really a solution to this problem?

First, umm, Guy. Well thank you very much

and welcome to everybody and thanks for

coming to this session. When you've been

working on a subject for 30 years and

you're suddenly told you have four to

five minutes to give your perspective

you feel the slight sense of awe and I

want to begin actually by a little poem

from Barbara Wootton who said: it's from

the champions of the impossible rather

than the slaves of the possible that

evolution draws its creative force. And I

use that in our 25th anniversary because

we've been going through a period where

we've been doing a lot of fundamental

research on the feasibility,

affordability, implications of a basic

income. And for many years totally

ignored; but in the last couple of years

there has been suddenly been a huge surge of

interest partly by a realization about

automation. Now I want to stress that

that is not my rationale for a basic

income. It never has been. But it's quite

useful because it's made us much more

topical. The reason I felt that I always

fought for a basic income is a threefold.

First, it's a means of social justice.

This goes back to Thomas Paine and Henry

George and people who said public wealth

is created over generations. And any of

us know or should know and have the

humility to know that our income and

wealth is fundamentally due to the

contributions of previous generations

and much more than anything you and I

do ourselves. And therefore if you allow

private inheritance we should also have

public inheritance as a social dividend

on public wealth created. That means of

social justice is fundamental behind why

I believe in a basic income.

The second reason is that it is a means

to enhance republican freedom. Republican

freedom is different from standard

liberal forms of freedom in the sense

that it means freedom from domination by

figures of authority using up their

arbitrary power. It is a mechanism for

enhancing republican freedom. And the

third reason is that it is a means of

providing people with basic security.

Basic security. And in that regard, we

claim that those of us who support basic

income

it is not for eradicating poverty per se,

it is for handling the issue of

insecurity. I listened this morning to

the very illustrious panel

saying what should be done to help the

squeezed middle class. I listen very very

intently. I couldn't hear a single policy

that was addressed to the precariat or

to the groups that are facing chronic

insecurity today. Because that is behind

this drifter populism. That is behind so

many of the mental health problems and

so on mental health is improved by basic

security. Mental development is improved

by basic security. And what we've found

in our pilots - and we've done pilots - I

wish people would look at the evidence

rather than continue with their views.

But we've done pilots covering thousands

of people. And most fundamentally we

found that the emancipatory value of

a basic income is greater than the money

value. And i can explain that at length,

but the point is that it gives people a

sense of control of their time so that

the value of work grow relative to the

demands of labor; so that the values of

learning and public participation grow

rather than just so surviving; so that the

values of citizenship are strengthened

the values of altruism and tolerance we

found the evidence from basic income

experiments that show that these are

enhanced we know as individuals and

groups that at the moment society is

suffering from a deprivation of those

values of altruism and tolerance. So for

me I think a basic income is not a

panacea but it is part of the new

distribution system that we should be

building for the 21st century. Thank you

very much.

Thank you very much