Marcus Brancaglione on Basic Income in a Brazilian Village: Lessons for Human Liberation
To date the ReCivitas project remains one of only a handful of instances where universal basic income (UBI) has been trialled in a real community. Cofounded by Marcus Brancaglione, this Brazilian NGO has successfully run a donation-funded basic income trial in a rural slum close to Sao Paulo since 2008. From its outset the project was guided by a libertarian ideal: to show that the satisfaction of basic survival needs is a human right that can be guaranteed without making people dependent on state patronage. However, ReCivitas also sees UBI as a developmental alternative to the preferred neoliberal tool of microfinance that so often fails in its mission to increase entrepreneurial investment in poor communities and to deliver people from poverty. More about SPP: http://spp.ceu.edu/