USBIG NEWSLETTER
VOL. 8, NO. 46 FALL 2007
This is the Newsletter of the USBIG Network (www.usbig.net), which
promotes the
discussion of the basic income guarantee (BIG) in the United States.
BIG is a
policy that would unconditionally guarantee at least a
subsistence-level income
for everyone. If you would like to be added to or removed from this
list please
email: Karl@Widerquist.com.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. USBIG Congress tentative
schedule online
2. Alaska’s BIG parodied in The
Simpson’s Movie while Albertans call for their
own Dividend
3. Hillary Clinton
endorses a baby bond
4. Call for Papers:
12th BIEN Congress, Dublin, June 2008
5. Sociologist and
Communitarian Leader, Amitai Etzioni, Endorses BIG
6. BIG Pilot
Project in Namibia
7. Mexico:
Basic Income on The Agenda?
8. South
African BIG Activist, Margret, Legum dies
9. British
Economist and BIG advocate, Hermione Parker, dies
10. BIG News
From Around the World
11. Recent
Publications
12. Recent
Events
13. New Links
14. Links and
Other Info
1. USBIG Congress
tentative schedule online
The tentative program for the Seventh
Congress of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network: What Next: Framing
a BIG
Discussion for the Next Election and Beyond is now online. A direct
link to
the Congress Program is
http://www.usbig.net/cong2008/schedule2008.html.
The conference will take place at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Boston,
MA, on
March 7-9, 2008. The Conference will be held in conjunction with the
Annual
Meeting of the Eastern Economic Association, which will hold hundreds
of
sessions on a wide variety of topics. Attendees of either conference
are
welcome to attend the sessions of the other.
At the Congress, academics and activists from the United States,
Canada,
Britain, and several other countries will discuss issues such as
Occupational
Citizenship, the Ethics of BIG, the Politics of Basic Income, Economic
Insecurity and Poverty, the Relationship between BIG and Work, the
Meaning of
Freedom, Distribution and Redistribution, and the Institutional Context
for
Progressive Policy.
Featured speakers include Philippe Van Parijs, Eduardo Suplicy, Yannick
Vanderborght, Jurgen de Wispelaere, Guy Standing, Sean Healy, and
Brigid
Reynolds. Philippe Van Parijs is a professor of philosophy at both
Harvard
University and the Catholic University of Louvain; he is author of Real Freedom for All: What (if Anything) Can
Justify Capitalism? and a large number of articles on basic income.
Suplicy
is member of the Brazilian Senate, author of Citizens’
Income. The exit is through the Door, and a tireless
campaigner for BIG. Vanderborght is Lecturer in Political Science at
the
Facultés Universitaires Saint Louis in Brussels, and co-author
(with Van
Parijs) of L'allocation Universelle,
which will be out next year in English as the
Universal Basic Income (Harvard University Press). De Wispelaere,
of
Trinity College Dublin, is editor of Basic
Income Studies and co-editor of the
Ethics of Stakeholding. Standing is Professor of Economic Security
at the
University of Bath and Professor of Labour Economics at Monash
University,
Melbourne, Australia. He has written a large number of books and
articles on
BIG including Beyond the New Paternalism:
Basic Security as Equality (London: Verso, 2002). Healy and
Reynolds are
co-directors of the Justice Commission of the Council of the Religious
of
Ireland. Together, they have written or edited 21 books on topics such
as
public policy and social engagement. Their work has also been published
in a
wide range of other books and journals. Their book, Social
Policy in Ireland, (1998, 2nd edition 2006) has become a
standard textbook on social policy in Ireland.
Other participants include Al Sheahen, Almaz Zelleke, Buford Farris,
Charles
Clark, Christian Roy, Cynthia Holder Rich, Eri Noguchi, Ernie Lightman,
Hyong
Yeom,
Ingrid Van Niekerk, James Mulvale, Jeff Smith,
Karl
Widerquist, Mathias Risse, Michael Howard, Michael Lewis,
Micheál Collins,
Nien-hê Hsieh, Nir Eyal, Phil Harvey, Rabbi Carla Theodore,
Richard Caputo,
Richard Wamai, Robert Jubb, Roy Morrison, Samuel Butler, Seong Gee Um,
Stephen
Clark, Stephen Nathanson, Steve Schnapp, and Steve Shafarman.
Everyone welcome to attend the conference. All attendees must register
with the
Eastern Economic Association. Registration information will be on the
USBIG
website soon. USBIG Attendees (who are not economists) can register for
half
the regular conference fee ($45 instead of $90) by following
instructions that
will be posted in the USBIG website. There is a further reduced fee
available
to students and people with low income. Contact the organizers for
details.
