In September 2015, Prabhat Patnaik spoke at the Inaugural Conference of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group (GERG) at the University of Manitoba.
Patnaik is an Indian economist and political commentator who taught at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, from 1974 until his retirement in 2010.
He was the Vice-Chairman of the Planning Board of the Indian state of Kerala from June 2006 to May 2011 and in 2008 was part of a four-member high-power United Nations task force chaired by Josephy Stiglitz, to recommend reform measures for the global financial system.
A few years ago, those who warned us about the risks of technological unemployment were labelled as luddites, crazy, or techno-pessimists. Now some of the greatest economists agree that automation poses a serious threat to the economy, with jobs disappearing and inequality on the rise. Today, those proposing radically new ideas to deal with this problem are being called crazy and idealistic. Old ideologies are outdated in the face of exponential change; we need to embrace a more holistic and adaptive system. I believe experiments with unconditional basic income, coupled with the utilization of crypto currencies and blockchain-based technologies, will help us find the answers.’
Federico Pistono is a futurist, social entrepreneur, hacktivist, public speaker, founder and CEO of konoz – a startup that curates and organizes educational videos, whose mission is to become the largest online community for free learning in the world – and he's author of the best-selling book "Robots Will Steal Your Job, But That's OK: How to Survive the Economic Collapse and Be Happy", which has been translated into Spanish, German, and Italian. He lectures regularly at Universities and Fortune 500 companies about the future of humanity.
VPRO Backlight talks about the need for social security experiments to give people the opportunity to make the most of their own talents and qualities.
Featuring: Guy Standing (economist, UK), Matthias Gijsbertsen (alderman for Social Affairs, Groningen), Albert Wenger (venture investor, New York) and Michael Bohmeyer (IT entrepreneur, Germany).
Around the globe, experiments are conducted with alternatives for the existing social security system that has become stuck. People no longer believe in centrally organised long-term planning: change can only be brought about by bottom-up small-scale social experiments. Advocates of redistributing our prosperity and disconnecting work and income are fighting for this. In many places and using many different methods they are experimenting with handing out free money.
Michael Bohmeyer, a young German, has started a crowdfunding campaign for an unconditional basic income. With every 12,000 euros raised, one person gets an income of 1000 euros per month for a year. So far, eight people have been receiving this basic income. There are no obligations other than to submit themselves to research into how this effects their lives. In New York, Michael meets venture investor Albert Wenger who has been thinking about basic income for years. With his company he invested in many internet companies and with these investments he has helped young internet geniuses get well-paid jobs. But Wenger also sees that digitalisation has caused many people to their jobs. Embracing the development toward a basic income, he argues a new perspective on work.
British economist Guy Standing may be one of the greatest advocates of a thorough renewal of the social system. He has conducted basic income experiments in India and Namibia. He sees a growing economic class of flex workers and independent contractors with so little perspective that something needs to be done in order to prevent extensive social unrest. Earlier this year, Guy Standing was in Groningen on invitation by people from MIES (Association for Innovation of Economy and Society). Here, he had a conversation with Matthias Gijsbertsen, the alderman of Social Affairs of the city of Groningen. The alderman was inspired by the idea of a basic income and suggested to offer citizens of Groningen who are on social security the opportunity to earn extra money without lowering social security payments.
Since 1982, all inhabitants of Alaska have received yearly dividends from the revenues of the oil and gas industry without any obligation whatsoever.
On February 8 we will go Live from Berlin with an extraordinary episode of our political webshow TalkReal one day ahead of the launch of the new movement DiEM25 by Yanis Varoufakis.
WIth Yanis Varoufakis, Marisa Matias, Portuguese Presidential candidate for the Left, Sławomir Sierakowski, founder of Krytyka Polityczna and Valentina Orazzini, international representative of the Italian Trade Union Fiom Cgil Nazionale. The talk will be led and presented by Lorenzo Marsili (@l_marsili), director of European Alternatives.
Today, we feel trapped between a rock and a hard place. Squeezed between a failing and undemocratic European Union and equally failing and undemocratic national states.
But beyond sterile arguments over the benefits of an independent nation-state or of a united Europe, we think that what we should really be talking about is how to organise to transform both.
On the 9th of February, 2016, Yanis Varoufakis & Srecko Horvat launched a movement called Democracy in Europe Movement 25 (DiEM25) in Berlin at Volksbühne.
Due to limited financial resources, personnel and technical capacities, we plan to release the entire interview in a “mini-video” format. As a non-profit & volunteer based organization, this format provides us with sufficient time to coordinate our time outside of our occupational commitments and translate the content into multiple languages, subtitle & voice-synchronize it for people with hearing & visual impairment. Please assist us in the production and publishing process by donating: http://www.actvism.org/en/donate/
In this video, acTVism Munich interviews Yanis Varoufakis, a world renowned economist who was a former member of the Greek parliament. He gained immense popularity when he served as finance minister (27 January 2015 – 6 July 2015) for the Greek government, a post that he left shortly after he found out that Greek government made the decision to implement the austerity package of the Troika against the popular vote (OXI) of the Greek people . This interview focuses on the history of the global economic system, the transformations that it underwent after World War II and attempts to connect it to the current economic crisis that is sweeping throughout Europe and the globe.
- Is there such a thing as a "Greek-crisis"? - Are pensions, social security benefits & high-wages the reasons why we are facing an economic downturn or are there underlying factors involved? - What is the history of the global capitalist system and how is it affecting states and individuals today?
These questions are answered in this interview with Yanis Varoufakis.
Eduardo Galeano: "El mundo se divide en indignos e indignados"
The Crime of Ecocide
http://www.pollyhiggins.com/
"... move away from property laws to trusteeship laws, so rather than I own, to I owe. I owe a duty of care to this planet."
12-year old Victoria Grant explains why Canada (her homeland) and most of the world, is in debt.
"How the Media Frames Political Issues" by Scott London
In The Emergence of American Political Issues (1977) McCombs and Shaw state that the most important effect of the mass media is "its ability to mentally order and organize our world for us. In short, the mass media may not be successful in telling us what to think, but they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think about."[13] The presidential observer Theodore White corroborates this conclusion in The Making of a President (1972):
The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion; and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It determines what people will talk and think about - an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.[14]
McCombs and Shaw also note that the media's tendency to structure voters' perceptions of political reality in effect constitutes a bias: "to a considerable degree the art of politics in a democracy is the art of determining which issue dimensions are of major interest to the public or can be made salient in order to win public support."[15] http://www.scottlondon.com/reports/frames.html
I am just an anonymous citizen who firmly believes that we are the ones we are always waiting for. No saviors, heroes, leaders, gurus, or superior or inferior, we are all equals, and we need to think and behave as if it matters.
