by Toru Yamamori | May 13, 2017 | News
94.1 KPFA, a community radio station in Berkley, CA, USA, broadcasted Sylvia Fedetici’s talk on How Capitalism Endures on 26 April 2017. The podcast can be currently listened to here.
Federici was one of founders of the International Campaign for Wages for Housework, along with Maria Rosa Dalla Costa, Selma James, and others. She advocates an unconditional basic income. Federici mentioned that ‘the demand for a basic income has revived the interest in wages for housework’ in an interview in 2014.
Federici is the author of Caliban and The Witch: Women, the body and primitive accumulation, Autonomedia (2004) and Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, reproduction and feminist struggle (PM press, 2012).
Reviewed by Kate McFarland
by Toru Yamamori | May 8, 2017 | News
In this video, Owen Jones, a British journalist, interviews Rutger Bregman, the author of Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There.
Bregman’s book makes the technological unemployment case for a basic income. Jones asks whether this case can stand, referring to John Maynard Keynes’ likely failed prophecy of a 15 hour work week by 2030 in his Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren. Bregman says that many current jobs are unneeded.
For more on ‘bullshit jobs’, see David Graeber’s 2013 article on ‘On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs.’ For social construction of both socially necessary jobs and socially unnecessary jobs, see Toru Yamamori’s keynote speech at 2016 BIEN congress on ‘What Can We Learn From a Grassroots Feminist UBI Movement? – Revisiting Keynes’s Prophecy.’
Reviewed by Russell Ingram
by Toru Yamamori | Apr 14, 2017 | News
In Kyoto during the April 22nd -23rd weekend, local artists, community activists, students, architects, academic, etc are hosting two events for discussing on ‘what would you do if your income were taken care of’. Enno Schmidt from Switzerland and Ping Xu from Taiwan will be joining.
22nd April: DIY festival ‘Basic Income Garden’
venue: Honmachi Escola (a community and residence space for artists )
time: 11.00-17:00
The venue is located on a very old alley which creates the impression of a half century ago. The following workshops are held in a Teepee, a garden, and a hut. They cover such subjects as:
- ‘one week with a basic income’
- ‘a town with a basic income’
- ‘basic in curry’
- ‘making a zine and a wall newspaper’
Film screening, music instrument making, etc, are also planned.
23rd April: Symposium ‘Art, Commons, Feminism and a Basic Income’
venue: M1 lecture room, Meitoku-kan, Imadegawa campus, Doshisha university
time: 13.00-17.30
13.00- Enno Schmidt, Ping Xu, Toru Yamamori ‘Lessons from Switzerland and Taiwan’
14.50- Enno Schmidt, Kaori Katada, Akio Sasaki, Jun Yamaguchi ‘Art, Commons and Feminism’
16.30- Parallel sessions: ‘Shrinking Society with Basic Income’ (moderator: Kimio Ito) / ‘Taiwan and Basic Income’ (moderator: Ping Xu and Kaori Katada) / ‘How we go forward to Basic Income gradually’ (moderator: Shinji Murakami and Hayato Kobahashi)
Kyoto Basic Income Weekend is a newly formed collective with local artists, community activists, etc. It is hosting this event with BIEN Japan, The Forum on Shrinking Society, Students at Toru Yamamori Lab, Doshisha university.
Reviewed by Cameron McLeod.
by Toru Yamamori | Mar 29, 2017 | News
The Nikkei (Nihon Keizai Shinbun, which is the Japanese equivalent to the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal) published its interview with Toru Yamamori about UBI on 13th March 2017.
Takahisa Honda, a journalist at the Nikkei, interviewed Toru Yamamori, an advocate for UBI and a professor at Doshisha university. Yamamori argues for a UBI, so that ‘with it we can reclaim our life’. A shorter version was published in the evening edition of the Nikkei, 13th March. Its longer version appeared online on the same day. The latter can be accessed here [in Japanese].
Reviewed by Cameron McLeod
by Toru Yamamori | Feb 8, 2017 | News
TBS radio, one of the major nationwide radio channels in Japan, will tonight broadcast a live discussion on basic income. TBS radio’s daily program ‘Session 21’, whose main anchor is critic Chiki Ogiue, will host a discussion on UBI at 22.45 local time (GMT+9), February 8.
The program will include two discussants: Tomohiro Inoue, a lecturer at Komazawa University and expert on economics and artificial intelligence, and Toru Yamamori, professor at Doshisha University and Basic Income News editor.
Further details can be found here (in Japanese).
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan.
The image is a book on basic income in Japan from Palgrave Macmillan.
