Tentative Program: The Fourteenth Annual North America Basic Income Guarantee
Congress
February 26 – March 1, 2015
Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel
811 Seventh Avenue at 53rd Street, New York, NY
Thursday, February 26: Preconference Event
7pm-9pm
PUBLIC DISCUSSION: “New Possibilities for the Basic
Income Movement”
Frances Fox Piven
Mary Bricker Jenkins
Marshall Brain
Alanna Hartzok
Steven Shafarman
Moderator: Michael Lewis
Location: Hunter College School of Social Work
Friday, February 27
8:00am-9:20am
NABIG SESSION 1: Featured Speaker
Michael W. Howard, Coordinator, USBIG, “Welcome
and Introduction”
Featured speaker: Marshall Brain
Response: Michael W. Howard
Moderator: Eri Noguchi
9:20am-9:30am
Break
9:30am-10:50am
NABIG SESSION 2: Confronting Poverty, Race, and
Women: Changing the Dynamics by Bringing more
People and Voices to the Table, Part 1
Mimi Abramovitz
Willie Baptist
Suezanne Bruce
Response: Michaelann Berwitz, Francis Fox Piven
Moderator: Jason Burke Murphy
10:50am-11:00am
Break
11:00am-12:20pm
NABIG SESSION 3: Confronting Poverty, Race, and
Women: Changing the Dynamics by Bringing more
People and Voices to the Table, Part 2
Michaelann Berwitz
Francis Fox Piven
Jason Burke Murphy
Response: Willie Baptist, Suezanne Bruce
Moderator: Mimi Abramovitz
12:20pm-1:00pm
Lunch Break
1:20pm-2:20pm
2:20pm-2:30pm
2:30pm-3:50pm
3:50pm-4:00pm
4:00pm-5:20pm
5:20pm-5:30pm
5:30pm-6:50pm
NABIG SESSION 4: To Have and Have Not in the
Twenty-First Century Economy
Michael Lewis, “Beyond The Deserving/Undeserving
Dichotomy: Genetics, Poverty, and Social Welfare
Policy”
Oliver Heydorn, “A National Dividend vs. A Basic
Income - Similarities and Differences”
Karl Widerquist, “Institutional aspects of the Piketty
Observation and the Case for BIG”
Moderator: Frederick H. (Harry) Pitts
Break
NABIG SESSION 5: The Basic Income Guarantee and
work
Jim Bryan, “Making Opportunities More Equal: The
Role of Basic Income”
Seán Healy and Brigid Reynolds, “Securing meaningful
work and adequate income for all – Is Basic Income the
only way to secure these rights?”
James Green-Armytage, “Self-Sustaining Public
Employment”
Moderator: Ann Withorn
Break
NABIG SESSION 6: Exploitation and the Basic Income
Guarantee
Michael W. Howard, “Exploitation, labor, and basic
income”
Frederick H. (Harry) Pitts, “A crisis of measurability?
Critiquing autonomist Marxism on labour, value and the
basic income”
Ashley Engel, “The republican path to freedom: How a
universal basic income can mitigate global human
trafficking”
Moderator: Seán Healy
Break
NABIG SESSION 7: Featured Speaker
Mary Bricker Jenkins, “Basic Income and Welfare
Rights for All: Out of the Past and into the Future”
Response: Eri Noguchi
Moderator: Jurgen De Wispelaere
Saturday, February 28
8:00am-9:20am
NABIG SESSION 8: The BIG Implementation Questions
Sid Frankel, “Managing Implementation Issues in an
incremental approach to development of a basic income
scheme”
Jurgen De Wispelaere, “Bootstrapping Basic Income:
What We Can Learn From Research On Policy Feedback”
Paul B. Siegel, “Guidelines for Implementation of a RiskAdjusted Basic Needs Package”
Moderator: Michael Lewis
9:20am-9:30am
Break
9:30am-10:50am
NABIG SESSION 9: The politics of BIG, part 1: the
political movement
Jason Burke Murphy, “Basic Income as Proposal. Basic
Income as Project”
Jonathan Brun, “How to Build a Citizen Movement for
Basic Income”
Felix Coeln, “The Pirate Party, the only party within the
German parliaments including the UBI in their party
manifesto”
Response: Ian Shlakman and Richard Caputo
Moderator: Alanna Hartzok
10:50am-11:00am
Break
11:00am-12:20pm
NABIG SESSION 10: The Politics of BIG, part 2: the
basic income guarantee and electoral politics
Ian Shlakman
Alanna Hartzok
Eduardo Suplicy
Response: Jonathan Brun and Felix Coeln
Moderator: Richard Caputo
12:20pm-2:00pm
Lunch break
2:00pm-3:20pm
3:20pm-3:30pm
3:30pm-4:50pm
4:50pm-5:00pm
5:00pm-6:20pm
NABIG SESSION 11: The Basic Income Guarantee in the
Twenty-First Century Political Economy
Stanley Aronowitz
Bill DiFazio
Steven Pressman
Response: Peter Barnes
Moderator: Karl Widerquist
Break
NABIG SESSION 12: Unconditional Basic Income and
the Contemporary Welfare System
Brent Ranalli, “Historical Precedents: The Townsend
Movement”
Preston Smith, “Standing up for Public Housing and Free
Public Higher Education”
James Jennings, “Urban politics that include immigrant
communities”
Diane Pagen, “No one to spend it on? A look at
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Unspent
Dollars”
Moderator: Bill DiFazio
Break
NABIG SESSION 13: Featured Speaker:
Jim Mulvale, “Working with an Elegant Idea in a Messy
and Chaotic World: Thoughts on Real-World
Implementation of Basic Income”
Response: Bill DiFazio and Steven Shafarman
Moderator: Michael W. Howard
Sunday, March 1
8:00am-9:20am
9:20am-9:30am
9:30am-10:50am
10:50am-11:00am
11:00am-12:20pm
12:20pm-12:45pm
12:45pm-2:30pm
6pm - ?
The Brooklyn
Commons
NABIG SESSION 14: What can a Basic Income
Guarantee Do For Us?
Jude Thomas, “Vanishing Scarcity: Basic Income as a
Means to Preserve Value in the Arts”
Valerie J. Carter, “Union Support for a BIG and a
Revenue-Neutral Carbon Tax in the U.S.”
Roy Morrison, “Basic Income Grant and Basic Energy
Entitlement: A Sustainable Convergence”
Response: Steven Shafarman
Moderator: Jim Mulvale
Break
NABIG SESSION 15: Featured Speaker
Ann Withorn, "Let's Face It: Basic Income is a Radical
Necessity for Building Solidarity within our Precarious
World"
Response: Diane Dujon
Moderator: Francis Fox Piven
Break
NABIG SESSION 16: Featured Speaker
Peter Barnes, author of With Liberty and Dividends For
All, and Capitalism 3.0
Response: Stanley Aronowitz
Moderator: Jim Bryan
Break
Lunch meeting: organizational meeting of the USBIG
Network
At a café near the Sheraton, TBA
Moderator: Michael Howard
Activist Meeting: Are we ready to start an activist
movement for a Basic Income Guarantee in the United
States?
Location: The Brooklyn Commons
388 Atlantic Ave. Brooklyn, NY
Moderator: Karl Widerquist