The 2008 USBIG Conference is organized by a committee of Michael Lewis
(chair),
Eri Noguchi, and Almaz Zelleke. For more information go to
http://www.usbig.net
or contact Michael Lewis at mlewis@notes.cc.sunysb.edu.
2. Alaska’s BIG parodied in
The Simpson’s Movie while
Albertans call for their own Dividend
Public awareness of BIG took a small step forward this summer when the Simpsons Movie made a joke about it.
Homer and his family are greeted at the Alaskan border by an official
who says,
“Welcome to Alaska. Here’s a thousand dollars. We pay everyone in
Alaska to let
us destroy the environment.” It’s not the most flattering joke, but it
makes a
fair point about the oil-based dividend. Although taxes on the
extraction of
fossil fuels might be a good way to give firms an incentive not to
over-exploit
them, and although a BIG might be a good thing to do with those
revenues for
many reasons, a resource-linked BIG might make people more willing to
accept
environmentally damaging resource exploitation—thus partially
counter-acting
the exploitation-discouraging effects of the taxes. This is underlying
moral
behind the Simpsons’ joke, but it was funnier when they said it.
12.5% of state oil taxes go into the APF, which is invested in stocks
and
bonds. A portion of the returns on the fund are distributed to Alaskans
each
year. Of course, the Alaskan government does not pay people when they
arrive in
the state; Individuals must be residents in the state for a full year
to be
eligible for to receive dividends from the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF).
But
this is fairly within the confines of the writers’ license for a
cartoon.
In one way the cartoon significantly understates the generosity of the
APF
Dividend. The APF gives the same dividend to every man, woman, and
child in the
state. Because of recent increases in the stock market to nearly 40
billion
dollars, the principal of the APF grew by more than 17.1% for the
fiscal year,
according to Scripps Howard News Service. Because of this and recent
years’
gains, the APF Dividend went up significantly again this year. APF
checks this
October and November were for $1,654, according to the Juneau Empire.
The
Simpsons arrived in Alaska with a family of five, and so the border
guard could
well have said, “Welcome to Alaska. Here’s $8,270.” In other words, the
actual
figure is eight times more generous
the figure mentioned in the movie.
According to the Associated Press, “for many residents, the check is no
joke.
It means getting caught up on bills and supplementing income that for
some is a
week-to-week living in Alaska, where the cost of living is high in part
because
of its distance from shipping centers in the Lower 48 states.” People
who have
lived in Alaska since the first Dividends went out in 1982 have
received a
lifetime total of $27,536 in APF Dividends.
It is doubtful that mention in the
Simpsons Movie will spark a campaign for a National Permanent Fund
based on
resource use throughout the United States. However, Albertans have been
eyeing
the APF with envy for years. Alberta is a Canadian Province a few
hundred miles
southeast of Alaska. Alberta has also had large oil revenues, but it
lacks a
mechanism like the APF to ensure that all Albertans benefit from them.
Allan A. Warrack, of the University of Alberta, writing in The
Edmonton Journal on October 15, 2007, called for an
Alaska-style dividend for Alberta. The province has a fund based on oil
revenues, called the Heritage Fund, which was set up for similar
reasons as the
APF—to smooth out the province’s gains from the boom-and-bust oil
industry. But
there is one important difference. The Heritage Fund pays no dividends
to
individuals. Its earning go solely into the province’s general
revenues.
According to Warrack, this fact has caused Albertans to take much less
interest
in their fund than Alaskans. Much less has been invested in the
Heritage Fund
than in the APF, and Warrack argues, it has been less well managed.
Warrack
writes, “For about a quarter-century, the Alberta Heritage Fund was
static in
nominal value, [and] fell in purchasing power due to inflation.” The
APF has
steadily increased in both real and nominal value.
Warrack mentions that Alberta actually had a social dividend in the
1930s,
under the government of the Social Credit party. Although it was short
lived,
the dividend was popular. Alberta tried it again with a one-time
payment in
2005. Warrack writes, “Some right-leaning citizens viewed the
government cash
payments favourably because it meant there would be ‘less for the
government to
waste.’ Some left-leaning citizens favoured the payments on grounds of
social
equity—equal payment amounts meant the needy would get the same amount
as the
rich, though the value to the needy would be much higher. Still others
said:
‘Just gimme the dough!’” Perhaps someday the joke will be, “Welcome to
Alberta.
Here’s 10,000 Canadian Dollars, eh?”
But even as Albertans envy the Alaska Dividend, Alaska lawmakers are
coming
under increasing pressure to divert dividend funds into general state
spending.
Each U.S. state receives a significant amount of funding from the U.S.
