On June 15, 2019, members of Humanists for Universal Basic Income (HUBI) and some friends and supporters met at the Toledo Park of Study and Reflection, to present the annual report of activities for 2018 and begin to design the campaign “Let the machines work”, which we plan to launch in September of this year.
The aim of this campaign is to show that the old equivalence employment = subsistence no longer works, because the advance of capitalism needs less and less of the human labour factor for the creation of wealth, due to the rapid advance of technology. In Anglo-Saxon countries, the word “redundant” is recurrently used to refer to people; by this they mean that people are increasingly redundant in the field of employment and the production of material goods. In order to avoid the exponential increase in poverty and the inequality that this trend would entail, new economic alternatives are needed at this time in history that do not discard human beings, or that allow them to live with dignity even if they do not have a productive job. Therefore, we link this campaign with the need to implement a Universal and Unconditional Basic Income (UUBI).
Another objective of this campaign is to question the centrality of work-employment in the lives of human beings. We humanists think that people should rethink the path that this system in which we live makes us walk and try to give meaning to our lives. And, for this, we must find the purpose of our life, our vocation, we could say it in other words. Because it is through the development of one’s vocation that one contributes more to society and how a person can feel more fulfilled, happier.
To say let machines work is the same as to say that the human being is not made to carry out repetitive and routine tasks, most of the times without sense, but to develop the best of themselves and to contribute it to society. Of course, we start from the assumption that the work you have to do, in 90% of cases does not coincide with the activity you would like to do, if you had the conditions for it (for example, thanks to receiving a UUBI).
This campaign is therefore a torpedo on the waterline of this system. And it can serve to destabilise the assembly of basic beliefs that sustains and justifies the current paradigm. In addition, it is a campaign that rows in favour of the evolution of the human being, in favour of the transformation into a free being, coherent and in solidarity with the other human beings.
We intend to connect this campaign with the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) on UUBI, which HUBI and the European Basic Income Network (UBIN) are going to launch in the middle of next year 2020.
We invite anyone who wishes to join and contribute to this campaign, to attend a day of planning for it, next Saturday 13 July 2019 at 11 am in the Park of Study and Reflection “Toledo”, located above the Restaurant “3 Jotas”, at the height of km 53 of the A4, near Ocaña, in the province of Toledo.
In the rest of the event organised on June 13, we detailed the activities deployed by HUBI during 2018, much more than 40 in total, with all the learning derived from them, which showed the dedication and teamwork capacity of our members. If you are interested in learning more about them, please download the report (Spanish) here.
Translation Pressenza London
