Yannick Vanderborght

From Euro-stipendium to Euro-dividend

Do we need to rethink fundamentally the way in which trans-national solidarity is organized within the European Union? Yes we do, and Schmitter and Bauer’s essay is therefore most welcome to get this rethinking going, not with grand or vague wishes, but with a modest and precise proposal. Is their Euro-Stipendium (ES) the best way forward? We believe not, partly because of some design defects that can be corrected at the cost of some complications, but also partly because of a more fundamental defect whose correction requires jumping straight away to what Schmitter and Bauer view only as the possible end point of a gradual development.

A Comparative Look at the Feasibility of Basic Income in the Japanese Welfare State

Basic income (BI) supporters like to present their proposal as an idea whose time has come (Standing 2011: 171–182). All too often, however, they remain quite vague as to what this exactly means and to the reasons why this is more the case now than ever before. In this chapter, we explore this issue in further detail by focusing on the Japanese case in a comparative perspective.1

Canada: A Guaranteed Income Framework to Address Poverty and Inequality?

Like other economically advanced democracies, Canada has had recurring discussions on how to provide more effective income security measures as a key component of the welfare state. This discussion has arisen on a regular basis, particularly since the period of rapid growth in Canadian social programs in the 1960s. Not only through numerous reports and academic publications, but also through the action of several groups ranging from trade unions to small associations, innovative proposals have been made and debated. Among these proposals, the most controversial might be the idea of giving all Canadians the right to an unconditional and universal “basic income” (BI)—frequently referred to in English-speaking Canada as Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI).1

Introduction: Income Security and the “Right to Subsistence” in Japan

A basic income (BI) “is an income paid by a political community to all its members on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement” (Van Parijs 2006: 4). This idea was first proposed in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century and gained increasing visibility during the next two centuries. In the course of the twentieth century, some British Labourites, Dutch socialists, French liberals, Catalan nationalists, Canadian greens, and many others advocated it. It was also explored by a significant number of academics, including several Nobel laureates in economics.