Universal Basic Income

Universal Basic Income Explained |  Kurzgesagt What if the state covered your cost of living? would you still go to work? go back to school? not work at all? what would you do? This concept is called a universal basic income or UBI and it's nothing less than the most ambitious social policy of our times. In 2017 basic income is gaining momentum around the world. First trials are ongoing or on their way and the growing number of countries are considering UBI as an alternative to welfare. Kurzgesagt on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/Kurzgesagt

Human Rights  |  Philip Alston Philip Alston, John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, is the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In June 2017, he appeared before the UN Human Rights Council to present his report on the potential impact of universal basic income.  Read Professor Alston’s report here:  https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc Universal Basic Income and the Future of Human Rights – Human Rights Council Side Event  http://chrgj.org/event/basic-income-human-rights

Humanity Empowered |  Halldóra Mogensen Imagine not having to put a limit on yourself based on your need for an income. Not letting the obligation that you have to do this or that or you won't have food to put on the table or a roof over your head control your choices. If you have the basics taken care of - food, clothing, shelter, health. What would you spend your days doing? What's the first thing that comes to your mind? If you want to start a business, develop a new idea, devote yourself to your art or dedicate your life to helping others how much opportunity do you have to do so. How much time and energy left over after eight hours at work and two in a commute.  How much freedom after bankrupting that business you finally took a chance at starting. If it fails that might very well be the end of it, your last chance to live your dream gone into debt and disillusionment. For those of us who have no fallback, no economic safety net, the stress that gives rise to ...

Income Distribution System | Guy Standing Good morning. I think this is the first time for a long time I've served at a bar but it's a bit early to distribute drinks so I'll have to talk instead. It's a great pleasure to be here. I don't like name-dropping it's a bad bad habit but the last public a presentation I did was what I thought was a hoax. I was invited by the Bilderberg Group. Don’t know if any of you know of this but it’s a far-right group as far as I'm concerned of people in the elite and people like me don't get invited to things like that. But suddenly I found myself giving an hour-long presentation on the precariat and basic income. With instead of you sitting there Henry Kissinger instead of you sitting there, Christine Lagarde and instead of you sitting there Eric Schmidt the CEO of Google and Sundry Prime Minister's and people like that. Well when they were introducing me I was smiling someone afterwards said why were you sm...

Universal Basic Income |  Charles Murray We have a huge welfare state that's been built up over the last 50 years and we can get rid of it. Take all the money that we currently spend on transfers from one American to another American, whether they are for people on welfare, or whether they're for retirees, whether they're for medical care, take all that money, convert into a universal basic income that starts when someone turns 21 and continues until they die, which gives them every year $10,000 of disposable income, and put their lives back in their hands. The key to making this work is not getting enough money. We already spent plenty of money to do this. The key in understanding why it would work and how it would work is that it's just not that you as an individual have $10,000, everybody else does too. And the opportunities this opens up for people to cooperate, to solve their problems, and the problems of their families and their communities will be ...

Economic Security  | Robert Reich You see this little gadget? Let's call it an iEverything. You can't get it yet but if technology keeps moving as fast as it is now the iEverything will be with us before you know it, a combination of intelligent computing, 3d manufacturing, big data crunching and advanced biotechnology. This little machine will be able to do everything you want and give you everything you need. There's only one hitch, as the economy is now organized no one will be able to buy it because there won't be any paying jobs left. You see the iEverything will do everything. I'm exaggerating a bit in order to make a point about the trend we're already seeing. Even now we're producing more and more with fewer and fewer people. Internet sales are on the way to replacing millions of retail workers, diagnostic apps will be replacing hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers, self-driving cars and trucks will replace five million drivers. Resea...

Leadership & Universal Income |  Andy Stern Andy Stern speaks to the BSR Conference about bold leadership and universal income.  BSR ( Business for Social Responsibility)  is a global nonprofit that works with its network of more than 250 member companies to build a just and sustainable world. From its offices in Asia, Europe, and North and South America, BSR develops sustainable business strategies and solutions through consulting, research, and cross-sector collaboration. Visit  http://www.bsr.org for more information about BSR's more than 20 years of leadership in sustainability. Andy Stern former SEIU president, convincingly shows why it is time to consider a Universal Basic Income as the nation’s 21st-Century solution to increasing inequality.  The Universal Basic Income will pay every adult $12,000 per year to raise the floor and make sure that no American falls into poverty. In the next 20 years, machines will replace half of all Amer...

