges CEO: ‘Wir sind zu satt’,” Handelsblatt, December 20, 2016.
[1] In the original German: “Also wird es Phasen geben, in denen der Mensch keine Arbeit hat, umschult oder nur in Teilzeit für ein Unternehmen arbeitet. Diese Phasen wird der Sozialstaat überbrücken müssen. Warum soll man dessen komplexe Förderungssystematik nicht mit einem bedingungslosen Grundeinkommen ersetzen?”
Timotheus Höttges photos: CC BY-SA 4.0 Sebaso
by Kate McFarland | Dec 19, 2016 | News
On December 1, 2016, the Volkswagen Foundation (VolkswagenStiftung) hosted a panel discussion on unconditional basic income in Hanover, Germany.
Not to be confused with the Volkswagen Group (the unaffiliated auto manufacturer), VolkswagenStiftung is a non-profit organization dedicated to research and education. The foundation is Germany’s largest private funder of research in the humanities, social sciences, and science and technology.
As part of its mission, VolkswagenStiftung hosts public events to keep the public informed of developments in a variety of fields. One of its recent events was on the topic of unconditional basic income (“bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen”):
Its advocates demand for each citizen an income independent of work and personal need. In Germany it should be between 800 and 1500 euros. The arguments of the advocates: the stigmatization of the unemployed can be eliminated, freedom for self-realization can be strengthened, and social bureaucracy can be dismantled. The opponents predict, however, that the future of the welfare state is endangered if income is no longer linked to personal performance. The principle of mutual assistance based on the principle of reciprocity would be undermined.
VolkswagenStiftung’s basic income event began with talks from two professors — Michael Opielka (Institute for Social Ecology and the Department of Social Affairs at Ernst Abbe Jena University) and Stephan Lessenich (Department of Sociology at the University of Munich) — both of whom are members of the Scientific Advisory Board of BIEN’s German affiliate, Netzwerk Grundeinkommen.
Following their opening lectures, Opielka and Lessenich joined a panel discussion and debate with two critics of basic income: Jutta Allmendinger (President of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center) and Michael Sommer (former National Chairman of the German Trade Union Federation, DGB). An article on the event from Netzwerk Grundeinkommen points out that Allmendinger has opposed UBI in previous discussions, including an exchange with the billionaire entrepreneur and UBI proponent Götz Werner. Allmendinger worried that a UBI would either be too small to be impactful or too large to be financed and to continue to incentivize work. Sommer has attacked UBI for discounting the value of work.
Audio recordings of VolkswagenStiftung’s events are available on its website.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: Herrenhäuser Gärten, CC BY-SA 3.0 John D.
