by Toru Yamamori | Apr 25, 2016 | News
The second meeting held on 11th April in Taipei.
In Taiwan (the Republic of China), An association for an unconditional basic income has recently formed.
Activist Juku Shenguang started a facebook group for UBI in Taiwan on 14th February. The first offline meeting was held on 27th Feburuary, where 9 people turned up. The third meeting was held on 10th April with 25-30 people. The number in the facebook community has already grown to over 1700 and counting.
The group is currently starting the process of institutionalizing formally as a nonprofit organization. They’ve also started to collect signatures for an internet e-petition that asks the new government, which will begin serving in May, to endorse UBI.
Toru Yamamori flew to Taiwan to interview Juku Shenguang and other activists on 1st April. The interviews will be on Basic Income News shortly.
by Toru Yamamori | Mar 25, 2016 | News
[Witten by Hosang Ahn, co-organizer of the BIEN Congress 2016]
Basic Income Korean Network (BIKN, president: Namhoon Kang) held the joint press conference to demand that the next National Assembly should discuss and legislate the basic income scheme on the 16th March at the city center of Seoul. Nine organizations including BIKN and some candidates for the general election who set forth basic income policy as election promise participated in it. They are Basic Income Youth Network, Catholic Farmer Association, Labor Party, Green Party, Cultural Action, Alba (part time job) Union, Left Youth and Co-op Gajangjari (fringe) except Korean Network.
Lots of political and social issues have risen as the general election in April is coming, among which the most important one is how to give all people the economic stability. Junghoon Park, president of Alba Union said “today unemployment is normal and employment is exception for part time workers, so they should be given stable income, basic income guarantee to protect their rights as workers.” And Namhoon Kang insisted “basic income guarantee is a sole way which we, human beings could live and survive as humans under the economic system Al would change.” Under these circumstances, Green Party and Labor Party, small and extra-parliament parties in Korea, promise basic income scheme their major policies, and some politicians in office interest in it.
Basic income guarantee has been just an idea in Korea up to recently, but now many consider it as a concrete means to overcome economic crisis and to give people material condition as they understand that other policies cannot work. Korean Network is going to organize various events to promulgate basic income idea and to make effort to institutionalize it.
Namhoon Kang, president of BIKN, speaking at the Joint Press Conference
by Toru Yamamori | Mar 1, 2016 | Opinion
Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greece prime minister, recommends Swiss people to vote ‘yes’ for UBI at the national referendum scheduled on 5th June.
Varoufakis, who’ve recently made his support for UBI clear in the interview published for the Economist, calls ‘yes vote’ for the UBI referendum in the recent two interviews.
In the video interview with the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, the Greek economist argues that the future picture of technological progress would be either the Star Treck version that the progress can make us equal and free or the Matrix version that the progress enslaves us.
In another interview with Swiss newspaper “Tagesanzeiger“, the translation of which is available here, he says:
Because Switzerland is doing so well, it is ideal for experiments with the basic income. But don’t forget, in spite of the wealth, the quality of life is decreasing. What good is a well-paid job if you are scared to lose it? This constant fear paralyzes people and makes them ill. Switzerland should see the basic income as an investment in the future.
Varoufakis will be one of speakers for the UBI event on 4th May in Zurich, Switzerland.
by Toru Yamamori | Feb 21, 2016 | News
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor of the Labour Party, has said that the party wants to look at the idea of universal basic income, according to an article in the Independent.
In a public lecture at the London School of Economics on 16th February, McDonnell stated:
It [a universal basic income] is an idea we want to look at. Child benefit was a form of basic income so it’s not something that I would rule out.
McDonnell has been known as a supporter of a universal basic income, but this is the first occasion he has introduced the idea in public since becoming shadow chancellor.
Credit picture CC Don Shall
by Toru Yamamori | Feb 10, 2016 | News
The Economist, “Basically Unaffordable“, The Economist, 23rd May 2015.