Citizen Basic Income | Adam Brown We like to think that people get what they deserve. If you work hard, and make the right decisions, you should have a good life. So if it doesn't work out, we feel like it's our fault. But 43 million Americans, including 15 million children, live in poverty. I don't think it's all their fault. The job market is like a game of musical chairs. And since we depend on employment to stay out of poverty, it's like playing musical chairs over hot coals. Traditional 40-hour-week, full time jobs, are becoming scarce. Meanwhile, technology is removing chairs from the game. Cars can already drive themselves. But it's not just taxi and truck drivers who should be worried. It's fast foo workers, retail associates, farmers, lawyers, writers, accountants, doctors, even animators like me. All sorts of jobs can now be done in part, or entirely by machines. Basic Income was almost implemented in the US in 1970, and pressure i...

Universal Income & Automation |  Sandhya Anantharaman Universal Basic Income (UBI) is gaining traction on the left and the right as a solution to growing inequality, the disappearance of the middle class and the ensuing disappearance of jobs through automation and redundancy. Several states and countries have experimented with or in the process of beginning experiments with UBI including Manitoba, Alaska, Finland, New Jersey, and most recently in Oakland (CA). UBI is now being debated among leaders in Silicon Valley, social service organizations, shared mobility start-ups, and beyond. The social compact needs an update. Is this the answer? Sandhya Anantharaman , Co-Director, Universal Income Project  http://www.universalincome.org http://meetingoftheminds.org

Enough For All | UBI We need an unconditional basic income. Why? There are about seven billion people living in the world, one out of nine suffers from hunger. This is not because of a lack of resources, on the contrary, there is enough for everyone. In fact the world produces enough food for 11 billion people. People go hungry because of these resources are not properly distributed. This is why we want an unconditional basic income. This means everyone should receive a basic income, the basic income would be enough to live off and to participate in society, it would be unconditional. People would be provided with an income whether they are working or not and without having to demonstrate a need for it. However people need more than money, essential infrastructure such as energy, communications, mobility and education should also be available to all. But no one would work anymore? Wrong, in the past people thought that if you forced children to learn by threatening them w...

Social Justice | Guy Standing All of us should have dreams. And I want to begin by saying something that is very famous, that it's from the impossible, the dreamers of the impossible, rather than the slaves of the possible, that social evolution draws its creative force. My dream is that every one of us, in every community, should have a basic income as a right. An individual basic income given as a right, without conditions, and paid individually. For a long time such an idea would have been regarded as a dream. An impossible dream. But in the last couple of years a remarkable number of people, including Nobel Prize winners and people like yourselves, have come to realize that it is not only possible, but feasible, desirable, affordable. So a remarkable change. And we have established a network called BIEN, Basic Income Earth Network, and I just hope at least one of you listening will join us in the struggle. Because it is going to be a struggle, and it will only come ab...

The Instrument Of Freedom | Philippe Van Parijs December, 1982. I had two problems, two worries, two nightmares, that prevented me from sleeping, one night after another. Problem number one, unemployment. There was then massive unemployment, especially for young people. What was the solution? The right and the left agreed: only one solution, growth. Of course, one expected productivity to go up, jobs to be lost as a result of technical change. Never mind: growth that would outpace the growth of productivity was the only solution. But this was already a few years after the alarm call of the Club of Rome about the ecological limits to growth. And I, along with others, thought, "This is crazy!" Surely, there must be something else to address involuntary unemployment than this mad rush for limitless growth. But what? Then there was my second problem: capitalism. Capitalism is an interesting way of organizing a complex economy, that has undeniable virtues. But it ...

The Case For Basic Income | Sebastian Johnson So, raise your hand if you've heard of the basic income before. OK, so a couple of you. Well, the idea behind the basic income is that each citizen will receive enough no-strings-attached guaranteed money to cover basic living expenses. And it's an idea that has led to some interesting political bedfellows, recently. So both former Labor leader, Andy Stern, and conservative intellectual, Charles Murray, have written books on the topic. Both the Cato Institute and the movement for Black Lives have endorsed the basic income, though from very different perspectives. And just last week, President Obama suggested that the basic income would be a part of our national conversation for the next two decades.  Now, I know what you're thinking: what are you doing on stage and why aren't any of those people here that you just mentioned? The short answer is that I said, "Yes," and they didn't. But the longer an...