Federal
government based partly on the perceived needs of the state. According
to Hal
Spence, writing for the Peninsula Clarion and Morris News
Service-Alaska,
Federal lawmakers are reluctant to give money to the Alaska, when they
perceive
that it can afford to give large amounts of money away to residents
each year.
Spence believes this pressure will grow as the APF increases.
Warrack’s editorial can be found online at:
http://www.cwf.ca/V2/cnt/commentaries_200710120811.php.
Information on the APF can be found on line at:
http://www.apfc.org/
Hal Spence’s story is on line at:
http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/081907/hom_20070819001.shtml
And he can be reached at hspence@ptialaska.net.
3. Hillary Clinton endorses a baby bond
The leading contender in U.S. Presidential Race, Hillary Clinton, has
endorsed
the “baby bond.” That’s a small one-time universal income grant. A baby
bond is
not a basic income guarantee, but it is based on the same idea of a
universal
claim to resources. The baby bond idea has already been put into
practice in
Britain, where the Labour Government introduced it in 2005. The idea is
to give
every new born child a bond that matures when the child comes of age.
According to the Washington Post, Clinton “floated the idea of giving
$5,000 to
every newborn American child.” Devlin Barrett, of the Associated Press,
quoted
Clinton as saying, “I like the idea of giving every baby born in
America a
$5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person
turns
18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to
go to
college or maybe they will be able to make that down payment on their
first
home.” One of Clinton’s rationales for the proposal was that wealthy
people
“get to have all kinds of tax incentives to save, but most people can't
afford
to do that.”
Clinton’s endorsement followed an article in Time Magazine
making a similar proposal. Her statement was followed
by the usual Republican criticism that it is too costly. Clinton has
not yet come out with a
formal
proposal for a baby bond in the weeks since she made her statements,
and she might not come out with one at all. However, Bruce
Ackerman and Ann Alstott, who’s book the
Stakeholder Society proposed a much larger baby bond, praised
Clinton’s statements. They wrote in the American
Prospect, “By the time the child reaches 18, this bond will grow to
$10,000
or more, depending on the interest rate, providing a citizen
inheritance at a
crucial moment of transition to adult life.”
For complete reports on the issue, go to:
WashingtonPost.com:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/09/28/clinton_floats_baby_bonds.html
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=d8rulmjo0&show_article=1
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/printer/22650.html
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=an_inheritance_for_all
4. Call for Papers: 12th BIEN Congress, Dublin, June 2008
The 12th International Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network
(BIEN) will
be held on 20-21 June 2008 in Dublin, Ireland. The theme of this
Congress is:
Inequality and Development in a Globalised Economy - The Basic Income
Option.
The Congress will combine plenary sessions featuring invited speakers
and
parallel workshops with volunteered papers. Proposals for papers,
workshops
etc. are now invited. Details of the call for papers are available at
www.basicincome.org. Proposals are invited on a very wide range of
related
topics which are listed in the call for papers. All proposals should be
emailed
to papers@basicincomeireland.com. The deadline for submissions is 1
February,
2008.
5. Sociologist and Communitarian Leader, Amitai Etzioni, Endorses BIG
Amitai Etzioni is a former Senior Advisor to the White House and a
former
President of the American Sociological Association. He is the founder
of the
Communitarian Network. He is the author of two dozen books, including the Monochrome Society (Princeton
University Press, 2001).
Etzioni endorsed the basic income guarantee on October 10th in his
keynote
address at the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society’s conference
‘The
Contract for Income Support and Pension in the Modern Welfare State’ at
Oxford
University. The address opened the two-day conference on, attended by
an
international panel of government officials, policymakers, academics,
economists, and political scientists.
Etzioni argued that everyone should be entitled to a guaranteed basic
income
‘as a reflection of our basic humanity’. He outlined his proposal for a
BIG
that is not means tested and not contingent on people’s ability to
work.
Etzioni argued that we are not complete human beings when deprived of
lasting,
meaningful human relationships, and that we have basic obligations
toward one
another that BIG can help to engender.
The conference also included an assessment of the feasibility of BIG by
the
sociologist Michael Opielka, and Charles Murray’s proposal for GBI as a
replacement for the welfare state.
The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society is an independent
institution
affiliated with the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of
Oxford.
For more information on the Foundation, please contact Phil Dines at
phil.dines@fljs.org. For information about Etzioni, go to
http://amitaietzioni.org/index.shtml.
For information about the Communitarian Network, go to
http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/index.html.
6.
BIG Pilot Project in Namibia
The Namibia BIG Coalition has announced that it will launch a BIG pilot
project
in early 2008. The project will take place in the village of Otjivero
in the
Omitara area of Namibia about 100 kilometers from the capital Windhoek.
