“At the heart of our economies, a diversification and increasing importance of collaborative practices can be observed. By proposing alternative paths of value creation and sharing, these practices open new perspectives in terms of consumption, production and innovation models.” – Michel Bauwens

From October 4th until October 8th a special event will take place to celebrate sharing cities. It is a potential for all cities, politicians, policymakers, hackers, entrepreneurs and citizens alike to unite in taking on responsibility for a shared future. We invite everyone to share this experience. The event will be held in Amsterdam which is becoming Europe’s first sharing city.

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This is also a call for developers to this volunteer project, if you are a developer you can find Joatu on GitHub

What is JoatU, exactly?

It’s a web application that allows to offer services and products, and it’s a complementary currency “Jack Of All Trade Unit” supporting local community projects by direct democracy.

Joatu is an initiative that is interesting from several perspectives. One of the things is that the algorithm of generating this complementary currency is different from other currencies, and based on the evaluation by the community. This makes it interesting from the computational point of view. Another thing is that as a “Jack Of All Trade Unit” it can encourage the community to share a variety of different services and products with each other. This means that one person can exercise her/his different skills and does not have to specialize in just one.

We’ll try to look more deeply into these different aspects of this project in the follow up interview with Jamie Klinger.

The post Project of the Day: JoatU — Community-driven Economics appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Extracted from basicincome2013.eu

The European Citizens Initiative (ECI)1 for Unconditional Basic Income (UBI)2 officially ended on Tuesday January 14th 23.59pm, after collecting at least3 285,042 statements of support from EU citizens in 28 countries. It did not succeed, however, in collecting the one million signatures required by the European Commission (EC) to win their consideration of UBI as a new form of ‘emancipatory welfare’.

“We would like to thank every single supporter who signed our initiative or promoted it,” said Klaus Sambor (Austria), general organizer of the European committee which coordinated this initiative in 28 European countries.

Last minute surge

During the final weeks there was a huge surge of support (see attached graph). In Bulgaria alone 30,000 signatures were collected in the last 5 days, thanks to an impressive last-minute push by Bulgaria’s leading trade union CITUB. “The case of Bulgaria reflects an overall intensification of interest in basic income leading to coverage in leading European media,” Martin Jordo (press officer, Sweden) said. Le Monde, BBC, El Mundo, Huffington Post, Al-Jazeera, RT’s Keiser Report, Portuguese and Bulgarian TV recently carried reports about unconditional basic income and this ECI for it.

While the official objective was not achieved, there are many reasons these supporters of a fairer and simpler social security system are happy. Six countries – Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Belgium, Netherlands and Estonia reached their signature quotas, and one, Hungary, came close to reaching theirs. “This ECI is only the start of a European movement towards an EU-wide basic income,” said Sambor. New groups formed in many countries to support this campaign, and existing UBI networks were strengthened by it.

“The momentum generated this year will carry on in 2014 to promote unconditional basic income,” affirmed Stanislas Jourdan, organiser of the ECI campaign in France. A new pan-European network has now formed to pursue the same objective – to promote the practicality and benefits of implementing UBI throughout Europe.

ECI process ‘too cumbersome’

The organisers do not intend to launch another ECI in 2014, however. “The current rules are too cumbersome for grass-root groups like ours,” explained Stanislas Jourdan. The organisers said they lost two months of campaigning because of troubles with the implementation of the online collection system, a result of the complicated regulations for ECIs. A request to extend this initiative was turned down by the EC, although such extensions have been allowed by the EC for other initiatives in the past.

“We may consider using the ECI again in the future if the rules are simplified, and allow better preparation for the start date,” Jourdan said. He referred to the fact that the EU plans to reform the ECI process by 2015.

Plans for the future

To show the popularity of the basic income concept and to challenge the shortcomings of the ECI collection system, organisers have now launched an online petition in collaboration with Avaaz.org, the leading political petition site in the world. This can be found at:
http://www.avaaz.org/our_chance_to_end_poverty_PR.

