Basic Income Guarantee — The End of Poverty
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A proposed system of social security, that provides each citizen with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on.
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Basic income
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A basic income is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional. Furthermore, there is no means test; the richest as well as the poorest citizens would receive it.
A basic income is often proposed in the form of a citizen's dividend (a transfer) or a negative income tax (a guarantee). A basic income less than the social minimum is referred to as a partial basic income. A worldwide basic income, typically including income redistribution between nations, is known as a global basic income.
The proposal is a specific form of guaranteed minimum income, which is normally conditional and subject to a means test.
One of the arguments for a basic income was articulated by the French Economist and Philosopher André Gorz:
The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet- unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact...
From the point where it takes only 1,000 hours per year or 20,000 to 30,000 hours per lifetime to create an amount of wealth equal to or greater than the amount we create at the present time in 1,600 hours per year or 40,000 to 50,000 hours in a working life, we must all be able to obtain a real income equal to or higher than our current salaries in exchange for a greatly reduced quantity of work...
Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. The present crisis has stimulated technological change of an unprecedented scale and speed: 'the micro-chip revolution'. The object and indeed the effect of this revolution has been to make rapidly increasing savings in labour, in the industrial, administrative and service sectors. Increasing production is secured in these sectors by decreasing amounts of labour. As a result, the social process of production no longer needs everyone to work in it on a full-time basis. The work ethic ceases to be viable in such a situation and workbased society is thrown into crisis (André Gorz, Critique of economic Reason, Gallile, 1989).
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) describes one of the benefits of a basic income as having a lower overall cost than that of the current means-tested social welfare benefits. However critics have pointed out the potential work disincentives created by such a program, and have cast doubts over its implementability. In later years, Basic Income Studies: How it could be organised, Different Suggestions, have made a lot fully financed proposals.
[edit]Examples of implementation
The U.S. State of Alaska has a system which provides each citizen with a share of the state's oil revenues, although this amount is not necessarily enough to live on. The U.S. also has an Earned income tax credit for low-income taxpayers. In 2006 a bill written by members of the advocacy organization USBIG to transform the credit into a partial basic income was introduced in the US congress but did not pass.
The city of Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada took part in an experimental basic income program ("Mincome") between 1974 and 1979.
In 2008, a pilot project with a basic income grant was started in the Namibian village of Otjivero by the Namibian Basic Income Grant Coalition. After six months the project has been found to significantly reduce child malnutrition and increase school attendance. It was also found to increase the community's income significantly above the actual amount from the grants as it allowed citizens to partake in more productive economic activities.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A basic income is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional. Furthermore, there is no means test; the richest as well as the poorest citizens would receive it.
A basic income is often proposed in the form of a citizen's dividend (a transfer) or a negative income tax (a guarantee). A basic income less than the social minimum is referred to as a partial basic income. A worldwide basic income, typically including income redistribution between nations, is known as a global basic income.
The proposal is a specific form of guaranteed minimum income, which is normally conditional and subject to a means test.
One of the arguments for a basic income was articulated by the French Economist and Philosopher André Gorz:
The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet- unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact...
From the point where it takes only 1,000 hours per year or 20,000 to 30,000 hours per lifetime to create an amount of wealth equal to or greater than the amount we create at the present time in 1,600 hours per year or 40,000 to 50,000 hours in a working life, we must all be able to obtain a real income equal to or higher than our current salaries in exchange for a greatly reduced quantity of work...
Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. The present crisis has stimulated technological change of an unprecedented scale and speed: 'the micro-chip revolution'. The object and indeed the effect of this revolution has been to make rapidly increasing savings in labour, in the industrial, administrative and service sectors. Increasing production is secured in these sectors by decreasing amounts of labour. As a result, the social process of production no longer needs everyone to work in it on a full-time basis. The work ethic ceases to be viable in such a situation and workbased society is thrown into crisis (André Gorz, Critique of economic Reason, Gallile, 1989).
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) describes one of the benefits of a basic income as having a lower overall cost than that of the current means-tested social welfare benefits. However critics have pointed out the potential work disincentives created by such a program, and have cast doubts over its implementability. In later years, Basic Income Studies: How it could be organised, Different Suggestions, have made a lot fully financed proposals.
[edit]Examples of implementation
The U.S. State of Alaska has a system which provides each citizen with a share of the state's oil revenues, although this amount is not necessarily enough to live on. The U.S. also has an Earned income tax credit for low-income taxpayers. In 2006 a bill written by members of the advocacy organization USBIG to transform the credit into a partial basic income was introduced in the US congress but did not pass.
