by Andre Coelho | Feb 7, 2017 | News
This twenty-seven-minute audio broadcast from BBC World Service is dedicated to discussing basic income, on general terms, and has been played for the first time on the 20th of November, 2016. The discussion is chaired by Ed Butler, who has invited Louise Haagh (University of York and Basic Income Earth Network Co-chair), Michael Faye, Michael Tanner (economist, senior fellow at the Cato Institute) and Ian Gough (visiting professor at the London School of Economics).
Michael Faye starts out by saying that giving cash directly to people is more effective than all the advice and control any “expert” can provide. He communicates that Give Directly is presently launching the most ambitious program ever in the organization, providing a basic income for 25,000 people in East Africa, for 15 years. According to him, there is plenty of positive evidence from these trials, with people investing the money in improving their lives. He concludes that cash transfers are effective, whether given to less or more developed nations (in spite of their differences).
Louise argues that the case for basic income does not rely solely on evidence collected from pilots, but also by verifying the limitations and problems with welfare states. State’s response to growing precariousness, lower wages and rising economic insecurity has been ineffective and ever more punitive. The moral error here, according to Louise, is to qualify people as deserving and not deserving, in order to provide them with social benefits (even just for the bare minimum of subsistence). She refers to basic income as possibly cost neutral (although some critics challenge this notion), using tax structures to transfer money from the relatively wealthy to the relatively poor. Louise points out that most current basic income proposals are not meant to replace the welfare state, with its wide range of public services, but to complement it.
Louise Haagh (credit to: Michael Husen, BIEN Danmark)
Michael Tanner states that in principle the basic income idea is a good one. It is less paternalistic, and creates more incentives within the system. He feels the problems arise in the practical aspects of implementation, citing the (presumed) prohibitively expensive cost for rolling out the policy in the United States. This, he thinks, means that basic income will not be taken up in the US any time soon. However, he recognizes that the present social security system is failing, regarding a basic income strategy as more humane and efficient. He also agrees that delinking income from work is beneficial when it comes to some aspects of social security, and that this may actually eliminate the associated disincentives to work (of the present system). Treating people like adults and not paternalizing them with conditions is, according to him, the way forward. In his final words, Tanner expresses that basic income is one of the most promising ideas for social development.
On the critical side of basic income, Ian Gough does not believe that basic income experiments in poorer countries are helpful for the case of (basic income) implementation in wealthier countries. He dismisses basic income as unaffordable or incapable of providing a decent level of security. Furthermore, he associates basic income with the dismantling of public services such as health and education. Gough also mentions that providing a basic income at the poverty line would mean an average tax level of 50%, which he thinks is not attainable.
Listen to the full conversation:
BBC World Service, “Universal Basic Income – Has its time come?”, BBC World Service – In the Balance, November 20th 2016
by Guest Contributor | Jan 26, 2017 | News
San Francisco is not launching a basic income pilot yet
By: Sean Kline, Director of the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment
There is a lot of interest in basic income, and whether it could transform income inequality. The Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE)’s interest in basic income is a direct extension of its broader concern for economic security and intergenerational poverty.
Never heard of the OFE? We are the folks behind Kindergarten to College, the first and largest universal child savings program of its kind in the country now serving 27,000 public school children; Smart Money Coaching, which delivers financial coaching to low-income people at 27 sites across San Francisco; Summer Jobs Connect, which equips youth with a bank account, financial education, and strategies to save during summer employment; Bank On, which helps low-income residents access safe accounts at responsible banks and credit unions; and policy efforts to fight predatory financial practices and help families build assets.
Given the powerful evidence for cash transfers, both domestically and internationally, the OFE recently began exploring whether a basic income demonstration in San Francisco could add evidence to policy debates about reducing income inequality and increasing financial security. Here is what action we are taking:
- Actively participating in the Economic Security Project
- Planning a convening of UBI experimenters in Fall 2017
- Seeking funding to conduct a pilot in San Francisco and potentially with other cities across the country.
