There is criticism on the trial from within Finland, suggesting it is too short (2 years) too small participant size (2000 Finns), hampered by political and bureacratic obstacles (pro austerity government, constititional challenges) and too little (560 euros, slightly less than the cost of a 1 bedroom apartment in Helsinki) https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/06/24/finland-tests-a-new-form-of-welfare
The rationale for ending the trial was that there wasn’t an appreciable rise in employment among the participants. The data from the 2 year trial won’t be released until the conclusion, however some sources indicated a rise in happiness/reduction in stress which was mirrored in other trials.
Hello Miles. I’m David Upton. I’m new to Pirate Party. I was recommended to join and so far I like your style. The reason I’ve started here because I’m a big fan of UBI, in fact I run a campaign on the GETUP platform called Unconditional Basic Income.If I’m reading your tone correctly, you and your party are supporters of UBI. I will definitely contribute about this subject as well as others once I settle in to the membership. Would it be too brazen of me to include the link to my petition/campaign? I’ll wait for a permission to be forthcoming about that. Naturally I want to build numbers on my petition large enough to effect a creditable contact to mainstream media and politics. Cheers David U
There was a GetUp media campaign a little while ago supporting a bunch of policies. I can’t find it now but as we went down and ticked off the overlaps of our policies with GetUp’s… some challenges were laid down re GetUp endorsement
Nah, we said to ourselves “hmm, we really ought to put out a PR saying ‘hey GetUp dare you to endorse us, we support XYZ’” … and then we looked at the other 5/7 policies in that GetUp set, which we don’t necessarily match so closely on.
Hi David, i’m new to Pirate world too and like you i am very interested in the idea of UBI. I think its development could usher in the type of cultural changes that the planet needs. I see a UBI as the most significant tool in the box in regard to loosening our leech like attachment to ‘jobs.’ Jobs, bullshit ones, soul destroying meaningless tasks that take up a majority of our waking life and consciousness, create a vacuum that is filled with the practice of consumption - we buy shit to make us feel better. We buy shit, to justify spending our life in a ‘job.’ This is of course great economically but not so great ecologically. The pleasant soporific affects of the vacuous stupidity of consumerism are undeniable, in my experience, and hard to escape. It’s addictive.
A UBI doesn’t mean people wont still work or have jobs but it i think it would lead to many people working less, and many not at all. With less hours spent in drudgery less opiatic consumption transpires (i theorise), less money is needed, less resources consumed.
Of course, there’s a whole bag full of problems relating to not locating life purpose and meaning in one’s occupation, but i’m of the view that this in itself would evolve into a perfectly sustainable lifestyle industry. The economy would likely shrink but i dont see that as a problem. This constant mantra of economic growth is ridiculous, anyway, that’s my rant.
Idea for a very counter intuitive Pirate slogan - Economic shrinkage and less jobs for all!
hi Pip. David U here. That is one of the best brief appraisals I’ve seen for UBI. It so compact and full of meaning. I might use it everytime I need to speak an overview. Yes I do believe it’s the scheme for our times and as you point out, if we were able to be more discerning about the jobs we take, the amount of extra happiness and productivity in society would be in calculable. You maybe interested in signing my UBI campaign petition. If so I can send my link. But thanks for a fab post
I would counsel caution and restraint for any support or notion of a UBI. I have significant reservations as to it’s purpose and to those who are pushing it. I am not referring to you David Upton in this comment.
PPAU’s basic income proposal is intended mostly as a Newstart replacement, just with fewer poverty traps on the way out and much less bureaucracy.
I agree, there are people out there who see UBI provision as an excuse to gut public services. Not us - our platform shows strong support for public health, education and transport.
Yes Alex. I hold the same concerns. But I have others as well. There is a lot of resources being poured in by the Financial Elite (et al) to cloak true motives on many other matters. I am fearful of deception by these same dangerous people when it comes to UBI.
For clarity, I do not see a UBI as a vehicle to defund public services although I am aware that there are supporters of UBI on the conservative right that see it as a guilt free way to rip the guts out of public health, education and specific welfare services like disability support. I abhor this model.
At its core, a UBI is tool of redistribution. I would not support its implementation if it meant essential public services were abandoned.
