Quotes from Guy Standing

In Brazil, from 2008–14, a local NGO, ReCivitas Institute, gave a monthly basic income of about US$9 to 100 residents of Quatinga Velho, a small poor village in São Paulo state, funded by private donors. In January 2016, it launched Basic Income Startup, another donor-funded project, which will give individuals a 'lifetime' basic income, adding another individual for each $1,000 donated. ReCivitas hopes this idea will be replicated elsewhere in Brazil and internationally.

firms were hiring 'moonlighting' active Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents to train managers in 'tactical behaviour assessment' techniques. These are ways of checking on employee honesty by reading verbal and behavioural clues, such as fidgeting or use of qualifying statements like 'honestly' and 'frankly'.

Although reducing poverty, economic insecurity, malnutrition and ill-health should be the primary driving forces, an additional factor is the stress being placed on societies all over the world from distress and other forms of migration. A basic income system in impoverished and low-income communities in developing countries would surely encourage more people to stay in and (re)build their communities.

In October 2016, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said: The use of cash-based assistance has been a real game changer in the way we help refugees and we have now decided to make it a worldwide policy and expand it to all our operations, where feasible … Refugees know best what they need. The broader use of cash-based assistance means that many more will be able to decide how to manage their family's budget. This will help them lead more dignified and normal lives.

In an innovative proposal linked to basic income that has attracted interest across the European Union, Philippe van Parijs has suggested that every EU resident (presumably, legal resident) would receive a Euro-Dividend averaging €200 per month, paid for by a 20 per cent value added tax.11 This would amount to about 10 per cent of EU GDP.

What we need is a slow time movement to gain control over time and an overhaul of work statistics to give a better perspective on all the work being done and how much of it is undesirable, unnecessary, and demeaning.

The precariat consists of a growing proportion of our total society. It is being habituated to accept a life of unstable labour and unstable living. Often they're unable to say what their occupation is, because what they're doing now might be quite different from what they were doing three months ago.

Retraining for the precariat is stressful and demoralising; often, they learn new tricks only to find them obsolescent or unwanted.

A democratically governed national fracking fund should be set up, perhaps similar to what Norway and Alaska have. Areas of drilling should be rented to companies through public tender, with or without subsidies, and a rising share of profits beyond a negotiated upper limit should be deposited in the national capital fund.

Capital is taxed much less than labour; subsidies going to capital, the rich, and middle-income earners greatly exceed the benefits going to the precariat and underclass.

Although the precariat does not consist simply of victims, since many in it challenge their parents' labouring ethic, its growth has been accelerated by the neoliberalism of globalisation, which put faith in labour market flexibility, the commodification of everything, and the restructuring of social protection.

Growth in village economies is often ignored. It should not be.

People, in general, want to improve their lives and the lives of their children and other loved ones.