by Hilde Latour | Dec 9, 2016 | News
“The Earth offers enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed” is the opening sentence of the election-program of the Party for the Animals (“Partij voor de Dieren”, PvdD). This document has been released in advance of the Dutch parliamentary elections, which will be held on March 15th, 2017.
One would expect huge attention to be paid to environmental issues in the election-program of the PvdD, but economic issues also receive extensive attention. In fact, its first chapter is titled “Economy and Labour, Your Money or Your Life?”
According to the PvdD, the economic crisis was not caused by scarcity, but by flaws in the economic system. They argue that we are capable of producing all we need very efficiently – with ever decreasing demands on labour – which offers great opportunity to spend more time on caring for each other, our environment and ourselves. However, we have organized our economy in such a way that spending time on these latter goods is in fact increasingly difficult. People are forced to work more rather than less. Many people are excluded and production and consumption are forced to grow, regardless of the demands of the people. Labour is very expensive due to taxes which employers as well as employees have to pay, while at the same time being abundantly available. In contrast, raw materials are scarce but cheap and their mining causes imbalances in nature.
“The current economic system causes growth-and-debt slavery, on account of which everything will jam. We will have to organize this differently,” PvdD states in its program.
PvdD proposes making labour cheaper and non-sustainable goods more expensive. Shorter working hours should be available for everyone, they argue, which will help to tackle unemployment and create possibilities to combine paid labour with other activities, such as care work, parenting or voluntary work. PvdD strives for “a society in which paid labour is no longer seen as the only or most important goal in life”.
Party for the Animals sees an unconditional basic income as a possible solution:
“A basic income for everyone will have to be seriously investigated. With such an income we can perform work and activities that today remain untouched because we don’t have time for them or because they are too expensive. […] A basic income could allow a lot more activities that are beneficial to society to be developed.”
According to the PvdD, polls say 19% of Dutch voters are considering voting for the party in the upcoming elections.
Info and links
The election program of PvdD can be found here (in Dutch)
Photo: topheader international website Party for the Animals
Special thanks to Josh Martin and Genevieve Shanahan for reviewing this article
by Kate McFarland | Dec 3, 2016 | News
Videos of the workshop “Experimenting with Basic Income: Finland and the Netherlands” are available online. Additionally, Jurgen De Wispelaere has a new blog post describing the promises and challenges of a comparative approach to basic income experiments.
As described in recent articles in Basic Income News, both Finland and the Netherlands will be launching basic income experiments early in 2017. In each case, the experiment is planned to continue for two years, the target population under investigation will be restricted to individuals currently receiving social assistance benefits, and research questions will center on the basic income’s effect on work incentives. Despite such broad similarities, however, the experiments also have notable differences — in both design and political context.
Workshop at Kela
To address these issues, Kela, the Social Insurance Institute of Finland, hosted a day-long workshop on “Experimenting with Basic Income: Finland and the Netherlands” on November 8. Speakers included Sjir Hoeijmakers, Loek Groot, Timo Verlaat, Ernst-Jan de Bruijn, and Ruud Muffels on the Dutch experiments, and Johanna Perkiö, Olli Kangas, and Kathrin Komp on the Finnish experiments.
Videos of all sessions are now available (click on the above embedded links).
Lessons and Challenges
Jurgen De Wispelaere, a research fellow at Finland’s University of Tampere, presented opening and closing comments at Kela’s workshop, respectively titled “Putting Basic Income Experiments in Context” and “Comparing Basic Income Experiments: Lessons and Challenges” (see video below).
In a recent post on Kela’s blog, De Wispelaere outlines three main reasons to engage in a comparative study of basic income experiments: the comparative approach allows researchers to pool information about issues faced in running a basic income experiment, pool knowledge about the effects of basic income, and study the political forces behind the rapid rise in popularity of basic income.
Jurgen De Wispelaere (November 14, 2016) “Comparing Basic Income Experiments: Lessons and Challenges” Kela.
Other Experiments
While the Kela workshop and De Wispelaere’s brief article focus specifically on the experiments in Finland and the Netherlands, we might note that other basic income pilots and experiments are about to begin around the world. In Canada, the provincial government of Ontario plans to roll out a basic income pilot study by April 2017. The government of France is also investigating the possibility of experimenting with a basic income, although no launch date has been specified. Several privately-funded basic income pilots and experiments are also scheduled to begin in 2017, including those of the Silicon Valley firm Y Combinator (in Oakland, California) and the charities GiveDirectly (in multiple Kenyan villages) and Eight (in a Ugandan village).
