by Kate McFarland | Nov 11, 2016 | News
The 2016 Global Action Summit, convening November 14-15 in Nashville, Tennessee, will include a panel on issues such as automation, the future of work, and universal basic income.
The annual summit of the Global Action Platform brings together corporate and nonprofit leaders, government officials, academics, and other invited guests for a series of keynote lectures and panel discussions. This year, 400 invited guests will take part in discussions on the theme of “scalable, sustainable solutions for abundant food, health, and prosperity.”
Of particular note to Basic Income News is a panel on the topic “Life in a Post-Employment Society”, whose participants include two prominent figures in the basic income movement (see short video clips below): Jim Pugh, who co-founded the Universal Income Project and The Basic Income Podcast, and freelance UBI writer Scott Santens. Completing the panel are M. Douglas Meeks, Professor of Theology at Vanderbilt University, and Michael Tanner, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Tanner has previously expressed skepticism of universal basic income, despite acknowledging potential advantages over the current state. More recently, he moderated a high-profile basic income forum with Charles Murray and Andy Stern.
During this panel, corporate advisor Bob Castro will moderate a discussion of ways in which governments or other institutions can help individuals and society cope with a world with fewer opportunities for employment. Panelists will address such topics as the feasibility of a universal basic income and possibilities for finding personal meaning outside of jobs.
The 2016 Global Action Summit will take place November 14-15 in Nashville, Tennessee, and the “Life in a Post-Employment Society” panel will be held on the afternoon of Monday, November 14.
The conference’s keynote speaker is journalist and CNN host Fareed Zakaria, who will offer a forecast of the effect of the election of US President Donald Trump on food security, health, and prosperity. Zakaria himself recently moderated another high-profile basic income debate, between pro-UBI Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes and anti-UBI New York Times columnist Eduardo Porter.
A complete schedule of other panels and events at the Global Action Summit is available at this page: https://globalactionplatform.org/pages/view/global-action-summit.
Note that registration is open only to participants and invited guests.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo CC BY 2.0 Steve Jurvetson
by Kate McFarland | Oct 31, 2016 | News
The American magazine The Atlantic hosted its first Future of Work Summit on October 26 in Chicago, Illinois.
This day-long conference included sessions on automation and technological unemployment (e.g. “Are Robots Taking Our Jobs?” with McKinsey Institute Partner Michael Chui); the rise of the sharing and gig economies (e.g. “The Sharing Economy” with Freelancers Union’s Sara Horowitz, Lyft’s Joseph Okpaku, and New York University Professor Arun Sundararajan); and the nature and importance of work (e.g. “Do We Need Work to Be Happy?” with Emeritus Professor of Psychology Barry Schwartz)–among others.
While many of the topics explored at the Future of Work Summit are relevant to the current movement for basic income, it is particularly noteworthy that one session was specifically focused on the topic: Atlantic editor Steve Clemons interviewed prominent BI advocate Scott Santens about his personal experience crowdfunding his own basic income, as well as the potential for a basic income in the United States.
A video of the entire Future of Work Summit is also available:
Read more about the conference here:
https://www.theatlantic.com/live/events/future-of-work-summit/2016/
N.B. Around 9:03, Clemons asks Santens if he has pressure-tested the idea of basic income against someone “dark and cynical and skeptical of good things”. The author would like to submit herself as someone who considers herself such a person but who nonetheless supports basic income as a utopian ideal, and who was influenced by Santens’ work. She is reported to have reacted to the question by pounding the desk and declaring, “Cynicism and utopianism are not inconsistent!”
by Kate McFarland | Jun 2, 2016 | News
The London-based New Work Order is a group for self-directed individuals building careers outside of the mainstream. In its own words, NWO is “a close-knit network of ambitious and proactive people who are building careers on our own terms.”
The NWO founders describe their journey as follows:
Our journey took us from Switzerland to London, where we met with hundreds of ambitious but frustrated people who felt trapped in a world of work where they didn’t belong.
They longed to be in control of their own destiny, to make an impact on the world in their own unique way and to experience life to the fullest, beyond the confines of a job that offered little meaning, fulfilment or freedom.
We were consistently inspired by the boldness and commitment that these people showed towards transforming their lives by doing work that mattered to them. But we also witnessed their struggles. …
NWO exists primarily to provide a support network for such individuals.
