The bulk of contemporary political and economic arguments in support of a universal citizen’s basic income recently appears to centre on the threat of automation “Quick the robots are coming, the peasants will revolt – let’s give them a basic income!” or “Quick the robots are coming, we need an alternate income source” It is … Read more
Upstream is a podcast about alternative economics and the role it could play in systemic change. The latest episodes focus on Universal Basic Income, the first as an introduction to the topic and the second on whether a basic income could help bring about the end of capitalism as the dominant economic paradigm. These docu-episodes … Read more
I’m 32. Born 1984. Margaret Thatcher was my Prime Minister (Scotland had no parliament). I was only allowed to experience free school milk up until the age of seven, after that my mother was expected to pay. My mother brought me up as a single parent (therefore unemployed and forced to become dependent on state … Read more
By Anne van Dalen, first woman to receive a BI in the Netherlands @vanDalenAnne How did my BI come about It all started in 2014 after donating €5 to a crowdfunding initiative called OnsBasisinkomen.nl (transl. our basic income) which aims to raise funds to provide someone a basic income in order to gain insight in … Read more
Let’s look at how the UK can pay for UBI in the future. Any stats quoted are from UK government sources, or quoted as such by various publications/reports. Some figures are obviously guesstimates – even official figures. The UK migration figures are a very good example of this, as they are collated via an International Passenger … Read more
In the previous blog post, I highlighted how rapidly our world of work is being automated and radically changed by the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI). From China’s iPhone factories, to the giant retail warehouses of the UK, jobs are being lost – and they’re never coming back. In the same way that the Luddites … Read more
You’ve probably heard of a `tick’ or hockey stick curve. It’s a device statistics experts often use to show how a trend starts slowly, and then rapidly accelerates upwards, as people buy a product, change jobs, search online for something etc. Right now, we are in the little dip in that hockey stick curve when … Read more
A Citizen’s Basic Income (BI) is an idea I’ve believed in for many years, without necessarily ever knowing of any particular name for it – but believing in the principle of having a minimum quality of life made possible through the application of a basic income; until during the Scottish Indyref when I learned about … Read more
The following is the opening address from Maddy Halliday at our event in Kelty about the Fife basic income pilot on January 28th 2017: I am delighted to be here and to see so much interest in Citizen’s Basic Income. Thank you for joining us and Fife Council in this milestone event, to launch CBINS … Read more
With the current social security budget being deemed to be unacceptably high by most political parties it is clear that we need a radical change to how we approach employment and how we maintain a real safety net for those out of work. Worse is still ahead as the oncoming technological revolution will ensure that … Read more