GLOBAL BASIC INCOME
by the Global Basic Income Foundation

Brief Summary
A Global Basic Income is a system which guarantees all people in all countries the means to satisfy their basic needs: clean water, food, clothing, housing, primary health care and education. This system should include everyone, without conditions. It should be global, because the increasingly global economic competition necessitates a social and environmental framework at the global level to prevent a ‘race to the bottom’ between companies and countries. Poverty eradication is a shared responsibility of humanity.
The GBI Foundation investigates different possibilities for introducing a global social security system that includes everyone. One possibility is a truly global system in which the United Nations has the task and responsibility to collect the funds and to distribute the Global Basic Income (GBI) to all people. Another possibility is that at the global level only the basic principles and outlines of a basic income guarantee for all people are agreed upon, whereas the actual responsibility for implementing this agreement is in the hands of national governments. Many different types of GBI are imaginable with different mixtures of global universalism and national autonomy.

Financing
For financing there are also different (combinations of) options. Currently we propose and explore three different possibilities:
1. All participating member states of the UN contribute the same percentage of their GDP to a global fund from which the GBI is paid to everyone. Countries are free to decide themselves what kind of taxes or premiums or other methods they use to raise the money.

2. Global taxes. A variety of global taxes are possible. Our first choice would be taxes on the ‘global commons’, i.e. natural resources that can be seen as belonging to humanity, such as the atmosphere or the oceans. Taxes on these global commons help to preserve them and if the are used for financing a basic income, they will give all people a share in the wealth of the global commons. A few of the most suggested options are taxes on air fuel, CO2 emissions and fish quota.

Link to full description
Form.doc by Global Basic Income Foundation