- Designing basic income demonstrations to pilot test
The OFE has engaged in thoughtful conversations inside and outside of city government to understand what such a demonstration could look like and what type of new research would be most helpful to inform policy. The OFE is not embarking on any proposal at this moment, but continues to explore when and how to launch a demonstration. In 2016, the OFE joined a three-city consortium to submit a proposal to the MacArthur Foundation for $100 million to fund the first large-scale basic income demonstration in the United States. While unsuccessful in this funding effort, the OFE has continued to explore smaller research demonstrations of a basic income at a cost of between $5 million and $30 million.
Reviewed by Kate McFarland
Image: San Francisco, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Florent Lamoureux
by Kate McFarland | Jan 24, 2017 | News
The Seven Pillars Institute (SPI) for Global Finance and Ethics–an independent, nonpartisan think tank headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri–has published a two-part introduction to the idea of basic income:
Part 1 – “Ethics of Universal Basic Income” by Victoria Tse (October 18, 2016).
Part 2 – “Universal Basic Income: Empirical Studies” by Abhishek Roy (October 31, 2016).
SPI states that its mission is to “highlight and analyze issues of moral philosophy in global financial markets with a view to enhancing ethical practice and policy.”
In November 2016, SPI was shortlisted for a Prospect Magazine think tank of the year award in the “US Energy and Environment” category, especially for its work on eco-tourism.
Photo: The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Chris Booth
by Kate McFarland | Jan 17, 2017 | News
Juliana Bidadanure, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, has designed a graduate seminar on the philosophy of basic income, which she is currently teaching for the winter term.
According to the official course description, the seminar will address questions such as the following: “[I]s giving people cash no strings attached desirable and just? Would basic income promote a more gender equal society through the remuneration of care-work, or would it risk further entrenching the position of women as caregivers? Would alternative policies be more successful (such as job guarantees, stakeholder grants, or a negative income tax)? How can we test out basic income? What makes for a reliable and ethical basic income pilot?”
The seminar will analyze and critique basic income from multiple perspectives in political theory, including feminism, liberalism, republicanism, communism, and libertarianism. Initial readings include classic works by Philippe van Parijs and responses from his critics. Subsequent sessions will address contemporary philosophical work on basic income, as well as potential alternatives, such as job guarantees. Additional topics include empirical work on the health (and other) effects of basic income, the role of automation in motivating basic income, and basic income in relation to gender and racial justice, among others.
Explaining why she was inspired to develop the course, Bidadanure says, “It has been my dream for a while to teach a class on the Philosophy of Basic Income. First, because I am committed to the idea that everyone has a right to an income and because I think that UBI deserves serious treatment; second, because I think it is a great lens through which one can teach Political Philosophy. There is great writing for and against basic income from within pretty much each and every school of political thought. And so my idea was to introduce students of a variety of disciplines to a broad range of writers in political philosophy by focusing on UBI. Given the recent interest in Basic Income in the US, including by computer scientists, engineers and economists, I thought that the timing was right to launch the class!”
On February 8, a special panel on basic income experiments will be held in connection with the seminar.
The panel will feature guests Guy Standing (Professorial Research Associate at SOAS, University of London; BIEN co-founder), Elizabeth Rhodes (Research Director of Y Combinator’s basic income experiment), and Joe Huston (Regional Director at GiveDirectly). Standing, Rhodes, and Huston will speak about basic income research in (respectively) India, Oakland, and Kenya. The event will be presented as a roundtable discussion and open to the public. More information on this event is available here.
Reactions from Students
Although housed in the Department of Philosophy, the seminar spans topics of interest to students in many disciplines. The seminar group is constituted by 10 enrolled participants as well as a further 10 auditors, comprising students of philosophy, political science, psychology, economics, computer science, engineering, and business.
Asked about his interest in the seminar, one participant, a PhD student in Economics, remarks, “Basic income is such a hot topic, but I’ve not come across much rigorous academic thinking on the topic, in any discipline. I now discover there is a whole bunch in philosophy, which I was unaware of and which is really exciting!”
Commenting on his reactions after the first session, he adds, “It’s awesome that the class is about a third economists, a third philosophers, and a third computer scientists – it seems like the venue for a truly exciting exchange of views; and the arguments for and against basic income are so much richer and more diverse than this economist expected!”
