Great Transition Initiative Forum asks: Has the time come for basic income?
The Great Transition Initiative (GTI), which promotes the ‘exploration of concepts, strategies, and visions for a transition to a future of enriched lives, human solidarity, and a resilient biosphere’ has published a collection of essays from scholars and activists on basic income which are pro, anti and in-between. The essays are divided into two groups: ‘The Case is Strong’ and ‘Caveats and Alternatives’. Thirteen writers on the pro side include Guy Standing, BIEN Chair Sarath Davala, USBIG’s Michael Howard, Almaz Zelleke, and UBI Europe’s Ulrich Schactschneider. The fourteen writers on the more sceptical side include Halina Brown, professor emeritus at Clark University, Andreas Bummel, Anna Coote from the New Economics Foundation, Anke Hassel from the Herte School.
All the essays together cover a lot of ground. The contributions span ideas about basic income developing the caring economy, its potential to help alleviate the environmental crisis and economic insecurity, to monetary reform, basic services, and worries that basic income will promote commodification and privatisation.
GTI is funded by the Tellus Institute, a think-tank based in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the US.
