Philippe Van Parijs

Linguistic justice for Europe and for the world

In Europe and throughout the world, competence in English is spreading at a speed never achieved by any language in human history. This apparently irresistible growing dominance of English is frequently perceived and sometimes indignantly denounced as being grossly unjust. Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World starts off arguing that the dissemination of competence in a common lingua franca is a process to be welcomed and accelerated, most fundamentally because it provides the struggle for greater justice in Europe and in the world with an essential weapon: a cheap medium of communication and of mobilization. However, the resulting linguistic situation can plausibly be regarded as unjust in three distinct senses. Firstly, the adoption of one natural language as the lingua franca implies that its native speakers are getting a free ride by benefiting costlessly from the learning effort of others. Secondly, they gain greater opportunities as a result of competence in their native language becoming a more valuable asset. And thirdly the privilege systematically given to one language fails to show equal respect for the various languages with which different portions of the population concerned identify. Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World spells out the corresponding interpretations of linguistic justice as cooperative justice, distributive justice and parity of esteem, respectively. And it discusses systematically a wide range of policies that might help achieve linguistic justice in these three senses, from a linguistic tax on Anglophone countries to the banning of dubbing or the linguistic territoriality principle. Against this background, the book argues that linguistic diversity is not valuable in itself but it will nonetheless need to be protected as a by-product of the pursuit of linguistic diversity as parity of esteem.

Basic Income: A Simple and Powerful Idea for the Twenty-First Century:

A basic income (or demogrant) is an income paid by a political community to all its members on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. This article surveys the various forms the basic income proposal has taken and how they relate to kin ideas; synthesizes the central case for basic income, as a strategy against both poverty and unemployment; examines the question of whether and in what sense a universal basic income is affordable; and discusses the most promising next steps towards it, both in the North and in the South.

Europe's Linguistic Challenge

The irreversible adoption of English as Europes lingua franca raises at least four serious issues of linguistic justice: unequal language-based economic rents, unequal share in the burden of language learning, unequal capacity to influence, and unequal respect for the associated identifies. In each case, the nature of the problem is spelt out and solutions are proposed, on the background of an analysis of the micro-mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of secondary language learning and multilingual interaction.

The Ground Floor of the World: On the Socio-economic Consequences of Linguistic Globalization

As English emerges as the first world-wide lingua franca, countries whose native language is not English increasingly face the following dilemma: either they will have to lose their soul (by switching off the protection of their national language and culture) or they will have to lose their heart (by scaling down the redistributive component of their welfare state). This conclusion rests on the following premises, which the article presents and vindicates: (1) If weaker languages are to survive, the countries in which they are spoken will have to insist on the linguistic territoriality principle. (2) Plurilingual portfolios do now and increasingly will tend to include English. (3) If some area’s native language emerges as a world lingua franca and if the territoriality principle is in place elsewhere, the migration of the high-skilled will display a growing bias towards the lingua-franca countries, here called for this reason the ground floor of the world. (4) If there is a significant asymmetric skill drain, then the other countries’ governments will have no real option but to reduce net taxation on high-skilled labour income. The article closes with a brief discussion of various conceivable strategies for avoiding, or at least softening the dilemma.As English emerges as the first world-wide lingua franca, countries whose native language is not English increasingly face the following dilemma: either they will have to lose their soul (by switching off the protection of their national language and culture) or they will have to lose their heart (by scaling down the redistributive component of their welfare state). This conclusion rests on the following premises, which the article presents and vindicates: (1) If weaker languages are to survive, the countries in which they are spoken will have to insist on the linguistic territoriality principle. (2) Plurilingual portfolios do now and increasingly will tend to include English. (3) If some area’s native language emerges as a world lingua franca and if the territoriality principle is in place elsewhere, the migration of the high-skilled will display a growing bias towards the lingua-franca countries, here called for this reason the ground floor of the world. (4) If there is a significant asymmetric skill drain, then the other countries’ governments will have no real option but to reduce net taxation on high-skilled labour income. The article closes with a brief discussion of various conceivable strategies for avoiding, or at least softening the dilemma.

The Falling-rate-of-profit Theory of Crisis - a Rational Reconstruction By Way of Obituary

This paper traces the development of the falling-rate-of profit theory of crisis from its original and traditional version to its modern variant and finally to A. Shaikhs recent defense based on the distinction between circulating and fixed capital. At each stage the major arguments in favor of and against the falling-rate-of-profit thesis are reviewed and criticized. On balance, the conclu sions are almost universally negative: It cannot be shown in general that a rise in the organic composition of capital leads to a fall in the rate of profit; neither can it be shown that a fall in the general rate of profit necessarily induces a crisis of overproduction. Finally, Okishios theorem is employed to show that profit- maximizing capitalists, under competitive conditions, would never adopt a tech mque which would lower the general rate of profit at a given level of wages. Thus, a fallmg-rate-of-profit crisis is not a theoretical necessity; indeed, it is not even a possibility under conditions of competitive...

Evolutionary explanation in the Social Sciences : An emerging paradigm

In broad, nonmathematical terms, the author explains how evolutionary ideas can be applied in the social sciences. The book was one of the early attempts to publicise the rise of sociobiology.

