by Kate McFarland | Aug 6, 2016 | News
As previously reported on Basic Income News, economist and BIEN co-founder Guy Standing (SOAS University of London) delivered the prestigious Angus Millar Lecture for RSA Scotland last May.
A video of Standing’s Angus Millar Lecture has been made available online, with some pretty cool music at the beginning.
Democracy TV, “Professor Guy Standing – Basic Income – in relation to Scotland,” YouTube; published on May 18, 2016.
Image Credit: Stan Jourdan, BIEN Congress 2012
by Kate McFarland | May 29, 2016 | News
Dr. Guy Standing, co-founder and honorary co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network, was recently a featured guest on two episodes of Sputnik‘s Brave New World podcast.
The first episode provides a general introduction to universal basic income, including an overview of common arguments for and against the idea.
The second turns to practical issues in testing and implementing a basic income, as well as Standing’s forecasts concerning where and how the first realizations of the idea are most likely to emerge.
Listen to the episodes here:
1. “Is Basic Income Now Essential?” (April 29, 2016)
2. “Universal Basic Income: The Year of the Pilot” (March 13, 2016)
Image Credit: New Zealand Tertiary Education Union, via Wikimedia Commons
by Vito Laterza | Dec 14, 2015 | News
On December 8, Huffington Post Live hosted a debate on basic income following the coverage by mainstream news of the Finnish basic income experiment.
There were three guest speakers:
Guy Standing, BIEN’s Honorary President.
Guy Standing, economist, professor of development studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (London), and BIEN’s Honorary President;
Karl Widerquist, political philosopher and economist, associate professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, co-chair of BIEN, and co-founder of US Basic Income Guarantee;
Daniel Tencer, business editor of the Huffington Post Canada.
In a broad-ranging discussion, the speakers argued that basic income is both feasible and desirable. Karl Widerquist began the conversation by clarifying that a basic income is given to all citizens and does not depend on means-testing or a work requirement. In other words, it is universal and unconditional.
Karl Widerquist, BIEN’s co-chair.
The speakers also stressed that a basic income reduces inequalities and eliminates poverty. Daniel Tencer noted that Huffington Post Canada has been writing about basic income for some time. He positively reported on the recent rediscovery of the encouraging results of a five-year experiment with basic income in the town of Dauphin, Manitoba during the 1970s.
Another topic of discussion was the relationship between basic income and other welfare benefits. Referring to the Finnish experiment, Guy Standing said that, while basic income is usually discussed in the context of wide-ranging welfare reform, it does not have to replace all existing benefits at once. It can be implemented gradually, while keeping certain needs-based benefits such as disability grants.
When queried about the standard criticism that a basic income is not affordable, Standing and Widerquist remarked that, in fact, it is affordable, and could be financed in a number of ways, from various forms of taxation to currency reform.
Click here to watch the 15-minute video of the debate.
by Vito Laterza | Dec 8, 2015 | News
Guy Standing, renowned economist, noted author and honorary president of BIEN, was recently interviewed by the Equal Times, a global media platform that focuses on work and social justice.
Guy Standing makes a forceful case for basic income that takes into account the current global conditions of the labor market and the economy. He draws on his vast wealth of knowledge and presents complex concepts in a clear and synthetic manner.
Standing argues that:
– Basic income is key to get people out of the poverty trap, as people experience few gains merely by moving from unemployment benefits to low-paying jobs.
– Trade unions’ opposition to basic income is misguided, as unions and workers would actually benefit from a basic income.
– The struggles for a minimum wage are a positive development, but a minimum wage does not guarantee the welfare of the growing number of people who are not formally employed.
– Evidence from projects in Africa and India indicates that people are more cooperative and more productive when given a basic income, contrary to fears that a basic income would reduce productivity.
– An unconditional basic income would be an effective tool to fight poverty in developing countries, whereas conditional forms of social assistance drive down wages and increase dependency and exploitation.
– Basic income is affordable. One way to finance it is to overhaul the existing benefit system, while also cutting subsidies and tax breaks to big corporations and rich people.
– Basic income is not a panacea, but an essential measure to improve the worsening conditions of the “precariat”, the growing class of people who have little or no prospects of finding a full-time permanent job in their lifetime.
Chris Burns interviews Guy Standing, “Most unions have failed to respond to the needs and aspirations of the precariat,” Equal Times, November 26, 2015.
by Citizens' Income Trust | Jul 10, 2015 | Opinion
Sarath Davala, Renana Jhabvala, Soumya Kapoor Mehta and Guy Standing, Basic Income: A transformative policy for India, Bloomsbury, 2015, xii + 234 pp, 1 4725 8310 9, hbk, xvi + 331 pp, £65, 1 4725 8311 6, pbk, xvi + 331 pp, £19.99
How can poverty be ended in the world’s developing nations? A simple question: and it might have a simple answer. A recent pilot project in India shows that a Citizen’s Income – an unconditional income for every individual – can make a substantial dent in poverty and create the conditions for its elimination.
This book is the report of eighteen-month experiments in which thousands of men, women and children in urban, rural and tribal communities in India were given a monthly unconditional income in place of India’s flawed subsidised food and guaranteed employment schemes. Pilot communities in which cash transfers would replace the subsidy system, and control communities in which they would not, were randomly selected, and the different outcomes in relation to a number of factors were carefully evaluated during the project and at the end.
The first chapter describes how the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) worked with Guy Standing and his colleagues to decide that the pilot project would be of a genuine Citizen’s Income – a universal, unconditional and nonwithdrawable cash transfer – for every individual in the pilot communities. Arguments against such cash transfers are answered. The second chapter describes the project, and the vast amount of work that went into establishing the necessary infrastructure, and particularly into ensuring that everyone in the pilot communities had bank accounts into which their Citizen’s Incomes could be paid.
The rest of the book describes the effects of the Citizen’s Income in terms of improved housing, electricity and water supplies, sanitation, nutrition, health, healthcare, school attendance and performance (especially for girls of secondary school age), and economic activity: by the end of the project, ‘many more households in the basic income villages had increased their earned incomes than was the case in the control villages, and many fewer had experienced a fall in earned income than in the control villages’ (p.139). In the pilot villages, child and teenage labour shifted from wage labour to own account work on family farms and to increased school attendance, bonded labour decreased as debts were paid off, and the purchase of such assets as sewing machines facilitated increased own account economic activity. Women’s status was enhanced by their new financial independence and by SEWA’s involvement, and the elderly and the disabled experienced improved status and living conditions. The final chapter shows that India could afford to pay a small universal Citizen’s Income by reallocating the money currently spent on food subsidy schemes.
SEWA, UNICEF and the researchers are to be congratulated on the establishment, and the significant success, of this pilot project. They have proved that it is possible to implement a Citizen’s Income in a developing country and that the benefits of doing so are substantial. The results are encouragingly similar to those generated by a Namibian pilot project in which Guy Standing was also involved. A significant cumulative case has now been built. Now all that is required is the political will to establish a Citizen’s Income scheme. If that happens then it might be a developing country, rather than a developed one, that implements the first universal Citizen’s Income and reaps the social and economic benefits.
