This Future Based-podcast series hosted by Floris Schleicher, brings you conversations about our political institutions. Topics discussed include: How are our political institutions designed? To what extent can they cope with 21st century problems like climate change, inequality, polarization and migration? What do the possible alternatives to our current political institutions look like? And what might be their advantages and drawbacks? Big and interesting questions. If you want to know more about politics, justice and the future this is the right podcast for you.

In this first podcast episode of Future Based Politics, philosopher Thomas R. Wells discusses the pros and cons of basic income, while presenting the ideas and proposals of Thomas Piketty, Rutger Bregman and John Maynard Keynes, among others. We learn what Jane Austen teaches us about economics and morality, and in the meantime we learn why Marxists can be considered the flat earthers of economics and why can we order a coke in the middle of Congo but no medication is available.

Shownotes:

Intro Floris and dr. Thomas R. Wells / 1:30 How corona magnifies inequality / 3:00 Times of radical changes? / 5:40 Capitalist economy and corona / 7:00 Small revolutions / 10:00 The bias of capitalism / 12:00 Democracy is hard work / 16:00 Leon Boelens / 17:30 The concept of universal basic income / 21:00 Laziness and progress / 25:00 Rutger Bregman / 25:00 Economic schemes and experiments / 27:00 David van Ruybroeck / 27:00 The rise of ‘Utopianism’ / 29:00 We could do better / 33:00 Global minimum income / 37:00 Structuring the distribution of wealth / 41:00 Bottom up approach / 43:00 Poor people are not patients / 44:00 Broad and narrow perspectives: progression in Economics / 48:00 Marxism and Piketty / 52:00 What Economics should be / 54:00 Thomas Piketty / 58:00 To the Future students of Economics / 60:00 What can we learn by Jane Austen? / 65:00 Generations to come / 71:00 Recommendations for further investigation / 74:00 Outro

Name-dropping-list in random order:

Rutger Bregman / Karl Marx / John Stuart Mill / David van Ruybroeck / Jane Austen / Slavoij Zizek / Leon Boelens / John Maynard Keynes / Thomas Piketty / Adam Smit / Mariana Mazzucato

Suggestions for further reading:

Website Thomas R. Wells: http://www.philosophersbeard.org/

Van Parijs, Philippe, and Yannick Vanderborght. Basic Income: A Radical
Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy. Harvard University Press, 2017.

Muller, Jan-Werner. “Parsing Populism: Who Is and Who Is Not a Populist
These Days?” Juncture 22, no. 2 (October 13, 2015). https://www.ippr.org/juncture-item/parsing-populism-who-is-and-who-is-not-a-populist-these-days.

Rao, Venkatesh. “Plot Economics.” Ribbonfarm (blog), March 9, 2020.
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/03/09/plot-economics/.


Floris Schleicher is a Dutch philosopher, writer and teacher and the host of a brand new podcast series on Future Based: Future Based Politics. Question? Inquiry? Additional information? Get in touch with Floris at: floris@futurebased.org.

Press: goodnews@futurebased.org