Basic Income Capitalism

Slipping back ever more deeply into laissez-faire capitalism, reaching desperately for the Swedish model, clinging defensively to the welfare state: is there any other future worth contemplating for advanced capitalist countries, now that whatever of genuine socialism was still left on the list of political possibilities, has been decisively squeezed out by what happened in Eastern Europe? Along with a growing number of people in Western Europe, I believe that there is, and, moreover, that this further possible future is more desirable than the three I have just mentioned. Basic income capitalism is the expression I shall use to describe this further possibility. It refers to a socio-economic regime in which the bulk of the means of production is privately owned, while each citizen receives, aside from any income she may derive from participation in the labour or capital markets or may owe to some specific status, a substantial unconditional income. The introduction of such an unconditional income is to be viewed, not as the dismantling, but as the culmination of the welfare state, prepared by welfare state achievements in the same way as the abolition of slavery or the introduction of universal suffrage had been prepared, and made possible, by earlier partial conquests. Awareness of the limitations of the protection afforded by associations for mutual aid, next by compulsory social insurance for all waged workers, finally by a conditional form of guaranteed minimum income, has gradually prepared the minds for this radical step, and has helped build the forces required to bring it about.Slipping back ever more deeply into laissez-faire capitalism, reaching desperately for the Swedish model, clinging defensively to the welfare state-is there any other future worth contemplating for advanced capitalist countries, now that whatever of genuine socialism was still left on the list of political possibilities has been decisively squeezed out by what happened in Eastern Europe? Along with a growing number of people in Western Europe, I believe that there is, and, moreover, that this further possible future is more desirable than the three I have just mentioned. Basic income capitalism is the expression I shall use to describe this further possibility. It refers to a socioeconomic regime in which the bulk of the means of production is privately owned, while each citizen receives, aside from any income she may derive from participation in the labor or capital markets or may owe to some specific status, a substantial unconditional income. The introduction of such an unconditional income is to be viewed not as the dismantling but as the culmination of the welfare state, prepared by welfare state achievements in the same way as the abolition of slavery or the introduction of universal suffrage had been prepared, and made possible, by earlier partial conquests. Awareness of the limitations of the protection afforded by associations for mutual aid, next by compulsory social insurance for all waged workers, and finally by a conditional form of guaranteed minimum income has gradually

A Revolution in Class Theory

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the international seminar &dquo;Recent Developments in Class Theory and Class Analysis&dquo; (Amsterdam, Apr. 1985) and at the Dutch political scientists’ annual meeting (Amersfoort, June 1986). I am particularly grateful to Leo Apostel, Sue Black, Johannes Berger, Mino Carchedi, Jos de Beus, Michael Kratke, Mary Nolan, Adam Przeworski, Ian Steedman, Robert van der Veen, Jenny Wally, and Erik Wright for useful comments and discussions. MANY Europeans in my generation-among them some of my closest friends-have never had a &dquo;real&dquo; job. They have spent their adult life alternating between the dole and precarious, often government-sponsored jobs. And as they grow older, they have less and less hope that their situation will ever improve. The stark contrast between their position and, say, my own or that of most of my readers-a safe job with a decent wage, career prospects, pension rights, sizable perks and so on-has made me increasingly uneasy, not least because the dark side of this contrast has been growing with the arrival of each new cohort on European labor markets. If this deep split has, as I have come to believe, become a permanent feature of welfare-state

Reciprocity and the Justification of an Unconditional Basic Income. Reply to Stuart White

1 Earlier versions of this reply were incorporated in talks I gave at Nuffield College, Oxford (3 November 1995) and at the Political Thought Seminar, University of Cambridge (21 January 1996). Man...1 Earlier versions of this reply were incorporated in talks I gave at Nuffield College, Oxford (3 November 1995) and at the Political Thought Seminar, University of Cambridge (21 January 1996). Many thanks to Tony Atkinson, Jerry Cohen, John Dunn, Cécile Fabre, Sue James, David Miller, Adam Swift, Stuart White, Andrew Williams and others (whose names I have forgotten or never knew) for stimulating discussions on these two occasions.

The Universal Basic Income Why Utopian Thinking Matters, and How Sociologists Can Contribute to It

Utopian thinking consists of formulating proposals for radical reforms, justifying them on the basis of normative principles combined with the best possible scientific analysis of the root causes of the problems the proposals are meant to address, and subjecting these proposals to unindulgent critical scrutiny. Such utopian thinking is indispensable, and contributing to it is part of sociology’s core business. This article illustrates these claims by considering one particular utopian proposal: an unconditional basic income paid to every member of society on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. It summarizes the main arguments that support this proposal, mentions a number of contexts in which it is being taken seriously, and sketches a number of ways in which sociological insights and research are crucially relevant to the discussion of the economic and political sustainability of an unconditional basic income.Utopian thinking consists of formulating proposals for radical reforms, justifying them on the basis of normative principles combined with the best possible scientific analysis of the root causes of the problems the proposals are meant to address, and subjecting these proposals to unindulgent critical scrutiny. Such utopian thinking is indispensable, and contributing to it is part of sociology’s core business. This article illustrates these claims by considering one particular utopian proposal: an unconditional basic income paid to every member of society on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. It summarizes the main arguments that support this proposal, mentions a number of contexts in which it is being taken seriously, and sketches a number of ways in which sociological insights and research are crucially relevant to the discussion of the economic and political sustainability of an unconditional basic income.