Next Book Group on universal basic income

​At last, about 9 years after its inception, this blog may have found its raison d'etre as a record of the Gentle Readers Book Group, established 2014.

Next time, we will be discussing universal basic income (UBI). This is a natural follow-on from our last topic, artificial intelligence.

It's also worth mentioning in passing that the book group has seamlessly evolved in the last year from strictly a Book Group to more of a themed discussion group. We now tend to share YouTube video clips and web links as a springboard for discussion. 

This month coming up, though, the texts include:

• Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen by Guy Standing

• Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There by Rutger Bregman, the Dutch historian, which gets a pasting from Will Hutton in The Guardian - 

"My biggest beef is the idea that increasingly grips liberal thinkers desperate for anything radical – the concept of a universal income for all. Financially, behaviourally and organisationally bonkers, this idea is gaining traction on the bien pensant left. The proposition is that because a rogue capitalism is going to automate away most of our jobs, human wellbeing can only be assured by everyone receiving a universal basic income."

• Basic (Citizens') Income, a blog by one of  The Green Party's venerable founder members, ​Clive Lord