Category: Basic Income

Given increasingly prominent calls for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) , it is worth considering the extent to which such proposals accord with the principles of freedom and justice. UBI divides opinions and elicits controversy from across the political spectrum because it seems to be both idealistic and fatally flawed. This author was once a staunch opponent of UBI, but has since grown to believe that it is compatible with economic, social and political freedom.

Freedom from the Labour Market

Whilst we agree that workers should have the freedom to set their own wages — to bargain, negotiate, take […]

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Maricá, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

Fabiano Horta , the Mayor of Maricá, Brazil, has extended the unconditional income already distributed in Maricá, Brazil, to all its residents. He also aims at raising the distributed value tenfold during 2017.

The unconditional income is paid in Mumbuca, a local social currency. One Mumbuca is valued at one Real. The initial income was 10 Mumbucas per month, roughly equivalent to 3 €/month. It was introduced by Washington Siqueira (known as Washington Quaquá), who was Mayor of Maricá until late 2015. This was reported on at the time. The modest amount was given independently […]

Full Post at basicincome.org

NDP leadership candidate Guy Caron chats with former MP Claude Gravelle at a meet and greet at MIC restaurant on Wednesday. (Gino Donato/Sudbury Star)

New Democratic leadership hopeful Guy Caron says while the Liberals have replaced the Conservatives as Canada’s governing party, they’ve done little to change how the country is governed.

Caron, the MP for Rimouski-Neigette—Temiscouata—Les Basques in Quebec and a candidate to replace Tom Mulcair as NDP leader, made a stop in Sudbury on Wednesday to meet with local voters and present his party as a real alternative ready to address pressing problems such as income inequality […]

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Recently there has been a following amassed behind an idea that many mainstream and moderate politicians would call socialist. The idea is a proposal for what is called a Universal Basic Income or UBI.

The UBI is a system to which every last US citizen will receive a certain amount of money, directly deposited into their bank account each month. This basic income is given in addition to any income each person already has.

The amounts would be completely indiscriminate and everyone in the entire country would receive the same allotted amount regardless of income. This is also in addition to […]

Full Post at www.kykernel.com

Some people just don’t know when to quit.

Despite the historic failures of Communism, and recent rebukes to socialism such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, the far left has concocted yet another harebrained scheme aimed at ensuring that society remains forever dependent on the meager allowances of government.

This latest leftist incarnation, known as Universal Basic Income, is little more than socialism on steroids — it grants every citizen, regardless of employment status, social status, or income the same government stipend on which to (supposedly) live.The collectivists’ boogeyman this time around is technology, specifically the idea that automation […]

Full Post at www.artificialintelligenceonline.com

Some Toronto social activists see a basic income program, expected to be launched as a pilot in the provincial budget, as a simple, no-strings way to give the city’s poor more freedom and financial support.

Others see it as a trick, dreamed up by a desperate Liberal government trying to look like it’s taking action on poverty when it really isn’t.

“For them, primarily, it’s a means of stalling until after the next election,” says John Clarke, an organizer of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty,On Thursday, April 13, the New Democratic Party’s Leap faction staged a basic income debate at the […]

Full Post at www.acorncanada.org

First they came for farmers. Then they came for factory workers. But now theprofessional class is feeling the pain, as automation and outsourcing displaces legions of bankers, accountants, lawyers, tax advisors and managers (and, dare we say, journalists). By 2030 or so, automation could replace between 45 and 55 percent of current U.S. and European jobs.

Seize the moment, argues Rutger Bregman , the Dutch author of “Utopia for Realists,” which was published in English last month. As the need for workers to grow food and make things fell, society created what he terms “bullshit jobs” that even their holders […]

Full Post at impactalpha.com

Universal basic income (UBI) will guarantee all citizens enough income to cover their basic needs and would be easier to administer than the current anti-poverty schemes, which are plagued by waste, corruption, and abuse. (Reuters) The radical idea of giving free money under a universal basic income plan to reduce poverty can work in India only if the plethora of welfare schemes are phased out, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian has said. Subramanian — who had mooted the idea of universal basic income or a uniform stipend paid to every adult and child, poor or rich, in the annual […]

Full Post at www.financialexpress.com

A universal basic income (UBI) – an idea in which the government replaces all other forms of monetary assistance (welfare, social security, etc.) with yearly stipend – has enormous potential to radically transform our current unsustainable consumer economy based on individual ownership into a much more sustainable economy based on access if it is designed and funded carefully. Implementing a UBI would require a cultural shift in our attitudes towards work and money but in a world where money is access, the idea of granting everyone enough money to meet their basic needs has sound philosophical logic behind it […]

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