Basic Income News

Mateo Alaluf is a Professor of Sociology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels, Belgium. In this opinion piece (in French), he focuses on the renewed interest in basic income throughout Europe, and insists on the fact that basic income is a neo-liberal idea. According to Alaluf, in a basic income society wages [...]

Aynur Bashirova – BI News – 2013. Basic Income has a new advocate at a major U.S. publication. Since December 2012, Matthew Yglesias has published four articles in Slate magazine, each arguing for basic income, either on the basis that it would speed up the economic activity and that it would reduce poverty. Yglesias argues [...]

Humanity has to rescue the human solidarity that used to pervade tribal societies where wealthy was evenly shared. In our days money has to be used to that effect as great social thinkers have been preaching. In Brazil, President Lula´s law 10,835 from 2004 says that “A monthly benefit enough for the basic needs of a person will be paid equally to all. This basic income is to be instated by steps, taking care first of the most in need.”

In 2011, the United Nations, fronted by Michelle Bachelet, head initiative of UN Women, launched the Social Protection Floor initiative. This initiative aims to support the development of social protection worldwide. Arguably, this development represents an opportunity for more experimentation with basic income and possibly fully-fledged basic income programmes.

SOAS, a publication of the University of London, published an article on May 10, 3013 on the Indian basic income pilot project including quotes from an interview with Guy Standing, one of the organizers of the project. SOAS, “Unique pilot schemes assess impact of basic income schemes on India’s rural poor,” 10 May 2013 http://www.soas.ac.uk/news/newsitem84314.html

The 1st of May is a traditional day in many European countries where members and supporters of trade unions demonstrate for better working conditions. I participated with some friends of mine and had a discussion about basic income with one of them. He is a member of a German trade union and skeptical about basic income as many other members (Gewerkschafterdialog Grundeinkommen 2013). His main argument against basic income is that it would further weaken the position of trade unions and thus impair working conditions.

Rigmar Osterkamp, a long-time critic of the Namibian Basic Income Pilot project has recently published a new piece on DandC.edu. In the piece he calls the project a “failure.” Rigmar Osterkamp, “Poverty reduction Lessons from failure” D+C (DandC.eu), May 5, 2013: http://www.dandc.eu/en/article/disappointing-basic-income-grant-project-namibia

This opinion piece supports a basic income grant in South Africa. Devenish, GE “The grant has key role,” BusinessDay (South Africa) 08.03.2013 http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/letters/2013/03/08/letter-the-grant-has-key-role

According to AllAfrica.com, Uhuru Dempers, a supporter of the Basic Income Grant (BIG) pilot project in Otjivero, Namibia said that the BIG Coalition of Namibia is unlikely to be able to continue the project any longer. The coalition maintained a BIG in this small town for nearly two years and had hoped to keep it [...]

This book, released in 2011, is now available for free download as PDF. The hard copy is still available for €29.90. Philippe Van Parijs is one of the leading philosophers writing about basic income today. Many of the chapters in this book respond to his ideas about basic income. According to the publisher, “This book [...]