Peer2Politics

The simplest welfare program imaginable: an income for everyone, no strings attached.

For the past 18 months people all over Switzerland have been campaigning for the "Citizens’ Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income". Today the result of their efforts will be handed to the Federal Chancellery: 116,000 signatures (the minimum required number of signatures for the initiative to trigger a referendum was 100,000). The success of the initiative means that citizens of Switzerland will be the first in the world to vote on "Unconditional Basic Income"....

This fall, a truck dumped eight million coins outside the Parliament building in Bern, one for every Swiss citizen. It was a publicity stunt for advocates of an audacious social policy that just might become reality in the tiny, rich country. Along with the coins, activists delivered 125,000 signatures — enough to trigger a Swiss public referendum, this time on providing a monthly income to every citizen, no strings attached. Every month, every Swiss person would receive a check from the government, no matter how rich or poor, how hardworking or lazy, how old or young. Poverty would disappear. Economists, needless to say, are sharply divided on what would reappear in its place — and whether such a basic-income scheme might have some appeal for other, less socialist countries too.