Voices for the Future: Let There Be Money--A Conversation About Universal Basic Income

A Conversation with Universal Basic Income Advocate Scott Santens

Voices for the Future is a podcast series that I co-host with my collaborator Anodea Judith.

The next program is Tuesday, June 27th at 5pm Eastern/2pm Pacific with one of the world's leading advocates for a Universal Basic Income, Scott Santens., and is entitled Let There Be Money: A Conversation About Universal Basic Income.

You can attend for free on Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87185716995

The concept of of a Universal Basic Income, or UBI, was first conceived 500 years ago by Sir Thomas More in his book Utopia, and over the centuries it has had many disparate advocates, from Thomas Paine, to Franklin Roosevelt (Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act, granting a guaranteed income to Americans of a certain age), Friedrich Hayek, Martin Luther King, Jr., Milton Friedman, Richard Nixon (Congress almost passed a law setting up a guaranteed income for all Americans when Nixon was president), Stephen Hawking, Pope Francis, and Tim Berners-Lee. 

And in 2020, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang advocated for a UBI as his core campaign message.

UBI pilot programs have been conducted all around the world, all to beneficial results. The NGO GiveDirectly has given $168 million over the last 10 years as a UBI to 360,000 people in various African countries. Brazil, Spain, Finland, The Netherlands, Germany, Iran, India, China, and Japan are also countries that have experimented with a UBI in one form or another. 

In 2020, Canada gave $2000 a month for a number of months to all Canadian citizens as a pandemic UBI. And in a recent report, the U.N. stated that a UBI should be given to the world’s poorest people.

In the U.S., an organization called Mayors for a Guaranteed Income currently has over 100 mayors of various size U.S. cities as member advocates, and currently there are almost 50 U.S. cities that are doing UBI pilot programs, ranging in size from Los Angeles and Atlanta to Ithaca, NY.

Scott Santens

Scott Santens, at https://www.scottsantens.com, is one of the world's foremost advocates for a Universal Basic Income. 

Acknowledged by Andrew Yang as one of those who helped shape his thinking, and described by historian Rutger Bregman as "by far, the most effective basic income activist out there," Scott Santens has lived with a crowdfunded basic income since 2015 and has been researching and advocating for UBI around the world since 2013.

He is currently the Senior Advisor for Humanity Forward and also serves on the board of directors of the Gerald Huff Fund for Humanity and as the editor of Basic Income Today — a daily UBI news hub.

His debut book about UBI and how to pay for it is titled Let There Be Money. You can buy it on Amazon or listen to it on your favorite podcast platform.

As Scott says, "Basic Income is not left or right. It's forward." 

Please join us for this exciting conversation with Scott Santens as we discuss not only UBI but also the interrelated topics of A.I., the future of work, and also how money and taxes work--which is important to know as a guide to how to fund a UBI.