Phillipe van Parijs (at the Lisbon BIEN 2017 Conference). Credit to: Enno Schmidt.
Phillipe van Parijs has delivered the 2017 annual Il Mulino lecture, which happened on Saturday, the 28th of October, at the Bologna University’s Aula Magna. This major event, attended by around 900 people, had the presence of former Prime Minister and European Commission president Romano Prodi, ex-minister Vincenzo Visco, the president of the Italian Central Bank and the Archbishop of Bologna, among other Italian political public figures.
The lecture was titled “Il reddito di base: tramonto della società del lavoro?” [“Basic income: sunset of the work society?”], and coincided with the publication of van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght latest book “Basic Income: a radical proposal”, published in Italian under the title “Il reddito di base: una proposta radicale” (an edition by Il Mulino).
The event got massive coverage by the Italian media, including Corriere di Bologna, La Republica Bologna, La Nazione, the LEFT magazine, plus several radio stations and the national Italian TV (RAI). However, according to Sandro Gobetti, from BIN Italia (Basic Income Network Italy), Italian media tended not to grasp the main news message in this event. Gobetti argued in his article that it was not so much that political figures Visco and Prodi met and hugged, but that they had, in fact, attended a lesson on basic income by a prominent thinker in the field, Phillipe van Parijs. The relevance then, is not so much in knowing if these politicians agree or not with the basic income concept (they expressed many reservations), but recognizing this as a real issue, growing everyday as an international debate.
More information at:
Kate McFarland, “Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy, by Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght”, Basic Income News, March 25th 2017
[In Italian]
Leonardi Filippi, “Come rivalutare il lavoro? Dando un reddito a tutti [How to revalue work? By giving a basic income to everyone]”, LEFT, November 10th 2017
“Visco, lungo abbracio com Prodi a Bologna [Visco, long hug with Prodi at Bologna]”, Corriere di Bologna, October 28th 2017
Ilaria Venturi, “Van Parijs oggi al Mulino Reddito garantito a tutti l’idea che divide il mondo [Today, Van Parijs presented at Mulino basic income, the idea which divides the world]”, La Repubblica, October 28th 2017
Sandro Gobetti, “Prodi e Visco a lezione di reddito di base da van Parijs [Prodi and Visco go to basic income lesson from van Parijs]”, BIN Italia, October 30th 2017
