Automatic Basic Income

Basic income is not a new idea, but the automation with which we can do it is newer than these supporters Thomas More, John Locke and Thomas Paine.

Automatic Basic Income (ABI) will be a necessity for the survival of humanity and the planet. Some call this UBI, where the 'U' stands for either "Universal" or "Unconditional", depending on who you ask.

“If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.”

~ Stephen Hawking on technological unemployment

Organizations

• BasicIncome.org - Basic Income Earth Network | w:Basic Income Earth Network
  • Perustulo.org - BIEN Finland

• UBIE.org - Unconditional Basic Income Europe
  • BasicIncome.org.uk - Basic Income UK is a member of UBIE

Possible sources of money for ABI

• Our automation wealth in the w:free software stack, which causes falling costs for companies and societies and more services for less money
• Improved taxation e.g. the new model proposed by the w:OECD
• w:Helicopter money i.e. central bank stimulating economy by printing money and giving it to the reservoir to pay for ABI

Addressing the need for tax reform

• 'International community agrees on a road map for resolving the tax challenges arising from digitalisation of the economy' at OECD.org 2019-05-31
• 'OECD leading multilateral efforts to address tax challenges from digitalisation of the economy' at OECD.org 2019-10-09

ABI around the world

Asia

Sikkim, India

w:Sikkim is a state in India, which has successfully developed hydro power projects and subsequently produces almost 10x as much electricity than it consumes and they will roll out ABI in the early 2020s.

Africa

GiveDirectly.org crowdsources funds to run an ABI scheme in Kenya. It is ABI, because the money is distributed through the M-Pesa mobile banking app hence it is automatic.

GiveDirectly.org w:GiveDirectly launched a basic income experiment in Kenya in 2016.

On 2019-11-21 a paper on the GiveDirectly experiment 'General equilibrium effects of cash transfers:experimental evidence from Kenya' was published..

Reporting on the GiveDirectly ABI experiment in Western Africa in reverse chronological order

• 2019-12-03 | Washington Post "global opinion" article 'What would happen if we randomly gave $1,000 to poor families? Now we know.'
• 2019-11-25 | 'A charity dropped a massive stimulus package on rural Kenya — and transformed the economy', Vox.com article

Europe

Germany

• Germany is beginning a universal-basic-income trial with people getting $1,400 a month for 3 years at businessinsider.com. A trial by the w:German Institute for Economic Research (w:de:Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung) where the source of the funds were 140,000 private donors. Specs: 1200€ / month for 3 years: 120 recipients and 1380 subjects in the control group.

North America

Canada

• The $7,500 universal basic income experiment 6 minute video at bbc.com - A Canadian NGO, pairing up with the w:University of British Columbia, carried out a bold social experiment: it handed C$7,500 (US$5,900) with no strings attached to a number of recently homeless people, then monitored them for several months.

Basic income in wikis

Other wikis

• RationalWiki.org on 'Basic income'
• P2P Foundation Wiki on 'Basic Income'
• 'H+Pedia (hpluspedia.org) on 'Universal basic income'

Wikimedia foundation wikis

Wikipedia

• w:Basic income
• w:Global basic income
• w:Basic income pilots
• Basic income around the world
• w:List of basic income models
• Basic income in the United States
• w:List of advocates of basic income
• Guaranteed minimum income

The Finnish Wikipedia

• w:fi:Perustulo
• w:fi:Luettelo perustulon kannattajista

Other

• w:wikiversity:Basic income (very bare)
• w:wikiversity:Basic income cryptocurrency
• wikiquote:Basic income
• commons:category:Basic income guarantee

Links

• /r/BasicIncome at reddit.com
• Basic Income Wiki at reddit.com
• r/CryptoUBI/ at reddit.com
• http://groupcurrency.org/ Group Currency is a cryptocurrency that provides its identified members with a basic income, voting rights over a group fund (optional) and provides adequate means for transparency and accountability. (definition from website)