The
grant will be given to every resident below the retirement age of 60.
The 1000
or so eligible residents of Otjivero will each receive a basic income
grant of
100 Namibian Dollars per month. At current exchange rates, this amount
is less
than 15 U.S. dollars, but it is still a significant amount in such a
poor area.
The project is planned for two years, so that each resident will
receive a
total of $2400 (Namibian).
According to AllAfrica.com, “The BIG Coalition will need N$3 million to
cover
the costs of the grants and administration of the pilot project. The
coalition
comprises the Council of Churches, the umbrella bodies of NGOs
(NANGOF), AIDS
organizations (NANASO), the Union Federation (NUNW), the Legal
Assistance
Centre (LAC) and the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI). It
is
spearheaded by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of
Namibia.”
“Through the pilot project, the BIG coalition wants to demonstrate that
the project
is feasible. The project abides by the principles of the BIG proposal,
which
advocates for a universal grant based on cash entitlement that provides
some
form of income security and is built on redistributive justice. The
pilot
project was launched last night together with the BIG fund into which
Namibians
can contribute to make the grant a reality for the residents of
Otjivero.”
Bishop Zephaniah Kameeta, of the BIG Coalition spearheaded the project.
He
discussed the idea at the 2006 BIEN Congress in Cape Town South Africa,
saying
that we’ve had enough “Words! Words! Words!” and that it is time to
take
action. The BIG coalition wants most of the funds to come from
donations from
Namibians, and hopes that the government will eventually provide a BIG
for all
Namibians. Kameeta sees BIG as essential to Namibian democracy, “How
can we
sustain democracy when we know that half of the population has nothing
to eat?”
Donations to the fund can be made by electronic funds transfer to ELCRN
- BIG
Namibia, First National Bank's Windhoek Commercial Suite, account
number
62146088457, branch number 281972. For more information on now to do
so,
contact the Namibian BIG Coalition, email web@bignam.org.
According to the BIG Coalition website, Namibia is not only very poor
(the
average person in Namibia spends only US$ 1.5 per day), but also it is
the most
unequal society, meaning that most Namibians are getting by on much
less than
$1.5 per day.
Source articles:
BIG Coalition website: http://www.bignam.org/
Pilot project website: http://www.bignam.org/page5.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/200708130338.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/200708100529.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/200708100750.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/200708070628.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/200708061297.html
7.
Mexico: Basic Income on The Agenda?
BIEN reports, political prospects of Basic Income in Mexico are
advancing by
leaps and bounds. On June 6 and 7, Universidad Autónoma de la
Ciudad de México
(UACM) and the Department for Social Development of the Government of
Mexico
City organised the First International Conference on Basic Income ever
held in
Mexico. A great number of academics, politicians and practitioners both
from
Mexico and other countries like Argentina, Brazil, Spain and United
Kingdom
attended the Conference and engaged into very vivid discussions with
its more
than 100 delegates.
The Conference was the result of the effort to foster the study of
Basic Income
made by an active and plural local group of people who will now
constitute a
network called “Red Mexicana del Ingreso Ciudadano Universal” (Mexican
Network
for the Universal Basic Income). This new network will submit an
application to
BIEN’s Dublin General Assembly asking for official recognition. The
participants
in the Conference underlined the importance of the Universal Citizen
Pension
(for those above 70) that has already been implemented in Mexico City
as an
opportunity to open the debate on Basic Income and make crucial moves
towards
its introduction on a national level.
On this matter, the most important news is that on July 4, PRD (Partido
de la
Revolución Democrática), which is exploring the
possibility of including Basic
Income into its programme, put a bill for a Basic Income in Mexico
before the
Permanent Commission of the Mexican Congress (the text of that bill can
be
found at http://www.nodo50.org/redrentabasica/index.php).
It is a bill that suggests the introduction of a fully universal and
unconditional Basic Income aiming to fight urban and rural poverty,
large
inequalities and social exclusion, and to grant everybody the necessary
socioeconomic security that is needed to access the sphere of work
without
having to accept degrading labour conditions. The text of the bill
establishes
that full universality must be reached within a three-year period. It
also
points out that existing conditional cash transfer schemes have proved
to be
inefficient, costly, and a source of corruption. The proponents of the
bill
assert that in a political context in which the possibility of a reform
of the
taxation system is being discussed, the introduction of a Basic Income
pretending to build social policies from a rights-based perspective and
to
enhance the freedom of the vast majority of the population makes the
best of
the senses.
Another left-wing party, Alternativa Socialdemócrata, which
organised a public
lecture with Daniel Raventós, has also endorsed Basic Income by
including it
into its programme.