“We want to play by the rules of the ECI, which is supposed to allow 12 months for the organisers to collect signatures,” Koen van Haalen (online petition coordinator, Netherlands) explained. “The combined results of the two petitions will be delivered to several EU authorities and politicians to support our claim that widespread public support for UBI is emerging.” The organisers are also exploring the possibility of using the signatures collected during the ECI for a standard petition to the European Parliament.

The organisers of this ECI will launch a new European campaign before the European parliamentary elections in May. National campaigns for unconditional basic income are also set to be launched simultaneously in several countries.

Further actions will be announced on the website for the Initiative: www.basicincome2013.eu and the corresponding Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ECI.BasicIncome.

Press material and high-resolution pictures are available on these sites and can be freely used.

Press Contact:
Martin Jordö

[email protected]
+46-707206001
www.basicincome2013.eu/en/press.htm

Explanatory notes:

1) The European Citizens Initiative was set up by the Lisbon Treaty as a vehicle for giving ordinary people more of a voice at the European Commission. Each one has to collect one million verified names, addresses, and depending on the country, birthdays or National identification numbers, with at least seven countries reaching their quota of signatures set by the EC. After making an application to EC to do an ECI, the start date is set on the date the ECI is accepted by the EC, regardless of whether the complicated online collection system needed for each one has been sorted out and approved for use by the EC and verification authorities in each nation. Even paper forms were not available until the online system was sorted out. In the case of the ECI for Unconditional Basic Income, this process took over two months after the official start date.

2) Unconditional basic income is a regular, universal payment to everyone – as an individual right, without a means test or the obligation to work or perform other services in return, and high enough to ensure an existence in dignity and participation in society. Supporters often cite simplicity, lack of social stigma and greater income equality in favour of UBI. Several pilot studies of the policy around the world have confirmed that UBI results in higher levels of economic activity, better nutrition and other health outcomes, and increased participation in education and community activities where it has been tried.

3) The collation and official verification of all online signatures and those on paper will not be completed until mid-February.

The post 285,042 European citizens want the EC to consider basic income – UBI Press Release after the ECI-UBI campaign appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Interview by Dorotea Mar took place on the 17.01.2014, after the very successful campaign by Bulgaria Basic Income team.

Dorotea: “What is UBI and what is ECI UBI – how would you explain it to someone who has never heard about it?”

Boby: “UBI stands for “Unconditional Basic Income” and it is an economical measure that is deeply rooted in “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. It is an unconditional monthly cash transfer that is used as a preventive and emancipatory or in other words stimulating measure for the betterment of society and against poverty. It elevates people from extreme poverty and gives them the chance to participate in society as equal human beings. When you receive an Unconditional Basic Income you receive the freedom to live your life in a more meaningful way. ECI stands for “European Citizens’ Initiative” and is the direct democracy tool of the European Union. If an Initiative under the ECI regulation meet a certain amount of signatures from certain amount of Member States it forces the European Commision to propose a legal act in an area where the Member States have conferred powers onto the EU level. So ECI for UBI is: “European Citizens’ Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income” and it is asking the European Commission, to encourage cooperation between the Member States aiming to explore the Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) as a tool to improve their respective social security systems.”

Dorotea: “How did you get involved in the UBI initiative? How did it all started for you and what made you join the Initiative?”

Boby: “Well I think I saw the bulgarian page on Facebook somewhere around june 2013 and I did a research on the term “basic income”. I found the BIEN site and pretty much read all the available info. I was amazed that I haven’t heard anything about this topic – not only from the mainstream media or the political circles but not even from the academic world and the so called “economists”. I was hooked and I started lurking for more. I have always asked myself how did we come to be in such an economical disaster and no one could have predicted it or took preventive measures. So this idea sounded too logical not to be tested and that is if you do not consider that poor people are retarded or something which I don’t – so I have found out that it was tested and the questions just got more: Why is this not talked about? Why there is not even a hint from the media, the political circles or the academics in Bulgaria? We are the poorest country in the EU and topics like this one should make headlines all the time but I guess the only answer I came across was that they are way too comfortable in their chairs. I dare them to live off the 125 Euros per month that I live off and see how this will affect their opinion about people, the world, their place in it and basic income. Those 125 Euros are not a social welfare aid – it’s a wage of a janitor – a position for a Bachelor in Industrial Management. So consider all the job offers a 31 year old engineer-manager has in a relatively big city in Bulgaria. And this is not just me – all statistics are showing an increase in youth unemployment and growing percent of unemployed people but the things in reality are even worse because the way unemployment is measured is wrong and does not provide data for those who are not registered as unemployed but are unemployed or working in the grey economy.

