COVID19: Is Basic Income the Answer to Financial and Physical Wellbeing After COVID? With Professor Guy Standing

22nd Apr 2020

In this weeks podcast I speak with Professor Guy Standing. A professorial research associate and former professor at SOAS University of London and world expert on Universal basic Income.

He is also a co-founder and current co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), an international non-governmental organization that promotes basic income as a right.

In light of the evolving pandemic I wanted to shift the conversation from reacting to the current scenario, to considering what opportunities there are to grow from this.

In the same way the British public and government created a universal healthcare system in the wake of WWII, perhaps our current scenario provides the foundation for even more radical thinking.

Today we discuss Basic Income as a measure that could alleviate societal suffering that started years before the pandemic, but has been extenuated and magnified as a result of the virus.

What we understand more than ever is the inequality within our communities, the effects of which will last far beyond the closure of this health crisis and will continue unless we think more carefully and imaginatively about how we structure our society.

We talk through the following:

  • Basic constructs of what Universal Basic Income means
  • The ethical and economic arguments for Basic Income
  • Ideas and culture shifts in politics and society that need to be in place for basic income to work
  • Professor Standing's experiences with instituting Basic Income in communities across the world

I hope that this situation has made more of us think more compassionately and kindly toward our neighbours both internationally as well as nationally and that this podcast ignites a different way of thinking even if you do not agree with the notion of Basic income.

Please do be sure to check out Professor Standings book - Battling Eight Giants: Basic Income Now (Bloomsbury, 2020) - released this year and available through most good bookstores or online booksellers.

Episode guests

Dr Guy Standing

Guy Standing is a professorial research associate and former professor at SOAS University of London. He is also a co-founder and current co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), an international non-governmental organization that promotes basic income as a right. Dr. Standing was previously Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath, UK and Professor of Labour Economics at Monash University, Melbourne. From 1999 to 2006, he was the director of the Socio-Economic Security Program of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva. He has been a consultant for many international bodies, including the United Nations, the European Commission, the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank. Dr. Standing has written and edited over thirty books on labor economics and policy, structural adjustment, social protection, the emerging precariat and the need for a new income distribution system anchored by a basic income. His publications include: Battling Eight Giants: Basic Income Now (2020), Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth (2019), Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen (2017), The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay (2016), Basic Income: A Transformative Policy for India (2015), A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens (2014), and The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (2011), which has been translated into twenty-three languages. A Fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences, he holds a BA in economics from the University of Sussex, an MA in labor economics and industrial relations from the University of Illinois, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Cambridge. Projects: Indian basic income pilot video Books: Battling Eight Giants: Basic Income Now (Bloomsbury, 2020); Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth (Penguin, 2019); Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen (Penguin, 2017); The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay (Biteback, 2016)

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