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: Kela office, CC-BY-SA-4.0 Kotivalo
by Guest Contributor | Dec 1, 2016 | Opinion
By Alexander de Roo
The discussion about basic income has changed completely.
Thirty years ago, it was a very principled debate. High unemployment. No future. Thus, give us a basic income, because the system cannot give us paid work. The counter argument was you must do paid work to receive an income. A basic income is morally unacceptable.
How different is the discussion now: when we go out and hand leaflets in the streets, 50 to 90 percent of the population takes our leaflets (50 percent in rich area’s and 90 percent in poor neighborhoods). The most common reaction is: basic income is a good idea, but how do you finance it? Who pays for it?
A very pragmatic discussion no longer principles banging against each another.
The confidence in the present social system in The Netherlands is shaken compared to 30 years ago. Previously you got five years’ unemployment money and one could easily look for another job. Now even middle class people lose their well-paid job and after two years of unemployment money must ‘eat up’ (meaning sell) their own house to get social assistant money…. five million people have a steady, normal contract. That is ten percent less than ten years ago. Two million people have flexible contracts for bull-shit jobs, two million people live from social benefits (in different forms), one million people are independent professionals without access to unemployment money (ZZP or freelancers), the pension age keeps going up (now 67 years), while people above 50 years have zero (or realistically around 1 percent) changes on the labor market.
But the Netherlands is still one the five or ten richest countries in the world!
The two biggest newspapers held polls about basic income! About 40 – 44 percent comes out in favor. A reliable national poll measured 40 percent in favor, 45 percent against and 15 percent do not know. The majority of the electorate of the green and left parties are in favor. With the two right wing parties it is the opposite: their electorate is against: “we are working hard and do not want to pay a basic income for these (lazy) people that just want to have a basic income”.
Most interesting is that the voters for the Freedom party of Mister Wilders (our local Trump) are divided: 37 percent in favor and 46 percent against, 17 percent don’t know. Almost the same as the national average! Politically we must use this.
But the leaders of the green and left wing parties do not take up the issue of a basic income. They stick to repairing /amending the old social system. They think (and hope) the economy is recovering, unemployment will fall and then this basic income discussion will go away like it did around the year 2000.
But they are wrong we have now one year economic recovery: the result 12,000 new steady jobs and 78,000 flexible low-value jobs. The flexibility of the labor market keeps growing. We will turn back the clock on these flex jobs; providing more jobs is the answer of the green and left wing leaders.
Our answer is to increase our support for the basic income alternative in the upcoming national elections March 15, 2017. Around 60,000 people signed a petition for a basic income in 2018. Demonstrating that 800 € for every citizen in the Netherlands is easily affordable and that even 1,100 € is easily financed.
After the elections, we will work with respectable institutions to come up with a transition route from the present situation to a full basic income.
Annotation: A basic income of 800 € requires 10 billion € more per year then the present situation, 1,100 € will cost around 30 billion euro more. The present government (Conservatives + Social democrats) have cut the state expenditure with 30 billion € and raised indirect taxes with 16 billion euro’s: in total 56 billion in the last 4 years.
Alexander de Roo is a founder of BIEN in 1986, former BIEN treasurer (1986-2004), and now Chairman of the Dutch branch of BIEN.
by Kate McFarland | Nov 24, 2016 | News
British journalist and broadcaster Paul Mason, author of Post-Capitalism: A Guide to Our Future, recently delivered a lecture in Amsterdam in which he points out the need for a universal basic income as a partial solution to changes in the economy due to new technologies. He raises related concerns in an article in The Guardian published shortly thereafter.
On October 25, author Paul Mason delivered a lecture at the De Balie culture center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, wherein he argues that technological advancement has been not only correlated with but in fact a cause of economic stagnation. He attributes this to several characteristics of new information technologies: the ability to automate more jobs and job tasks, the ability to produce and reproduce goods at very low (even zero) marginal cost, and the ability to combine data through networks to generate new goods not reflected in standard measures of economic growth.
In addressing how the left should respond, Mason says, “Our long-term aim should be to push more and more economic activity [to be] done outside the market and the state.” This requires, in part, that we “end [the] reliance on wages for work.” In this context, he continues: “We need quickly to pursue the experiments with the universal basic income … and aim within 10 years for states to be in a position to roll out the policy itself.”