I signed the Initiative and wrote a message to the bulgarian page and this is how I met Tsvetelina Kalyasheva and Prem Sajeev from “The Blue Bird Foundation” who have founded it. We started working together and because I  have little more experience in the administration of pages as I have created other pages like “Occupy Ruse” and “Bulgaria Loves Macedonia” most of the Facebook activity was on my shoulders. They had done an amazing job on the translations of all the important documents and the site promoting the Initiative so my job was only to add to that. I know little bit of Photoshop too so they took more responsibility in offline actions and contacts.”

Dorotea: “Why do you support the UBI initiative, what values are important for you in the initiative? Why the UBI makes sense to you and how it could improve the quality of living?”

Boby: “Well I come from the poorest country in the EU so the suffering and the misery around here have played their roles in my search for solutions. Those were the main reasons that have started me to think about our current way of dealing with these issues and to search for the alternative ways because the current ones are just not working. UBI makes sense because everyone has already benefited from this form of income. What do I mean by that – everyone was once a child, a teenager that was dependant on someone else and not a single person died from laziness during those times. So the argument that people will stop doing things is just a hypocrisy and a way of stating a disbelief in ones own capabilities and nothing more. The UBI makes more sense from a very deep down psychological standpoint: It is emancipatory – this means it is encouraging and uplifting which are both connected to the personal relationships between us all and those on the other hand are the real foundations of a more equal and just society. An uplifted individual which has the ability to sustain himself focuses on the betterment of those around him. Imagine a society full of those kind of individuals which have the economic security and the chance to focus on the really important things other than pure survival. How wonderful would this be combined with a more meaningful education and relationships between one another? In my opinion it will definitely lead to a new Renaissance and new horizons for the society but above all – BASIC INCOME is the life-saving boat of a sinking global economy. And this is possible but our inherited way of dealing with issues like poverty is just an obsolete way in a global EGOnomy in which stratification led to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.

After the economic crisis and the way we “dealt” with it, it was clear to me that a more radical approach is necessary if we do not want to wake up in a place from an Orwellian novel. For me personally all those movements “The Indignados”, “The Occupy Wall street” movement etc. represent the will of the people for a more equal and just society and Unconditional Basic Income for all is not such a crazy idea in a world where the richest 300 hundred people own as much as the poorest 3 billion.”

Dorotea: “How successful the initiative was in your opinion? And how did Bulgaria reached it’s goal so quickly at the last moment?”

Boby: “I think it made a huge impact considering the people it has reached. I’ve never thought that persuading someone to take an unconditional income would be such a hard thing to do but those 8 months really made me think otherwise. And again for me personally those arguments against UBI are just hypocrisy from people (and this is an observation) bragging night and day about the poor state of social welfare, the economy, the incompetent government and politicians and when you present them with an alternative approach all hell breaks loose and they fall in denial. Those are just and I say this again in my opinion people that are just too comfortable, too content to exit their comfort zones and really make a difference.