Another student in the seminar, Sage, is currently working towards a masters in Symbolic Systems while also finishing an undergraduate degree in Computer Science. Her interest in the topic derives from her work in the technology sector:
“My masters thesis is a work of political philosophy analyzing the responsibility of tech companies to help those in poverty. I am interested in Universal Basic Income because it has grown increasingly popular in the US due to the fear that one day all of our jobs will be completed by robots. I am interested in exploring the other reasons for Universal Basic Income and determining if it is a viable choice in the U.S. given our trajectory in the tech sector. I was impressed by how diverse our class was by region, interest, and background. Having the opportunity to discuss topics in basic income with students so different from me is a fantastic opportunity to round out my research.”
Anusha, a graduate student in Computer Science says her love for data structures (especially the top view of binary tree) made her focus on natural language processing and computer vision. She became interested in the seminar due to her background in AI:
“I was really interested in this seminar because Universal Basic Income has been receiving a lot of attention lately, especially in the Computer Science and AI communities, due to the potential impacts of automation on the future of work. There have also been a lot of discussions around the joint responsibilities of Silicon Valley and policymakers to help those whose jobs are most at risk. I’m really excited about this seminar because it addresses Universal Basic Income from several different perspectives, and I’m eager to learn about the various arguments for and against UBI from those standpoints.”
Nishith, an undergraduate senior in Computer Science who works on computer vision and reinforcement learning, became interested in UBI following a discussion of the economic impact of self-driving trucks and President-Elect Donald Trump’s emphasis on bringing manufacturing jobs back to America. He is excited by Bidadanure’s seminar, adding, “I was surprised to learn that discussions about UBI need not revolve around automation (as they do in Europe) and had a great time talking about the potential benefits and pitfalls of this proposed policy [at the first class meeting].”
Dr. Bidadanure, who holds a PhD in Political Philosophy from the University of York, has research interests at the intersection of philosophy and public policy.
She has written on the theory and practice of equality, including, in particular, age-group justice and what it means to treat young people as equals. She has written on the specific arguments to give a basic income to young adults as well as on hybrids of basic income and basic capital.
Bidadanure plans to teach an undergraduate course on basic income at Stanford in the next academic year. She is also working to launch a basic income research initiative at Stanford as part of the Center for Ethics in Society in 2017.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan.
Information and photo provided by Juliana Bidadanure.
by Kate McFarland | Jan 15, 2017 | Research
The quarterly Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare (based at Western Michigan University) published a symposium on the basic income guarantee (BIG) in its September 2016 issue.
The symposium includes five articles on the topic, plus an introduction written by two members of BIEN: Richard K. Caputo (Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University) and Michael Lewis (School of Social Work at Hunter College, CUNY). The first three articles present arguments for the adoption of a BIG in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, respectively. The fourth argues that a BIG is more politically feasible in the United States than alternative approaches to economic security, such as a Swedish-type welfare state. The fifth proposes a feminist argument for a BIG, although cautioning that more empirical work is needed.
Titles and abstracts, with brief descriptions of the authors, are given below. Links to manuscripts are provided where available.
Jennifer Mays and Greg Marston – “Reimagining Equity and Egalitarianism: The Basic Income Debate in Australia”
“Reimagining equity and egalitarianism calls for rethinking traditional welfare responses to poverty and economic security in Australia. Similar to other advanced Western democracies, Australia has pursued policies underpinned by neoliberal economics in an effort to curtail perceived excesses in public expenditure over the past three decades. In response to these policy settings, commentators and policy activists have increased their attention to the potential of a universal and unconditional basic income scheme to address economic insecurity. This paper positions basic income within the context of Australia’s welfare state arrangements and explores the potential of the scheme to respond to economic insecurity, particularly precarious employment and poverty traps created by a highly targeted social security system.”
May is a Course Coordinator in the School of Public Health and Social Work at the Queensland University of Technology, and Marston is Head of School at the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland.
