as small as a world and as large as alone

7:29am January 16, 2014

wintergrey:

shotgunparley:

txwatson:

howllor:

I’ve barely seen anything about this on tumblr at all, and the petition ends in TWO DAYS!

It’s about making an attempt of introducing unconditional base income in EU. yes, that means guaranteed income. instead of spending endless amounts of money on administration and control systems and different rates of benefits for different kinds of situations, everyone would be guaranteed an income.

This petition is not about definitely introducing this, but it’s about seriously looking into if this would be doable.

SEVEN countries need to reach the quotum, and four as so far. If you are in Netherlands, Hungary or Estonia, I especially encourage you to sign since those are the countries closest to reaching it right now.

An Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) is a recurring, universal payment to everyone - as an individual right, without means test or any obligation to work or perform other services in return, and high enough to ensure an existence in dignity and participation in society. The current social security systems are demeaning and inadequate in addressing the roots of poverty. UBI would transform social security from a compensatory system into an emancipatory system, one that trusts people to make their own decisions, and does not stigmatize them for their circumstances.

If we collect one million statements of support for Basic Income from the 500 million inhabitants of the European Union, the European Commission will have to examine our initiative carefully and arrange for a public hearing in the European Parliament.

• go here to sign/read more
• About how Swizerland are working to introduce this as well
• Another great article about the subject

recap! maybe money for everyone instead of demeaning benefits systems, TWO DAYS TO GO, and we been loads of signatures!

PLEASE REBLOG

On the off chance any of my followers live in a relevant country

First off does the official petition site have links to any of these alleged studies because while they say there are lots of them I don’t see them.

Secondly the EU couldn’t find its arse with both hands, an atlas, GPS and Magellan. They are so not the people I want implementing this.

Third, the EU is a bad level to do this on. The economies and population sizes of the EU are far too disparate. You can’t possibly compare the developed, financial service centered economy of the UK with the high tech powered economy of Ireland or the export focused production powered economy of Germany, never mind their population size disparity. And those are Europe’s developed economies. So many Eastern European are poorly developed and the hit this will make to productivity (Even if they could pay a UBI which they can’t) would mean they would take generations before they reach the level of Western Europe, if they ever made it.

Fourth this is completely untested and before 25% of the world’s global economy leaps into bed with the idea I’d like a few case studies of it being put into practice at the level of a developed democratic state.

It’s a lovely idea and that’s why I’m suspicious because lovely ideas are a red flag vis-à-vis cognitive biases and self delusion.

That said, it is an idea whose time is coming. Ever increasing automisation means not only fewer jobs but incredibly increased productivity that will not only make this feasible but positively necessary in developed economies. Transition will be very painful, especially when it throws into ever starker contrast the “Haves” of The West with the “Have Nots” of the developing world. Unavoidable however.

Yeah, I was lazy this morning in reblogging that because, well, really fucking tired right now. But this has been a pet hobby horse of mine for years, more so since the review of the Mincome study came out. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_Annual_Income

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

The Wikipedia stuff is there for the links included at the bottom of the articles more than anything else, it’s just a convenient link dump. Agree that the EU proposal is likely a crappy idea in its current stage for a wide range of reasons—I mostly reblogged this in hopes that people would at least look into the concept. But it’s not untested, and it deserves to be tested further. Guaranteed minimum income would solve a lot of public ills—it would radically change the lot of the disenfranchised.

Most people haven’t even considered the idea. It needs more consideration, honestly. So does free or subsidized education and healthcare. We are either going to see a shift to UBI/Mincome/GAI/BI whatever you want to call it or we are going to have a very ugly class war on our hands. 

In a world where working more hours than people have ever worked is not enough to sustain a family, something has to give. This is one of the simpler and more constructive paradigm shifts. It goes along with a better minimum wage—corporations will have to give people reason to work—and a shift toward the meritocracy people like to pretend we’re living in. 

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