Hideaki Nakamura, “Question from Switzerland”

The Swiss referendum has been covered in Japanese media. While some media coverage, especially televised reports, uses the photogenic scenes which were created by Swiss activists, many reports don’t cover the activists’ bottom line message: ‘What would you do if your income were taken care of’.

An exception is this short article by Hideaki Nakamura, an editorial writer of the Mainich Newspapers, entitled “Question from Switzerland”. He cites a voice of an activist (from Toru Yamamori’s interview with Enno Schmidt, a founder of the Swiss initiative), who says that they would like people to think about how to live.

Nakamura presents a recent poll on what university students in Japan would like to work for. According to the poll, 25% of students would like to work for others and society. Nakamura suggests that this shows a possibility of a basic income in Japan.

中村秀明Hideaki Nakamura, “スイスからの問いQuestion from Switzerland”, 毎日新聞the Mainich Newspapers, 15th June 2016