As a result of all these events, a great number of articles on Basic
Income
were published in important newspapers like La Jornada, El Universal,
La
Crónica, and El Financiero. Some of these articles can be found
at:
http://www.nodo50.org/redrentabasica/textos/index.php?x=628
http://www.nodo50.org/redrentabasica/textos/index.php?x=627
http://www.nodo50.org/redrentabasica/textos/index.php?x=625
http://www.nodo50.org/redrentabasica/textos/index.php?x=624
For more information on the state of the Basic Income debate in Mexico,
contact
Pablo Yanes (pyanes2007@gmail.com) or send an email to Ingreso
Ciudadano
Universal – México (ingresociudadano@gmail.com).
-From BIEN
8.
South African BIG Activist, Margret, Legum dies
Margaret Legum, 74, was an economist, a human rights advocate, and
co-founder
of the South African New Economics Foundation. According to Business
Day (South
Africa), Legum died in Cape Town on November 1, following surgery for
cancer.
Legum spent 30 years in exile beginning in 1962 because of her activism
against
Apartheid.
She was the author of South Africa:
Crisis for the West (1964), which was influential in the imposition
of
international sanctions against the Apartheid regime.
When she returned to South Africa, she campaigned against racism and
for a fair
economic system, an important component of which she believed was a
Basic
Income Grant (BIG). She hosted an event at the 2006 Congress of the
Basic
Income Earth Network in Cape Town, South Africa.
According to Business Day, George Ellis, speaking at a memorial service
for
Legum said that a campaign for BIG would be a fitting memorial for her
“unrelenting” support for BIG.
For detailed reports on her remarkable life, go to:
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A605297
http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=16435
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=6&art_id=vn20071203043017797C823109
9.
British Economist and BIG advocate, Hermione Parker, dies
Hermione Parker was a political economist and cofounder of Britain’s
Basic
Income Research Group 1984, which later became the Citizen’s Income
Trust. The
following is from Susan Raven’s obituary of Parker for the Citizen’s
Income
Newsletter:
Born in Quetta in 1928, she was at St. Andrew's University. In 1989 she
published a book on the subject of the integration of the tax and
benefit
systems, Instead of the Dole. It put
forward the idea of a Basic Income Guarantee as a feasible alternative
to our
present welfare state. In 1987 she also founded the Family Budget Unit
and
thereafter served for many years as its director and driving force. She
was
responsible for reports on budget standards for families in 1998, for
pensioners in 2000, and subsequently for Muslim families and low paid
families
in the East End of London in 2001. She was a person of impressive
energy and
intelligence and her contribution to any cause she supported was always
invaluable.
The Citizen’s Income Newsletter is online at:
http://www.citizensincome.org/resources/newsletter%20issue%203%202007.shtml
10.
BIG News From Around the World
FINNISH LABOR MINISTER ENDORSES BIG AS LONG-TERM GOAL
According to Helsingin Sanomat’s International Edition, Finnish
Minister of
Labour, Tarja Cronberg (of the Green Party) foresees a basic income as
the
model for longer-term reform of Finland’s pension, disability, and
unemployment
systems. “She expects that the first steps toward basic income will be
taken in
a year. She envisions a simplified social welfare system that would
combine
incentives to work with a guarantee of subsistence for all.”
Finland is one country where basic income is on the agenda and is
widely
discussed by the major parties. However, officials from most other
major
parties in Finland are less sympathetic to it. According to NewsRoom
Finland, Jari
Koskinen, the deputy chair of the National Coalition party and
Päivi Räsänen,
chair of the Christian Democrats, said, “a basic income would encourage
passivity in the ranks of long-term jobless people and especially among
the
young.” Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen is on record as saying, "basic
income is a wage for those interested more in partying than working.”
Timo
Soini, the chairman of the True Finns, however, is known as a proponent
of
basic income. Martti Korhonen, the head of the pro-basic income Left
Alliance,
said he doubted the claims about BIG’s impact on the activity of
jobseekers.