Here in Bulgaria something amazing happened right at the end of the Initiative that we the team still cannot believe it. The most logical explanation is the battle that Tsvetelina and Prem won after a three months of negotiations with one of the trade unions which backed the Initiative a week or something before the end. Maybe the planted seeds of the images with lots of popular hashtags and even spamming other popular pages with the statistics on Facebook also added to the huge increase. The amazing adventure which took over 8 months and I can remember coming back home from a 12 hour shift doing those images with the number of signatures collected almost falling asleep started to head in a hole another direction. We were doing translations from all sorts of places: The list Robin Ketelaars created helped a lot and the BIEN site too. I have found really good articles about UBI in the bulgarian version of “Le Monde Diplomatique”. The character of Tsvetelina and the persuading power of Prem really made the difference. I knew that Tsvetelina had meetings and interviews with Klaus Sambor and Dr. Guy Standing shown on television and broadcasted by radio but when I heard that a trade union has backed us up – I knew it was big! After the help from the trade union “CITUB” and their president Mr. Plamen Dimitrov, “The Bulgarian National Radio”, “The European Anti-poverty network” and their bulgarian representatives, “The Bulgarian  Association of the Economists” and their president Prof. Krastio Petkov the signatures started flowing. This is what happened from my perspective – people just needed someone they know, someone they have heard of and a trade union leader did the job. Now my personal opinion is that all of the above organizations should inform citizens of these kind of economical measures and not the other way around but that is just me – and I am always like that. The TV appearances of Klaus and Tsvetelina the translations of Guy Standing’s amazing works, the short video promoting the Initiative, the translated and shared many times german documentary about Basic Income – all those made the difference but I think the most great impact goes for all those activists and people on Facebook and other social media that continuously created new viral images, tweeted and shared again and again, article after article, interview after interview, image after image.”

Dorotea: “What will be the next steps? How do you think we should use the momentum of UBI initiative?”

Boby: “It’s hard to say but I hope those in power take this idea very seriously. We are a community now that will continue to grow in numbers with only one thing on our mind: Unconditional Basic Income. The application of the idea, means testing the different financing approaches, spreading what we know to all those that will be affected the most by this adequate solution to social welfare and equality. Next step is the continuation of this process with all means necessary.”

Dorotea: “What do you think was done well what we have learned and what we could improve in the next approaches?”

Done well?! Well from my perspective it was a complete chaos But chaos is good – it’s fair and order originates from it. Also chaos means that this intuitive cooperation between the citizens of so much different countries is honest, pure and self-evolving. It has bred so much fun and creativity so much new friendships and connections that it would be a shame to leave it unfinished. I can say this as a bulgarian: We have to take it to the streets! The people that would be most affected by this radical new approach cannot see a picture on the Internet or watch a television show – we need to take it to the street as united citizens under the most honorable of all initiatives: the human dignitary and the human rights! All countries have their democratic means of pushing the idea in the political life of their representatives and making it the most hot topic out there. So I wish to all the activists for UBI good luck and let the next round begin!

Dorotea: “What are the things that could help the concept of basic income to be better understood by society?”

I think examples – the pilot projects and their results. Mainstream media and the political world should start to pay attention to those and start to debate around this subject more. We need the idea to be taken seriously but in my opinion for now we should continue gathering strength in numbers through social media and offline action. Of course a lot of short quotes on images do a pretty good job there Images with quotes are great – it’s a meme world out there and people have the capability to do their own research based only on few keywords. But to be really successful we need to take the word out on the street. The amazing work of the “Basic Income Earth Network” – BIEN should reach as much people possible because those are the people that really do the work on the idea of basic income for everyone.

Dorotea: “What does it all mean to you and what are your hopes for the future?”

For me this Initiative was a starting point for something that I hope to be able to see some day in our global society: a dynamic equilibrium. I am a big fan of Jacque Fresco’s work and I think a Resource Based Economy is the goal worth striving for. This is why sometimes I feel really discouraged when people are just not capable to see that UBI is not such a radical idea after all and in fact just the opposite – the radical idea is to abolish money from society at all. Why I suggest giving money to all the people then? Well it’s easy – in these times only this solution will elevate enough people to be able to grasp the ideas behind The Venus Project and make it a reality.

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Dorotea is part of Unconditional Basic Income Portuguese Team
you can contact Dorotea on facebook or google plus

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