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On February 16, 2017, The Chicago Council of Global Affairs held a conference on basic income. The primary participant was Enno Schmidt, the Swiss activist who was responsible for Switzerland's national referendum on the topic in June 2016. The proposal only received 23% of the vote.
One of the issues addressed by Mr. Schmidt was the potential inflationary impact of an unconditional basic income. While Mr. Schmidt does acknowledge that it would have an inflationary impact, he also believes that the impact would be mitigated by a (downward) renegotiation of wages between employers and employees (who now have their basic needs covered). He also notes that the employers who need to staff "dirty jobs," those jobs that no one wants to fill, would probably have to offer higher wages to get those jobs filled.
Should the US establish basic income? Share your opinion and pose questions to our speakers via Conferences i/o.
Universal basic income is enjoying a remarkable surge in interest. In 2016 nearly a fourth of Swiss voters in a national referendum supported a proposal to introduce guaranteed government payments to residents. And this year Finland, Oakland, California, and the Canadian province of Ontario are among the many global locales that will experiment with similar schemes. But while supporters see basic income as a way to reduce poverty and bureaucracy, and prepare for future technology-related job losses, critics question what will happen to society when people are no longer compelled to work. Does basic income promise a future of personal freedom? Can we afford it?
Enno Schmidt
Artist, Filmmaker, Cofounder, Basic Income Initiative Switzerland
Enno Schmidtis a Basel, Switzerland-based artist, filmmaker, and campaigner. Along with entrepreneur Daniel Häni he is founded the Basic Income Initiative in 2006. Schmidt created the film Basic Income – A Cultural Impulse in 2007-2008, the first and most influential film on the subject of basic income, with up to 2 million viewers and translated into 20 languages. In 2012 the Basic Income Initiative launched a Federal Peoples Initiative for an unconditional basic income in Switzerland, gaining 126,000 signatures in 2013 and leading to a national referendum on the proposal on June 5th, 2016. The vote, which received 23% support, has advanced the international conversation about basic income.
Richard Longworth is a distinguished fellow on global cities at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He is the author of On Global Cities, an eBook published by the Council, and Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism, on the impact of globalization on the American Midwest.