An article on the Labour Minister is online at:
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Minister+of+Labour+wants+to+promote+employment+among+partially+disabled/1135229653505
The NewsRoom Finland article is omline at:
http://newsroom.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=16445&group=Politics
GERMAN GREENS REJECT BIG
According to Deutsche Welle (DW-world.de), the German Green Party
rejected a
proposal that would have endorsed a basic income guarantee for all at a
party congress
in Nuremberg that ended on November 25, 2007. The party did, however,
vote in
favor of extending social benefits including payments to the
unemployed, and on
education and on child support. A substantial majority, 59 percent of
delegates
voted against the BIG proposal. The motion was apparently an insurgent
proposal
from grassroots supporters, and its defeat was a relief to party
leaders, who
dropped BIG from German Green Party platform several years ago before
they
entered a governing coalition for the first time. The Deutsche Welle
report on
the congress go to:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2971335,00.html
CANADA: ANTI-POVERTY ORGANIZATION LAUNCHES BASIC INCOME CAMPAIGN
Under the impulse of its President Debbie Frost and its new Executive
Director
Rob Rainer, the Canadian National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO) has
launched
a nation-wide campaign in favour of a "guaranteed adequate income",
or basic income. NAPO had already been in favour of basic income since
the
early eighties, and saw it as one crucial component of any coherent
anti-poverty strategy. “Looking at the big picture”, Rainer writes in a
recent
issue of NAPO NEWS (Spring 2007), “one may conclude that over the past
few
decades Canada has made little progress in combating poverty in this
country.
This is not a case of seeing the glass half empty. It is a case of
seeing the
glass for what it is, or rather the number of food banks and the number
of
homeless for what they reflect about the state of the country (...)
Against this
backdrop, the option of a guaranteed (or “basic”) income is re-emerging
for
policy makers to consider”. Rainer gave a talk on this issue during a
Conference at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan in June 2007. On
July 6,
2007, NAPO organized a workshop on “Guaranteed Adequate Income” at the
Cartier
Place Hotel, Ottawa, Ontario.
For further information, see http://www.napo-onap.ca/, or contact Rob
Rainer at
rrainer@napo-onap.ca
-From BIEN
GERMANY: NOBEL PRIZE YUNUS DISCUSSES BASIC INCOME WITH SUPLICY
During a meeting convened by Prime Minister Dieter Althaus on June 6,
Nobel
Laureate Yunus discussed the proposed policy of guaranteed basic income
for the
state of Thuringen with Gotz Werner of Karlsruhe University and
co-chair of
BIEN Eduardo Suplicy (Brazil). Gotz and Senator Suplicy, both
proponents of
guaranteed basic income, have been working with the Government of
Thuringen on
adopting this policy for the state. Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank,
argued
that welfare systems were important for those in distress, but these
should be
designed in a way that gives incentives. He said traditional welfare
kept
people trapped, as if in a zoo. Yunus made it clear that he was against
any
kind of handout programme, and advised that the issue for the state
government
should not be providing guaranteed basic income; rather it should be to
consider a programme of guaranteed employment for the unemployed. He
proposed
that the unemployed people should be given a choice between receiving
guaranteed employment or micro-credit, or receiving both. Source: The
Financial
Express (http://www.financialexpress-bd.com/)
-From BIEN
SPAIN: YOUNG SOCIALISTS ENDORSE BASIC INCOME
The Youth Section of Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) aims to participate
into
the elaboration of the programme for the 2008 parliamentary election.
“Juventudes Socialistas” stress the need to promote new proposals so as
to
“consolidate the political change” that began in 2004 and “raise young
people
hopes again”. For this reason, they have made public a document
including 10
propositions to be analysed and discussed as possible measures to be
put into
practice during the next term of office in case PSOE wins the election.
Among
them, Young Socialists suggest the legalisation of euthanasia, the
lowering of
the right to vote to the age of 16 and the establishment of a “Renta
Básica de
Ciudadanía” (a Citizens’ Basic Income).
-From BIEN
HOW CASH TRANSFERS BOOST WORK AND ECONOMIC SECURITY
Guy Standing
UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs Working Paper No. 58,
October
2007
ABSTRACT: There has long been a minority view that providing people
with cash
is an effective way of combating poverty and economic insecurity while
promoting livelihoods and work. The mainstream view has been that
giving people
money, without conditions or obligations, promotes idleness and
dependency,
while being unnecessarily costly. Better, they contend, would be to
allocate
the available money to schemes that create jobs and/or human capital
and that
produce infrastructure. This paper reviews recent evidence on various
types of
scheme and on several pilot cash transfer schemes, assessing them by
reference
to principles of social justice.
The entire article can be downloaded at:
http://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2007/wp58_2007.pdf
SOCIAL AGENDA ON THE RADIO
Members of Social Agenda, a nonprofit group that supports BIG and
caregiver
grants, spoke about BIG on UN News Radio this summer. If you go to the
UN Radio
News website: http://www.radio.un.org/ or
http://www.un.org/radio/newsusa/, you
can download the interview from their home page.
WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
WERU-FM, Blue Hill, Maine:
Larry Dansinger
In an edition of "Outside the Box," on WERU radio, Larry Dansinger
discussed how a BIG can end poverty. According to Dansinger, BIG would
be a
simple, one-stop system similar to a proposed national single payer
health care
system. Little red tape, no social workers, no eligibility, no maze of
programs
to get lost in. The money saved from running these many systems could
go into
direct payments to those who need them. If you want to comment on this
feature,
send an email to news@weru.org with "outside the box" in the subject
line.
