In May 2022, Bernhard Neumärker gave two lectures addressing the potential of basic income in the climate crisis. His May 19 lecture was at the invitation of Students for Future Freiburg and was entitled “Climate Justice and New Ordoliberalism: The Case for Social Sustainability and Basic Income”. In his lecture, Prof. Neumärker shows how climate bonus systems can be designed as a partial basic climate income. He also demonstrates the extent to which net offset systems between CO₂ tax and basic climate income are ecologically and socially disadvantageous in terms of ecological visibility and incentivization when compared to a gross system with separate tax and transfer design. T, based on a German paper on Carbon Pricing and Social Inequality in Germany, he demonstrated that by having a per capita equal repayment of the CO₂ tax, one not only promotes fair redistribution and inequality reduction, but also achieves a higher socio-environmental target efficiency than with the usual means-tested social transfers. Watch this talk on our YouTube-Kanal.

On May 26, Prof. Neumärker gave a keynote speech at the 40th International Energy Workshop at the Konzerthaus in Freiburg. In his lecture “Decarbonization regulation by a tax-transfer system: The Carbon Tax – Climate Basic Income (CaTaBi) Scheme”, he presented his gross tax-transfer system “CaTaBi”, focusing on his governance approach of the so called “New Ordoliberalism”. Among other things, he showed to what extent only CaTaBi is politically strategy proof, while other uses of tax revenues always lead to the expectation of strategic manipulation of politics by interest groups (rent-seeking). In the ecosocial context of the climate crisis, one has to resort to ex post governance, which offers sufficient protection against unforeseen contingencies of climate development. Bernhard Neumärker, on the other hand, does not believe that tackling the climate crisis with statistical forecasts or scenarios ex ante is expedient. Instead, he argued for viewing the “environment” in terms of conflict economics and game theory as an adversary of “nature,” which would in fact react unfavorably to humans due to man-made climate and environmental damage.

In light of recent developments, Bernhard Neumärker drew a parallel between the climate crisis and the Ukraine war. Both crises would likewise reveal that “climate protection” and “national defense” as (global) public goods would only be taken seriously and sufficient investments would only be made if “protection” or “defense” were no longer only discussed in the abstract, but protection against an adversary/aggressor (be it “nature” or the Putin regime) was actively sought. The fact that Germany was only prepared to spend 100 billion euros on its military defense in a state of immediate threat clearly illustrated the underlying precautionary principle.

In his new paper: “Is a Penny a Month a Basic Income? A Historiography of the Concept of a Threshold in Basic Income“, Prof. Toru Yamamori examines the definition of Universal Basic Income under the question of a threshold. Based on its basic pillars: unconditionality, individuality, and universality, he discusses the advantages and disadvantages of a threshold and gives a historical overview of the history and different currents of the demand and definition of a Universal Basic Income. With this paper, he is the winner of the 2021 BIS essay contest in the Journal “Basic Income Studies”.

Without the (re)definition, do we run the risk of calling even one cent a Universal Basic Income when it is paid unconditionally and universally to every individual? What are the reasons and arguments for successively removing this threshold from the definitions? Toru Yamamori discusses why and whether we should reintroduce a threshold into the definition of a Universal Basic Income in this paper, which was awarded the prize for the best paper of 2021 by the journal Basic Income Studies published by De Gruyter Verlag.
The question of the definition of Universal Basic Income is a central theme of the FRIBIS UBI & Gender team, which explores the pillars of definition: universality, unconditionality and individuality from an intersectional feminist perspective. With his historical analysis of the meaning of a threshold, Toru Yamamori has created a starting point for further reflections on the definition of what we call Universal Basic Income from different situations, perspectives and locations, and what this Basic Income means for each of us.

Find the Paper here: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/bis-2021-0037/html

Jessica Schulz is the team coordinator of the Gender & UBI Team and interviewed Toru with respect to his paper.

How did you come to deal with this question of a threshold in particular?

To what extent is the question of a threshold value related to feminist questions about the unconditional basic income?

Prof. Dr. Toru Yamamori is a Professor of Economics at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan and Senior Academic Research Editor of BIEN (Basic Income Earth Network). His research includes the philosophical foundations of feminist economics and the oral history of the working class women’s liberation movement that called for unconditional basic income in Britain in the 1970s.

Michael von der Lohe, member of the FRIBIS team “Partizipation und BGE – ‘Narrative’ der Zukunft“, is again on the road throughout Germany with the Omnibus für Direkte Demokratie from April to November.

From 09-11 May, the initiative will be present on the square of the “Alte Synagoge” and invites on Wednesday, 11 May at 7 pm (Grünhof) to a lecture on the financing of the unconditional basic income and a question and answer session on basic income issues.

Place: Grünhof, Kreativpark Lokhalle, Paul-Ehrlich-Str. 7, 79106 Freiburg

Further information can be found here.

A recent lecture series at the University of Gießen (Winter Semeter 2021/22) took a look at “solutions for a just and more equitable economic order “. The series focused on rethinking the economy to achieve a more sustainable economic future.

Considering the topic, it is not surprising that Prof. Bernhard Neumärker was one of the speakers. As an ardent proponent of a New Ordoliberalism and the concept of social sustainability, Neumärker has been dealing with the feasibility of reforming the current welfare state for years. His Gießen lecture was entitled “Net Basic Income: crisis basic income as an entry point to resilient governance and welfare state reform”.

The Corona pandemic has aggravated already existing economic and social problems. Policies against the spread of the virus lead to a massive decline in earnings. So alongside the health crisis, many people have been plunged into a financial crisis as well. This is where Neumärker’s concept of a net basic income as a crisis basic income comes in. As an introductory model for resilient governance and welfare state reform, it could in the long term be transformed, step by step, into a fully-fledged basic income.

The Gießen lecture is in German, but you can find another lecture on Net Basic Income in English here.

The thesis that a basic income would have a positive impact on people’s participatory opportunities has been repeatedly postulated politically and discussed scientifically for some years now. Christian Greis traces the scientific debate in his sociological monograph “Zur Zukunft eines bedingungslosen Grundeinkommens” (On the Future of an Unconditional Basic Income), published in 2021, back to Ralf Dahrendorf’s reflections on a “guaranteed minimum income” in 1986. In the field of politically engaged art (theory), the entanglement of basic income and direct democracy can be traced back to the 1970s. Compared to the consideration of the UBI from the perspective of the concept of participation, the conceptualisation and research of the UBI as an economic-political ‘narrative’ represents an even more recent phenomenon. This is to be seen in the broader context of a remarkable general boom of the concept of narrative in contemporary Western culture: In various cultural fields such as politics, economics and science, there has been increasing talk of ‘narratives’ since the turn of the millennium. This mostly refers to narratives of the future that are based on crisis scenarios from
which concrete instructions for action in the present can (or should) be derived. The constellation that exists between basic income, (political) participation and future ‘narratives’ will be thoroughly examined for the first time in the planned anthology from both a scientific and an activist perspective. But it will also look at the history and the connection of these concepts to other fields. The volume will be published within the series of the Freiburg Institute of Basic Income Studies (FRIBIS). Contributions on individual links or individual elements of this constellation are also welcome.

Extended Deadline for submission of abstracts (max. 300 words): May 31st, 2022 to leon.hartmann@philosophie.uni-freiburg.de

Weitere Info und Kontakt / Further info and contact:
Leon Hartmann, M.A. – leon.hartmann@philosophie.uni-freiburg.de
FRIBIS Team Participation & UBI