He goes on to add, however, that UBI alone is insufficient; the state, for instance, should also provide “cheap basic goods” (he mentions housing, healthcare, education, and transportation) and promote open source and non-profit businesses.
The entire lecture, along with the Q&A session, can be viewed below. Mason has also published a text version of his lecture on Medium.
https://vimeo.com/188859000#t=8m42s
In an October 31 article in The Guardian, Mason again broached UBI as a potential solution to technological unemployment — predicting a world in which smart technologies, such as autonomous vehicles, cause paid work to become scarce and sporadic. Here, in passing, Mason also links UBI to the potential fulfillment of Marx’s vision of a society in which people are free to “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, [and] criticise after dinner” without ever assuming an occupational identity as hunter, fisher, cattle-rearer, or critic.
References
Paul Mason (October 27, 2016) “Postcapitalism [in Amsterdam]” Medium.
Paul Mason (October 31, 2016) “The battle over Uber and driverless cars is really a debate about the future of humanity” The Guardian.
Photo: Paul Mason in 2015, CC-BY-SA-4.0 DTRocks via Wikimedia Commons
by Florie Barnhoorn | Nov 2, 2016 | News
A citizens’ initiative for the introduction of a basic income in the Netherlands in 2018 recently handed over a petition containing 58,800 signatures calling for a debate in the Parliament. The signatories are advocates of a guaranteed income of approximately 1000 EUR per month for all adults, plus basic health insurance and an extra payment for children under the age of 18 years. The supporters say that a basic income will allow everyone more freedom to decide whether to work, study, start a company or, for example, take care of elderly family members, instead of being stuck in a hated job to provide for their families. The citizens’ initiative has collected 58,800 signatures, significantly more than the 40,000 needed to place a controversial issue on the agenda of the Parliament.
The paper invitation to sign the petition was spread as a ‘Civil Relief Assessment Notice’, similar to an assessment notice directed to all Dutch taxpayers. According to Johan Luijendijk, one of the initiators of the citizens’ initiative and co-organizer of Basicincome2018, an informal digital platform for sharing information on basic income and the exchange of experiences, the threshold of 40,000 signatures was already met in April: “This happened so fast that we adjusted our ambitions to 100,000. But the growth slowed down, so if we continue at this rate, we will not achieve our goal soon.” He believes that the general public is still unfamiliar with the subject and that the relatively small circle of proponents has been reached: “I suppose that many people still have ’cold feet’ to endorse the rather radical idea of a unconditional basic income”, he says. Hence, it was decided to submit the initiative this week.
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Civil Relief Assessment Notice
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After the presentation of the petition to Members of Parliament, the signatures will be counted and validated. The whole process can be completed in about a month, according to RTL. It is also checked whether this is a topic parliament hasn’t dealt with recently. Last September, members of the Second Chamber of Parliament (House of Representatives) discussed with the Minister for Social Affairs and Employment, Lodewijk Asscher (Partij van de Arbeid / PvdA / Labour Party) a memorandum initiated by Norbert Klein, leader of the Vrijzinnige Partij (Cultural Liberal Party) wherein he advocates the introduction of a basic income. However, the MPs have postponed the voting procedure, so there is a chance that Parliament is obliged to consider the current initiative. If a majority is in favor of the proposal, the responsible minister will be asked to change his or her policy towards a basic income.
At present, the basic income movement has to transfer its focus to the upcoming elections for new members of the House of Representatives in March 2017. Political parties are now making their programmes. So far, only a few of them (Party for the Animals with 2 seats in Parliament; Cultural Liberal Party with 1 seat; Pirate Party no seats) have explicitly included a guaranteed income in their programmes for the next four year. Intensive debates will take place with GroenLinks (GreenLeft), PvdA (Labour Party), D66 (Democrats 66), SP (Socialist Party) and the minority of proponents in VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) and CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal) in order to persuade these political parties to adopt an unconditional basic income as an indispensable part of their political ambitions (according to an email communication with Alexander de Roo, the chairman of the Dutch branch of BIEN). “We are also planning to intensify our lobby towards entrepreneurs. We want them to speak openly about the benefits and necessity of the introduction of a universal basic income.”
Thanks to Ali Özgür Abalı for reviewing a draft of this article.
Credit Picture ‘Public debate on basic income‘ CC Zeptonn
Credit Pictures’ Civil Relief Assessment Notice‘ Verlichtingsdienst