ABSTRACTS FROM THE EMPLOYMENT DILEMMA AND THE FUTURE OF WORK
by Orio Giarini and Patrick M. Liedtke
Paper No.6, European Papers on the New Welfare
Originally published in 1996, this article discusses basic income among
alternatives about the future of work and how to organize the
socio-economic
system.
http://eng.newwelfare.org/?p=47
A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON BIG AND MONETARY REFORM.
Richard Cook. Global research.
Richard Cook has written a series of articles on BIG and Monetary
Reform in the
past few months. These include:
-“Market Fundamentalism” and the Tyranny of Money:
Recommendations for Reform of the US Monetary System
Global Research, November 25, 2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7427
-Crisis in the U.S.: “Plan B”?
Global Research, November 11, 2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7307
-Perilous Times
Global Research, October 8, 2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7006
-Inflation and the Federal Reserve
Global Research, October 2, 2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6966
-C.H. Douglas: Pioneer of Monetary Reform
Global Research, September 24, 2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6870
-The Morality of Economics: The Key Issue of the Twenty-First Century
Global Research, July 29, 2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6439
THE ABOLITION OF THE UNEMPLOYED
Katrin Pinetzki (mbatko@lycos.com)
ABSTRACT: Researchers urge freedom instead of full employment. With a
basic
income, the unemployed of today would have the freedom to seek for
employment
that suits them. No one would force them to accept any work. A basic
income is
a way to solve the dilemma of jobs destroyed by productivity
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/08/364450.shtml
[This article is translated from the original German article.]
BASIC FOOD INCOME: OPTION OR OBLIGATION?
Rolf Künnemann, 21 August 2007
Foodfirst Information and Action Network, the New School of Athens
Basic food income is a universal payment by the state unconditionally
to each
member of society with an amount sufficient to cover elementary food
needs.
http://www.new-school-of-athens.org/spip.php?auteur23
DE WISPELAERE, Jurgen & STIRTON, Lindsay (2007), ‘The Public
Administration
Case against Participation Income’, Social Service Review, 81 (3), pp.
523-549,
available at http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?SSR810306
Anthony Atkinson’s proposal for a participation income (PI) has been
acclaimed
as a workable compromise between the aspirations of unconditional basic
income
proposals and the political acceptability of the workfare model. This
article
argues that PI functions poorly in terms of a number of essential
administrative tasks that any welfare scheme must perform. This leads
to a
trilemma of participation income, which suggests that PI can only
retain its
apparent ability to satisfy the requirements of universalist and
client-activation approaches to welfare at the cost of imposing a
substantial
burden on administrators and welfare clients alike. Consequently, the
main
apparent strength of PI, its capacity to garner support across
different
factions within welfare reform debates, is shown to be illusory.
-From BIEN
SUPLICY Eduardo Matarazzo (2007), Citizen's basic income, Washington:
Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, March 2007, 27pp.
Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy was a Woodrow Wilson Center Public Policy
Scholar in
2005. He is currently the co-chair of BIEN, and a Brazilian Senator for
the
State of São Paulo. Suplicy is also a professor of Economics at
the School of
Business Administration of the Fundação Getúlio
Vargas in São Paulo. He is the
author of “The Effects of Mini devaluations in the Brazilian Economy”,
his 1973
Ph.D thesis, published in 1974, by Fundação
Getúlio Vargas; “International and
Brazilian Economic Policies”, 1979; “Citizen’s Income. The exit is
through the
Door”, 2002; and “Citizen’s Basic Income: The Answer is Blowin´
in the Wind”,
2006.This special report is an updated and synthesized version in
English of
these two last books. It can be downloaded at
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/LAP_CitizensBasicIncome.pdf
-From BIEN
TOMLINSON, John (2006), ' "The self-made man: admiring his creator”:
Basic
Income beats targeted welfare', New Community Quarterly, 4 (4), Summer
2006,
pp. 52-55, http://www.borderlands.org.au/ncq/
This article looks at some of the reasons why Australia perseveres with
income
maintenance policies which are targeted, categorical, means-tested,
piecemeal
and lacking in generosity. The author suggests that the introduction of
a
universal Basic Income would go some considerable way to providing
increased
income security for all permanent residents, removing stigma, and
ending our
centuries old preoccupation with a poor law system of welfare
assistance. He
reflects upon the current debate about “social inclusion” arguing that
the
mechanisms enforced by governments’ to facilitate “social inclusion”
actually
result in the marginalisation and social exclusion of many poor people.
