by Andre Coelho | Nov 18, 2015 | News
After having defended Basic Income (BI) for the latest European Parliament elections and rejecting it in its first Economic Policy draft, Podemos maintains a conditional grant measure in its latest electoral program. In this document, the main economic policy instruments related to this conditional grant are the transfer of a guaranteed 600 € per month for every family or every citizen (this is not clear between sources) without a wage, and a complement of a sufficient amount so that every individual cannot earn less than 900 € per month, when employed.
An economic council including specialists like Nacho Álvarez, James Galbraith, Vicenç Navarro, Núria Alonso and Francisco Louçã, has calculated a cost of 15 000 million € per year to finance the 600 € per month measure. Until further notice, this attribution refers to individuals or families without an income as a sole condition, nothing more. That is not a basic income as usually defined, but could be a starting point for evolution later.
Thomas Piketty, professor of economics and author of the best seller book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has also contributed to this latest version of Podemos economic program. Piketty has been a supporter of redistribution policies for a long time, some of which resemble basic income.
More information at:
Liam Upton, “Spain: Podemos leave Basic Income out of landmark economic document“, Basic Income News, November 30th 2014
In Portuguese:
Catarina Falcão, “Francisco Louçã integra Conselho Económico do Podemos [Francisco Louçã is a part of Podemos Economic Council]“, Observador, October 21st 2015
In Spanish:
Iolanda Mármol, “Podemos expone las líneas estratégicas de su programa económico [Podemos presents its economic program strategic lines]“, El Periódico, October 21st 2015
by Vito Laterza | Oct 17, 2015 | News
Guy Standing, honorary president of BIEN, noted author, and leading advocate of basic income was interviewed on National Public Radio (US) on September 20, 2015. You can listen to the broadcast here.
He will give several talks on basic income in the next few weeks. Here are the details:
October 18, 18.00: talk on the precariat and basic income, Warsaw, Poland, organised by Krytyka Polityczna/Political Critique. Organiser: Slawomir Sierakowski (sierakowski@krytykapolityczna.pl)
October 29, 19.00: “The precariat: Towards a new progressive politics” (including basic income), Johannes Kepler Universität, Linz, Austria, organised by Netzwerk Grundeinkommen, the Austrian Basic Income Network. More information here. Organiser: Roland Atzmüller (Roland.Atzmueller@jku.at)
October 30, 18.30: “The precariat: Towards a new progressive politics” (including basic income), University of Vienna, Austria, organised by Netzwerk Grundeinkommen (the Austrian Basic Income Network), with the Institut für Wissenschaft und Kunst (IWK), and the Institut für Politikwissenschaft, University of Vienna. More information here. Organiser: Karl Reitter (k.reitter@gmx.net)
November 10, 19.00: public lecture on “A charter of rights for the precariat in the 21st century?”, Barcelona, Spain, organised by the Observatory for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (DESC) and the Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture (CCCB). More information here. Contact: (taquilles@cccb.org)
by BIEN | Sep 8, 2015 | News
This article critically assesses both sides in the debate about the advance of technology’s impact on the future of employment. Social media is a great example of how new technology has actually created more jobs in the process of technological advancement, but other data predicts that 45% of jobs could disappear. Regardless of the impact technology will have, Rota believes basic income needs to shape the policy surrounding technological change.
Anton Fernandez de Rota, “About technology, basic income and the extinction of work [De la tecnología, la Renta Básica y la extinción del trabajo]” Diagonal Blogs, August 26, 2015.
by Andre Coelho | Sep 2, 2015 | News
Círculo Renta Básica event poster (credit to: Círculo Podemos Fuencarral – El Pardo)
Spain is preparing for general elections, and the party known as Podemos has found itself at the center of the latest political dispute. As a progressive movement, Podemos has started out by considering Basic Income (BI) in its political framework, namely in the latest elections for the European Parliament. More recently, however, BI has been left out from a more recent economic draft forming the basis of the present party platform. However, that fact has not dissuaded Círculo Renta Básica, a BI-focused group within Podemos, which has opened an initiative to reinsert BI into Podemos’ platform. (These latest events are summarized here).
Círculo Renta Básica’s official presentation took place on the June 8th, and despite that politically, two months is a great deal, it is important to register what exactly was presented at this event.
At this meeting, Podemos member and founder of Círculo Renta Básica, Héctor Zapata, spoke on the Spanish social situation and presented the case for BI, after being introduced by Raquel Carrasco, a member of Podemos Citizen Group in Madrid (Consejo Ciudadano de Madrid). Héctor started by establishing BI as a human rights matter with respect to the Spanish Constitution, in which human subsistence is designated as a basic right. He then listed BI’s main advantages, such as eliminating poverty, reducing inequality, reducing crime (as most crimes are co-related with poverty), enhancing workers’ bargaining power and boosting local economies. As for financing, Podemos’ Círculo Renta Básica adopted the proposal published by Daniel Raventós et al. Raventós states that, overall, financing BI can be accomplished with only €35 billion, or 3.5% of Spain’s gross national product. Calling for support for his group’s proposal, Héctor stressed that if this initiative is successful, Spain will be the first country in the world to eradicate poverty.
One of Podemos’ founders, political scientist and college professor Juan Carlos Monedero, highlighted the political, as opposed to technical,nature of BI discussions. Hence, he argued, it’s up to the people to decide the issue, not a very narrow subset of “specialists”. He stated that BI can have a positive effect on today’s global problems, such as climate change and high-finance terrorism, making the case that all these societal challenges are related. Monedero reasoned that it is senseless to maintain inequality and then spend public funds in police and jails, when the truly intelligent investment would be to bury poverty altogether by implementing BI. Clearly agreeing with Héctor on the BI benefit of empowering workers when dealing with employers, he also pointed out to another benefit of BI: rewarding women for all the unpaid work they contribute to society. He concluded that the BI is a necessary tool for each person to participate in society in a meaningful way, a crucial piece of social policy to restore democracy and minimum living standards.
As for Daniel Raventós, he emphatically reminds us that other revolutionary ideas have been resisted and ridiculed, until they are finally adopted and “obvious”. He recalls that it is not possible to merge great fortunes and democracy, so we must choose the one we really want for our society. Raventós also dives into the usual criticisms of BI, the first one being: if BI is so wonderful for most people (over 70%), then why such resistance? The first reason stems from the fact that the people who are supposed to pay for the BI are the richest, with greater power and influence, casting their perspective over the populace through the media. Another reason comes from lack of information, leading many to conclude that BI will just make people give up work, or that it will only feed lazy people, or that its financing is impossible, or even that it will cause degeneration into social disorder. In his view, the greatest obstacle to implementing BI is the fact that it would considerably enhance most people’s freedom, which when seen from the rich elite’s point of view, is catastrophic. He argues that humans are all different but some differences cannot be allowed. The smallest fraction of people impose their interests on millions of others, who get restricted and conditioned in their access to even the most basic necessities. It is because BI will break what he calls a “disciplining effect” that elites struggle so hard against it.
With 20 days left till the Podemos Círculo Renta Básica BI proposal ends, 4.17% support has been achieved, with 10% as the target minimum.
More information at:
In Spanish (event streamline):
Liam Upton, “SPAIN: Efforts Within Podemos to Ensure Basic Income is a General Election Policy“, BI News, July 8 2015
