Beyond the Paradigm of Labor: Everyday Activism and Unconditional Basic Income in Urban Japan

Julia Obinger

Chapter Chapter 10 in Basic Income in Japan, 2014, pp 141-155 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Unconditional basic income (UBI) is a concept intended to tackle the problem of redistributing wealth within a welfare state setting, providing citizens (or residents) of a nation a regular basic monetary transfer without preconditions on an equal basis. It is essential to discuss feasibility, theoretical background, and contexts for the possible adoption of a UBI scheme; yet, these issues lie beyond the scope of this chapter. Rather, I will focus on one singular aspect of the UBI proposal, namely, the underlying vision for a profound social transformation. More precisely, I will draw upon the theories formulated by French philosopher and UBI proponent André Gorz, who imagined the introduction of a UBI as a chance to create societies with “(…) less employment and less selling of labor and services, but with growth in collective facilities and services, in nonmonetary exchange and self-providing” (Gorz 2013 [1997]: 299). While I do not intend to discuss the validity of this perspective in detail, it provides me with a framework for analyzing the activities and lifestyle of a contemporary activist network in Tokyo, whose members, in fact, share Gorz’s vision and have found their own particular way to answer the question of how to create a “better” society, and how this idea of “living beyond the wage-based society” can be put into practice.

Keywords: Labor Market; Network Member; Activity Society; Action Leader; Core Member (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:etbchp:978-1-137-34808-1_10

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137348081_10

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