The
article concludes with a brief summary of the advantages of a Basic
Income over
other forms of income maintenance.
-From BIEN
TOMLINSON, John (2007), 'Australia: Basic Income and Decency', New
Community
Quarterly, 5 (1), Autumn 2007, pp.33-41,
http://www.borderlands.org.au/ncq/
Some have attempted to argue the case for the introduction of a Basic
Income
because of the ease with which it could be allocated to citizens.
Others
recognise its capacity to invigorate the economy. Amongst these
writers, some
believe the economy would expand following the introduction of a Basic
Income
because it would free up entrepreneurial imagining, provide
opportunities for
workers to engage in new occupations and remove many obstacles to
further
production. Others argue that the economy would contract if a Basic
Income was
introduced because many people would choose to live more sustainably
and would
work fewer hours. Some writers suggest that the presence of a Basic
Income
would lead to more people joining the labour force because of the
greater
flexibility in the work place and because a Basic Income removes
welfare
benefit poverty traps. While others contend that many employees would
leave
work because they would no longer experience the economic necessity
which
forces them to seek employment. This article discusses these different
positions in the Australian context.
-From BIEN
CONFERENCE: TOWARDS A BASIC INCOME SOCIETY?
University of Oxford, 26-27 October
2007
On 26 and 27 October, the Centre for the Study of Social Justice
at
Oxford University held a two-day
conference on basic income. The conference brought together 15 invited
speakers
and 60 delegates to discuss a number of issues surrounding the idea of
the
basic income society. The organizers of this conference, David
Cassassas
(University of Oxford), Jurgen De Wispelaere (Trinity College Dublin)
and
Stuart White (University of Oxford) explicitly wanted to question the
notion of
a basic income society, its likely form and limitations, and how
pathways
towards its achievement could be conceived.
The first day of the conference comprised a roundtable debating the
normative
justification of basic income schemes from a republican perspective.
Building
on recent work in republican political theory, David Casassas
(University of
Oxford), Daniel Raventós (University of Barcelona), Carole
Pateman (University
of Cardiff/UCLA), Stuart White (University of Oxford) and Karl
Widerquist
(University of Reading) discussed various aspects of republican
political
thought and whether this perspective can offer a robust philosophical
justification for the basic income society. Most of the contributions
of the
roundtable will be published in a special debate section, guest-edited
by David
Casassas of Basic Income Studies, forthcoming December 2007.
The second day of the conference offered a set of panels discussing the
normative justification and political feasibility of the basic income
society.
Tony Fitzpatrick (University of Nottingham) offered an assessment of
the
current state of the basic income debate. The next panel
included
three speakers. Bill Jordan (University of Plymouth) challenged the
strong
individualist focus of much of the basic income debate, suggesting that
advocates and researchers instead should be more concerned with social
value.
José Antonio Noguera (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
then questioned the
very idea of a basic income society, arguing that basic income
advocates
should not overstate the role and importance of these policies in
current
welfare arrangements. Louise Haagh offered an institutionalist account
of basic
income.
After lunch the conference moved from the ideal of the basic income
society to
examining some aspects of the political feasibility of basic income
schemes,
and how these insights might impact on the form of the proposed basic
income
society. The first contribution by David Purdy (
DEVELOPMENTS BY COUNTRY: Within the Vivant (Belgium) website, Paul
Nollen posts
updates on the development of the basic income debate in various
countries. It
can be found at: http://www.vivant.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=64.
LEARNING TO LOVE CASSANDRA - THE CASE FOR C-CHANGE
This new website proposes to dramatically raise the price of fuel,
while giving
everyone enough to pay for it in the form of BIG, without the
obligation to use
the BIG on fuel. Thus, it gives people an incentive to save fuel
without
costing the average person more money. Those who continue to spend the
most on
fuel will pay more and those who consume the least on fuel will
benefit. http://kneel1.googlepages.com/c-change
For links to dozens of BIG websites around the world, go to
http://www.usbig.net/links.html. These links are to any website with
information
about BIG, but USBIG does not necessarily endorse their content or
their
agendas.
The USBIG Network Newsletter
Editor: Karl Widerquist
Research: Paul Nollen
The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network publishes this
newsletter. The
Network is a discussion group on basic income guarantee (BIG) in the
You may copy and circulate articles from this newsletter, but please
mention
the source and include a link to http://www.usbig.net. If you know any
BIG
news; if you know anyone who would like to be added to this list; or if
you
would like to be removed from this list; please send me an email:
Karl@Widerquist.com.
As always, your comments on this newsletter and the USBIG website are
gladly
welcomed.
Thank you,
-Karl Widerquist, USBIG Coordinator. Karl@Widerquist.com