Oh, ok. Well, I agree with you then. Yes, the concept isn’t magic and to invoke Marcuse, all revolutionary ideas are at risk of being coopted by the dominant. It makes a careful articulation of the concept imperative.
Andrew. I am not participating to be Cross Examined in an Online Court of Public Opinion. Be mindful of who you are talking to. I am a newly minted Pirate Party member, but I come fully armed with Boat, Crew & Cannons.
But I come in peace, my crew are weary. We have been at sea for quite some time. It is time to come ashore and be social with the natives.
I have having difficulty communicating with those younger Pirate Party members who have never fought on the Front Line. Never faced police horses and dogs on union picket lines where the Working Class were at struggle with Global Capital.
It is here that I need your help. Thus please do not engage me in wasteful exchanges as I am an old man with not much time left for this Earth. The Pirate Party members need to know what I know. They need to know the Rules of Engagement that are in play. I am here, at their service to help in this understanding.
Modern award conditions have been vaguely reasonable as a result of your efforts.
Thanks for doing that! We all benefited.
I would really like to be able to work with you to further some common Pirate Party related causes.
FYI, I’m 57yo. Not so young, but kind of a digital native myself from a long career in software engineering. I even created some small parts of the internet infrastructure at one point, though I doubt that code is still in action.
I ask you to consider two of the sentences from your post together:
“I am not participating to be Cross Examined in an Online Court of Public Opinion.”
“I have having difficulty communicating with those younger Pirate Party members”
Please consider that these two things may be related.
If you look around, you will notice that ALL of the Pirate Party discussion and meetings are public.
These services could be securely encrypted, hidden even from the snoopers, but we choose not to.
Every meeting is public. All discussions are public. Everyone is welcome, but expected to be civil.
Transparency is part of the Pirate Party way.
So is freedom of speech.
This is not some idle proposition. We all need freedom of speech so that we can think properly as a group. Dangerous ideas are thrown around all the time here, dissected, and considered from many angles, because we want to know what we’re standing for and why. A lot of that is encoded into the platform and policy positions over at: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Platform
It may not be obvious, but every one of those policies have been through endless discussion, argued about and eventually consensus was achieved and confirmed by a vote of the collective membership of the entire party, typically with over 90% agreement. We don’t line up behind some power broker and hope that their plans turn out to align with ours at some point in the future.
This may be the most democratic party ever.
That may take a little getting used to.
Pirate Party is not a party of followers.
Pirate Party is a party of consensus.
Great. Tell us about that. Don’t leave out the gory details.
Help us to help you to turn this fantastic experience you have into actionable policies, strategies and tactics.
The scary thing is that we’re all doing this radically out in the open.
There are no secrets, no power brokers, no hidden agendas, so that there can be trust.
That is how we avoid becoming the freaking Labor and Liberal clone party of the future.
Also keep in mind that this applies to everyone here.
Feel free to ask me anything you like, and I will endeavour to give you my most honest and complete answers and you can feel free to tell me where you think I’m wrong too.
If we agree on things, then we can act on them together.
ps. Learn to quote in this Discourse tool. If you select a section of text from any previous post with your mouse, a little “Quote” box will hover nearby. Click that, and the text will be auto inserted into your new post (even if you didn’t already start one) as a quote like:
Welcome ashore. The natives are friendly, but they argue a lot.
Sorry about the long time between drinks, but have just only gotten back to this discussion. I am a campaigner for UBI, so it’s so much harder for me to change my mind about the scheme than if i were a ‘neutral’ bystander, free to be as objective as I could be, and influenced without any bias. I am hard-wired to it, in a sense because of the commitment I’ve laid down.But I did arrive at this commitment after appraising all of the pros and cons as i saw them and I honestly believe totally that UBI is the scheme Australia and the world needs. To this I say, i too have reservations about the scheme, namely affordability & inflation, but the idea is so packed with potential positives, that it is worth the fight. Therefore I say to anyone who might have doubts, but see potential, to support and sign it, because if it is no good, it will get knocked out at parliament stage anyway. It can’t hurt to sign for it, and to get a backbone of numbers is the only way we’ll be able to test it’s true merit
