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Una sola multitudine:
Struggles for Basic Income and the common logic that emerged from Italy, the UK
and Japan
by
toru yamamori
[St Edmund’s College, Cambridge]
Summary: “All of us are guaranteed to Basic
Income without any condition!” This is the demand called by various names:
Basic Income / Renta Basica, Citizen’s Income / Reditto di Cittadinanza /
Guaranteed Income / Revenu Garanti /
Revenu D’Existence / Allocation Universelle, etc. Michel Hardt and
Antonio Negri describe this demand as one of three programmes of the multitude.
This paper is written as a response to the three following situations:
First, critiques against Hardt and
Negri do not understand this demand properly. Second, while recent developments
within academic literature concerning this demand should be welcomed, the fact
that one of roots of the demand is radical grassroots’ movements in 1970s is
usually ignored with a few exceptions. Third, while experiences of Lotta
Feminista, Autonomia Opereia and other spontaneous movements in
Italy are recognized as an example of people making such demands among
participants of this conference, experiences outside of Italy are might not
recognised as such.
The
argument will go as follows: I will start by introducing current academic
discourses on this demand (Section 2). This will help to point out
misunderstandings within the critiques against Hardt and Negri. Then the argument by Hardt and Negri will be introduced with a brief reference to struggles
in Italy in 1970’s (Section 3). Then some points of scepticism concerning Basic
Income are overviewed (Section 4). Is Basic Income the cunning of Empire? It
might be, so the context of the introduction of Basic Income is crucial. Thus
we can learn from the struggles for Basic Income. I will look at the experience
in the U.K. (Section 5), and in Japan (Section 6).
CV:
Toru
Yamamori is a research associate at Capability and Sustainability Centre, St
Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. He is an associate editor of “Basic
Income Studies”, and a member of “Basic Income Earth Network”. His academic
specializations are economic thought and social policy.
E-mail: [email protected] - [email protected]