The city of Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada took part in an experimental basic income program ("Mincome") between 1974 and 1979.
In 2008, a pilot project with a basic income grant was started in the Namibian village of Otjivero by the Namibian Basic Income Grant Coalition. After six months the project has been found to significantly reduce child malnutrition and increase school attendance. It was also found to increase the community's income significantly above the actual amount from the grants as it allowed citizens to partake in more productive economic activities.
Discussion Forum
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Comment
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Comment by Ayse Kalifa on March 4, 2009 at 8:38pm
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Ole please do not try to censor me, i got sufficient bad experience exactly on ipeace,me with that. Well you put my comment in again. So I wil drop the old hippie (but thats what they do in Netherlands to clean up the unemployed statistics - just to leave some low basic social welfare to the long time. unemployed qualifing them as idiots - not able to work)
Un-employment is a basic failure of capitalist system. AGAINST constitution. Most constitution guarentee the right to dignity. This implies some basics like free choice of work, food, shelter. Isnt that a good approach ?
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Comment by Anne Russell on March 4, 2009 at 8:20pm
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Old hippies ...???? buying soft drugs????? who is going to fight for that ???what on earth has that got to do with poverty and the sharing of money across the universe ????? come on Ayse .
It is true that the dreaming of the sixties did not bring about utopia and that probably did have a tiny bit to do with 'soft drugs' but a chang in consciousness occurred throug the dreaming and imagining of a different more humane world . .
The evolution is still in progress.
This global crisis in capitalism and its materialistic and greedy aims should not have occurred if tose "hippies " had had more power and been more realistic . But hey a revolution has to turn ALL THE WAY ROUND and then move on ... That takes time . We old hippies (some of whom have lived drug free by the way) Did what we could and we will keep on trying to improve the lot of everyone.
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Comment by Ole A. Seifert on March 4, 2009 at 7:46pm
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The film Kymatica can be seen in full lenght on google video.
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Not sure I understood you now, Ayse…
No one in this world should live in poverty, we have enough to share to everyone, if we decide to do so.
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Thank you all for censoring me, i think now also that poverty in 3rd and 4th world are less important - what you say is surely much more important - specially that old hippies can get enough money to buy enough soft drugs - a goood reason to fight for. Then can can continue dreaming . how nice, and you ont need to ask your old mother to borough 5 p from her rent, well better from the govt. go on.
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Comment by Nicolette on March 3, 2009 at 6:20pm
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And as soon as the poor start to protest, the riot police move in. Governments are already making plans for troops and security, because the crisis we are in will get worse. Why don't they pay it out to the people now?
The national guard just now left New Orleans after Katrina, and supposedly New Orleans is the most dangerous city in the US. People got US govt money (and sick from the formaldehyde in the FEMA trailers and in some cases) often in the form of loans that they have to pay back. Please, do you know how I can get a politician to answer this: explain to me why there are loans after Katrina but free "aid" for "helping" Afghanistan and Iraq? hmmm bet they'd have a tough time. But they should be answering.
Do you know Condoleeza Rice REFUSED almost all humanitarian aid after Katrina? Refused ships with doctors?
Positive note though: Did anyone read about the unrest in Guadaloupe? Well in the end, in Guadaloupe and in France, the gov't did come up with some social spending money. I suppose it helps to congratulate govts that do the right thing..if we can't do anything else.
Thanks for letting me vent on your group Ole. Any ideas how one would promote the idea of a basic income to predominantly "Christian" church-going politicians in the US who feel no pain for the poor?
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War and weapon are big business, poverty is not. Time to change our way of thinking and feeling. How can a man be happy, knowing millions are starving og living in deep poverty. You can´t eat a gun or a combat airplane, but you could get a lot of food/water/housing for the same money.
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Dont forget 3rd and 4th world speaking on poverty (defined as income below 1$). For me the real paradox is. 100s of millions of Dollars come overnight when the banks feels sick ("notleidende Banken".the bad word of the year in Germany), all the years there was no money on hunger or poverty. In UN US just dont pays what they dont like (like WHO) far from their 0.7 % share of GNP far from the Tobin tax on currency speculation. That could pay the millenium goal of UN easily. Obama still has enough money US wars.
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Yes, thanks for the reminder. I even read the Bank of England is part of the US Federal Reserve owners...wild.
Contemplating this basic income idea still. Got an email from friend with an interesting quote that seems related.
A government big enough to give you everything you
want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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Thank you Marie,
Yes, it´s about the biggest financial scam in the US. The politicians where actually debatting this, the private ownership of the money when the first established the first national bank …now, people mostly don´t want to know or believe this.
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