To all FW'ers:
I will be leaving for Amsterdam in a couple of days to present a paper I
wrote entitled "The Family Basic Income Proposal" at the BIEN Conference.
The genesis of this paper came from a challenge by a FW participant arising
from some comments I made in a thread called "Some Hard Questions on Basic
Income" last February. I tried posting my rebuttal to the challenge as an
attachment several times but for some reason the server did not put the post
through. After several months, I privately posted it to several list
members asking for feedback but received consideration from only one
individual. I then became aware of BIEN, a European organization that has
been exploring the concepts of a Basic Income in Europe and of their
upcoming Convention in Sept. I submitted my paper and it was accepted and I
have been invited to present it.
This summer, I had the opportunity to travel across Canada for 6 weeks and
visit friends and family. In each instance I tried to open conversations on
the concept of a Basic Income. In each and every conversation, the idea was
ridiculed and conversely I had trouble explaining the whole concept because
in conversation, it is difficult to fully develop a complex idea. Out of
the frustrations of those conversations, I feel I learned a lot. Most
important, I learned that those I spoke to, a farmer, a small business
owner, a lab technician, a bus driver, an artist, a housewife, a government
employee, that each was totally indoctrinated with the concept that work was
so important that the thought of giving all Canadians the security of a
Basic Income was basically unthinkable to them.
Out of the anger my questions and explanations my subject had generated, I
have come to a tentative conclusion that until the "middle class", primarily
those who work by selling their time and skills can be convinced of the need
for a massive change in the redistribution of income, the concept of a Basic
Income will not become a reality. I found myself sitting down and writing a
rebuttal to this attitude which I called "A Message to the Middle Class on
the Financing of: The Family Basic Income Proposal". It is a long essay but
sometimes it takes some time to develop a new viewpoint. I am going to post
this by E Mail tonight in 5 separate posts, each representing a page of the
complete essay.
Today, I was investigating for the first time our new Web Page and it was
with some surprise, that I read about BES, a Conference held in Ottawa on
June 3 this year to explore the concept of "Basic Economic Security" for
Canadians. Many of the questions raised at this Conference were questions
that I wrestled with in putting together my paper. I had to make choices
and develop an economic explanation of how my choices could be financed.
The choices I made are not necessarily "right", only the choices that I made
but they are a start from which a critique or support could rally around and
as such, I believe they have value. Because my circle of friends do not
include "experts" and my time and financial resources are very limited,
there may very well be glaring errors in my assumptions. If so, I will try
to accept criticism gracefully.
I plan to put my original paper on the list in E Mail format on Thursday,
allowing for some time for response to my first paper. This message is to
inform those who may choose not invest the time to just file or delete the
ten or so posts that I will be sending under the Subject heading - Basic
Income. So, let the adventure begin.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
