universal basic income

(Photo: Russell Shaw Higgs/Creative Commons)
Published in partnership with acTVism.
In this video, former finance minister of Greece, professor of economics, author, and founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), Yanis Varoufakis, argues why the Basic Income is a necessity today. His arguments take into account a macro socio-economic, psychological, philosophical and moral perspective. In addition to the speech, Varoufakis addresses a wide range of questions from the public.

Ontario’s premier, Kathleen Wynne, announced on Monday details of her basic income pilot program, the first in North America in decades.
The province of Ontario will start its pilot project testing universal basic income in three Canadian cities this summer, premier Kathleen Wynne announced on Monday.

Would the universal basic income (or universal allowance) be the miracle reform that reduces social inequalities and relieves millions of people from the threat of poverty? Both the right and left find things to like about the idea. Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon made the universal basic income a flagship proposal for his program for the upcoming presidential elections.

Poverty blights the lives of billions of people throughout the world: in developing countries, where it is acute, and industrialised nations, where it’s hidden but growing. It rises out of social injustice, makes exploitation and abuse inevitable, brings death and disease, robs people of opportunity and dignity, feeds anger and resentment.

Is it a viable prospect to create a direct mechanism for transferring a universal basic income to all the world’s people? Not before we bring about a huge united voice of ordinary citizens in favour of sharing the world’s resources to end hunger and life-threatening poverty once and for all, argues Adam Parsons.
The following article is an edited version of a talk given at the World Basic Income conference held in Salford, UK, in February 2017.
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The issue no politicians want to talk about.