Guaranteed Basic Income

Free Lunch Sociey trailer


I watched this engaging documentary on my return flight and I've been thinking about its contents ever since. Free Lunch Society explores the idea of a guaranteed basic income: a payment made to individuals that ensures a minimum income level, regardless of employment status. It features discussions among economists, political scientists, sociologists, and other -ists about its advantages  and disadvantages. Interspersed in the debates is a collection of archival footage, including Martin Luther's resistance struggle against President L.B.J's "war on poverty".

 The film provides a good introduction and presents the idea as a realistic possibility—highlighting different communities that have already experimented with the concept—rather than a romantic radical fantasy. In fact, the Ontario government just finished the first phase of a basic income pilot project in Hamilton, with plans to launch in Brantford, Brant County, Lindsay and Thunder Bay.