Around here, of course, many of us would say that a universal basic income is what we really need to empower all people to transform their lives through meaningful work — and thus immensely benefit members of a group like NWO.
This is why it’s fortunate that the New Work Order’s podcast recently broadcast an episode dedicated to basic income, featuring guest Scott Santens.
During the 35 minute interview, Santens describes what a basic income is, where the idea came from, how it would work in practice, and why it is necessary in our present societies. He also talks about what its like to live with a basic income, having achieved his own crowdfunded basic income in December 2015.
Stock picture of people working in coffee shop from Pexels.
by Vito Laterza | Dec 15, 2015 | News
New Orleans-based writer and basic income advocate Scott Santens has become the first person to successfully crowdfund a perpetual monthly basic income. Starting his campaign on October 13, 2014 on the crowdfunding platform Patreon, Santens achieved his goal of $1,000 per month fourteen months later on December 11 with the help of 143 funders ranging from venture capitalists and Facebook engineers to women’s rights advocates and artists who all believe everyone needs a basic income.
Basic income is quickly gaining prominence in think tanks and policy circles worldwide due to growing concerns brought on by advancing technologies like self-driving vehicles and artificial intelligence, and also growing inequality. It is the idea that everyone should receive, individually and without conditions, an income floor sufficient to cover the most basic needs of life like food and shelter. All income earned through the labor market would then be earned on top of one’s basic income as additional income, and many existing government programs would no longer be required as a direct result. This idea is not new, having at one time been advocated by both Milton Friedman and Martin Luther King Jr., but today’s advocates from both the right and left think its day may have come.
“Basic Income has been taking off with incredible speed in the last few years,” says BIEN co-chair and author Karl Widerquist of SFS-Qatar, Georgetown University. “Activist movements for basic income are growing, and it’s already getting serious attention from governments in Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and other places. The success of Scott’s campaign for the first crowdfunded basic income in the United States is both a reflection of the growth in the basic income movement and a catalyst for further growth as Scott’s life now demonstrates how basic income can work.”
Such a real-life demonstration is possible through Patreon. As a Kickstarter-like crowdfunding platform, but for creators instead of products, Patreon supports ongoing campaigns for content creators like musicians, artists, 
bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, and photographers that are funded by fans of their work with small pledges of monthly support.
“Patreon is supporting the emerging creative class. We see a future where creators like Scott can earn a living doing what they are passionate about,” says Graham Hunter, Patreon Director of Marketing. “A recent grad from Art or Music school right now doesn’t necessarily feel confident that the value that they provide will be valued by the world; Patreon is changing that.”
Having reached his goal, Scott plans to continue his advocacy for universal basic income and has also promised to give any and all future pledges of support to others on Patreon who have pledged to do the same. This is what he calls “The BIG Patreon Creator Pledge” to assist others on Patreon in attaining their own basic incomes. “Creators want to create. Creators don’t need to be paid to create. However, creators also need to eat. Creators need to have homes. Creators can’t create so long as they aren’t free to create,” wrote Santens earlier this year on his blog in an open thank you letter to Patreon. “People need to be free to create and until universal basic income exists, Patreon can make that possible.”
Scott’s track record as writer and basic income advocate is impressive. His pieces about universal basic income have appeared on The Huffington Post, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), The Daily Dot, and Quartz. He has presented at the first World Summit on Technological Unemployment and participated as a panelist at the Brookings Institute. As an organizer, he helped plan the first Basic Income Create-A-Thon. He is an advisor to the Universal Income Project, a founding committee member of the nonprofit D.C.-based organization Basic Income Action, a coordinating committee member of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, and founder of the BIG Patreon Creator Pledge.
You can follow Scott’s writings on his personal blog and also on The Huffington Post. On social media, you can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit where he moderates the/r/BasicIncome community.
by Jessica Verheij | May 18, 2015 | News
Scott Santens links John Oliver’s interview with Edward Snowden to the discussion around UBI. The advance of technology and automation is making the need for a public discussion around government surveillance more and more urgent, and this goes the same way for a serious debate on a basic income guarantee. Both conversations need to be reframed in order to make everyone understand how vital these topics are for each and every one of us.
Scott Santens, “John Oliver, Edward Snowden, and Unconditional Basic Income“, Medium, April 7 2015
