Basic income in Japan

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File:YasuoTanaka.jpg
Yasuo Tanaka, in Tokyo, 2010.

Basic income, a welfare system in which every citizen (or permanent resident) regularly receives a sum of money without conditions, is a radical idea that has gotten more attention in recent years in Japan. According to Hirano Hiroya, a professor, the growing debate is understandable, as the social exclusion, the precarity in the labor market and the poverty has increased in recent decades.[1] Two political parties are pro-basic income: New Party Nippon and the Green Party of Japan. Japanese academics arguing for basic income are for example Toru Yamamori and Hayato Kobayashi. Ronald Dore, a British sociologist specializing in the Japanese welfare state, is also engaged in the basic income debate since many years, arguing for its implementation. The main organization promoting basic income in Japan is BIEN Japan.

Background

The welfare system of Japan developed quite late and is still considerably less generous than in Europe. Traditionally the state plays a much smaller role in welfare provision, while families, local communities and corporations plays a bigger role.[2]

History (year by year)

  • 2002: The first basic income-book in Japanese, "Welfare Society and Social Security Reform: New horizon of Basic Income", is published.[3]
  • 2008: The Japanese Association for Feminist Economics have its yearly meeting, with basic income as the theme.[4]
  • 2009: The Democratic Party organize a meeting where 40 MP takes part. New Party Nippon includes basic income in their manifest.[4]
  • 2012: Greens Japan (Japanese Green party) is endorsing basic income from its start.[5]
  • 2014: Basic Income in Japan, by Yannick Vanderborght and Toru Yamamori, is the first book in English entirely devoted to the possibility for basic income in Japan.[6]
  • 2015: Tomoyuki Taira, former MP, gives a BI-lecture in Tokyo on March 10.[7]

External links

References

  1. Hiroya, Hirano The Potential of introducing Basic Income for the“New Public Commons” in Japan: A Road to Associational Welfare State? (read February 5, 2013)
  2. One world of welfare: Japan in comperative perspective
  3. USBIG NEWSLETTER VOL. 5, nr. 29, sept-okt 2004
  4. 4.0 4.1 Noteringar om Japans basinkomsthistorik via Doshisha University
  5. Japan party that endorses basic income has a new political platform
  6. Basic income in Japan
  7. Tokyo, Japan: Thinking about Basic Income Basicincome.org February 24, 2015 (read April 21, 2015)