Does a society whose citizens have access to an Unconditional Basic Income exhibit
more direct democratic participation? Could Joseph Beuys’s art and work concept
point in the direction of the need for a basic income? What do we hope to gain from
the “Expedition Basic Income” project when trying to implement subsidized basic
income experiments in cities and communities via direct democracy?

On June 18th 2021 at 2 pm (GMT). Duration: 11⁄2 hours. Public event, Language:
german

Andreas Urs Sommer is a professor for philosophy with a focus on cultural
philosophy at the University Freiburg.
Laura Brämswig is founder and co-leader of the project “Expedition Basic Income”.
Michael von der Lohe is the director of “Omnibus for direct democracy gGmbH”
and an expert on Joseph Beuys’ concept of art and work.

Host: Gudrun Kaufmann

To join the event, please send an email to contact@fribis.uni-freiburg.de, and you will receive the zoom link to the event via email.

BIRAL, a collaboration between the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), the Basic Income Research Group of the Gyeonggi Research Institute (GRI), the Jain Family Institute (JFI) and FRIBIS, invites to a roundtable discussion. Participants in this event will discuss messaging and framing techniques to build support for guaranteed income or UBI in varying political and cultural contexts.

Participants include Anne Price, president of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development; Barb Jacobsen, coordinator of Basic Income UK; Tatiana Roque, professor at UFRJ and vice president of the Brazilian Basic Income Network; and Catherine Thomas, PhD candidate at Stanford University and interdisciplinary graduate scholar.

Register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtfu6prDkqE9JpzhjToyUBdJUeeNAhclfr

You can find a recording of the discussion on the Youtube channel of BIRAL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJFWz8Ba1d0

What opportunities does the UBI open up specifically for women? What is necessary? Does a UBI correspond more to women’s understanding of and relationship to work, the economy and income than to male-dominated ideas?

Can UBI promote gender-justice and gender-equality? Might it transform gendered notions of work, value and care? What political, economic and social demands emerge from a focus on women’s voices?

With:

Almaz Zelleke, Professor of Practice in Political Science at the New York University in Shanghai, China. Almaz Zelleke specialises in UBI issues and specifically in UBI and gender. She is a member of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and the North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Network and of USBIG.

Dr. Liz Fouksman, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Social Justice at the Centre for Public Policy Research, King’s College London. Liz is an economic anthropologist. Her current research focuses on the grassroots views of the long-term unemployed in South Africa and Namibia on questions of redistributory justice, universal basic income and work. 

Renana Jhabvala, president of SEWA Bharat, the All-India organization within SEWA family (Self Employed Women’s Association), 1,8 million women strong. Renana Jhabvala is co-initiator of UBI for women projects in Delhi and of the large UBI project in several villages in India in 2013 in Madhya Pradesh.

Toru Yamamori, Professor in Economics at the Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. His research is focused on feminist economics, economic philosophy and history of economic thought, and he has conducted an oral history on working-class women’s liberationists in the long 1970’s Britain. He is academic research editor of BIEN.

Moderation: Enno Schmidt, Research assistance at the Götz Werner Chair for Economic Policy and Constitutional Economic Theory at the University of Freiburg, Germany, co-founder of the Swiss UBI initiative and referendum about the introduction of UBI.

To register for the event, send an email to contact@fribis.uni-freiburg.de. You will receive the login details via email.

[from actionnetwork.org:]
In March 2021 US President Joe Biden passed a $1.9 trillion fiscal stimulus package. This included a third Economic Impact Payment of up to $1400. Most US residents qualify for Economic Impact Payments. All you need is a valid Social Security Number and an income of less than $75,000, if you earn more than that your payment will be reduced or phased out.

This is a popular policy, many people have started referring to this third payment as Biden Bucks. These payments, including the first of up to $1200 in March 2020 and second of up to $600 in December, have provided people across the US with vital income support as they cope with the fallout of the pandemic.

So, this is cash, paid with very few conditions almost universally across the US. A programme that is just a few steps away from a basic income.

Register for the panel discussion on Thursday, Mai 20^th at 6 pm GMT between Natalie Foster, Almaz Zelleke (FRIBIS-Team UBIG) and Martin Sandbu.

On April 23rd, an online-workshop on the ethics of a Universal Basic Income is hosted by the King’s College London.

The workshop tackles the theoretical issues surrounding the normative justification(s) for UBI and evaluate the practical feasibility of UBI in comparison to competing policy responses from a political economy perspective. To register for the workshop, send an email to EUBI1@easychair.org.