Mays and Marston are both active members of Basic Income Guarantee Australia (BIGA), BIEN’s Australian affiliate, and were co-editors (with John Tomlinson) of Basic Income in Australia and New Zealand: Perspectives from the Neo-Liberal Frontier (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
James P. Mulvale and Sid Frankel – “Next Steps on the Road to Basic Income in Canada”
“Canada has had recurring debates about guaranteed or basic income over several decades. This article outlines reasons for implementing basic income in the Canadian context–reducing poverty and inequality, addressing precarious employment, and building an ecologically sustainable economy. Recently there has been a strong renewal of interest in basic income in Canada. Expressions of interest have come from the Liberal federal government elected in 2015, from provincial governments, from political parties not in power, and from municipal governments. Support for basic income also is found in a growing range of prominent individuals and organizations. While basic income advocates are encouraged by recent developments, several large and complex questions remain on how this approach can be implemented in Canada. These questions encompass the specifics of design, delivery, funding, and political support. How can basic income build on existing income security programs and leave Canadians better off in the end? How can we ensure that basic income is not used as an excuse to cut vital services such health care, social housing, early childhood care and development, and social services for those with disabilities and other challenges? How can basic income be set in place in Canada,given its complicated federal-provincial nexus of responsibility for, delivery of, and funding for social programs? The article concludes with principles that might help guide the implementation of authentically universal, adequate, and feasible basic income architecture in Canada.”
Mulvale is Dean and Frankel an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba — the site of the 2016 North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress, which they helped to organize.
Keith Rankin – “Prospects for a Universal Basic Income in New Zealand”
“New Zealand is a small liberal capitalist country with a history of egalitarian values and political reform–including the early introduction of universal welfare benefits–and with an uncomplicated relatively flat income tax structure. As such, it has sometimes been seen as a “social laboratory,” a theme of writing about New Zealand and of New Zealand social historians. It therefore has all of the elements in place that could make New Zealand a candidate to become a world leader in integrating income tax and social welfare regimes into a form of universal basic income. Nevertheless, through a combination of intellectual inertia, media cynicism, and the requisite elements not all coming together at the same time, the outlook for an open and healthy discussion around public property rights and unconditional benefits remains constrained. Despite this unpromising intellectual environment, New Zealand may yet stumble upon such reform as a political compromise, as it might have done in 1988.”
Rankin is a Lecturer of Business Practice at the Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand.
Almaz Zelleke – “Lessons from Sweden: Solidarity, the Welfare State, and Basic Income”
“Progressive critics of a universal basic income argue that most nations face a budgetary choice between a full basic income and investment in public goods, including universal health care, free and well-funded education, and universal pensions, and have prioritized a robust welfare state, or the “Swedish Model,” over basic income. But examination of Swedish economic policy reveals that the welfare state is only one of the ingredients of the Swedish Model, and that another is an interventionist labor market policy unlikely to be expandable to larger states without Sweden’s cultural and demographic characteristics. Indeed, evidence suggests that Sweden’s own recent diversification–not only of race and ethnicity but of occupational strata–will make the Swedish Model less stable in its own home. What lessons can be applied to the case for a basic income in the U.S. and other large and diverse nations or regions?”
Zelleke is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at New York University’s campus in Shanghai. She has written multiple journal articles and book chapters on basic income, and has been an active member of BIEN.
Sara Cantillon and Caitlin McLean – “Basic Income Guarantee: The Gender Impact within Households”
“The potential of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) to contribute to gender equality is a contested issue amongst feminist scholars. This article focuses on the nature of BIG as an individually-based payment to explore its potential for reducing gender equality, specifically intra-household inequalities in material or financial welfare; economic autonomy; psychological well-being; and time allocation, especially leisure time and time spent in household and care work. We employ a gender analysis of existing BIG pilots/schemes as well as close substitutes (e.g., universal child benefits) to assess some of the key claims about the effects of a basic income (BI) on gendered inequality. We also present findings from empirical work on intra-household allocation and decision-making which underscore the role of independent income. The article finds some support for BIG as a feminist proposal with respect to mitigating intra-household inequality, but concludes that further empirical research is needed to argue persuasively for BIG as an instrument for furthering gender equality.”
Cantillon is Professor of Gender and Economics at Glasgow Caledonian University. McLean is a lead researcher at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California at Berkeley.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Cover photo by Christopher Andrews, CC BY-NC 2.0
