Basic Income in Japan

Prospects for a Radical Idea in a Transforming Welfare State

Y. Vanderborght, T. Yamamori, Y. Vanderborght, T. Yamamori

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137348081
• Topic: Économie
• Subtopic: Économie du développement

Basic Income in Japan is the first collective volume in English entirely devoted to the discussion of Japan's potential for a basic income program in the context of the country's changing welfare state. Vanderborght and Yamamori bring together over a dozen contributors to provide a general overview of the scholarly debate on universal and unconditional basic income, including a foreword by Ronald Dore. Drawing on empirical data on poverty and inequality as well as normative arguments, this balanced approach to a radical idea is essential reading for the study of contemporary Japan.

C H A P T E R 1

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Introduction: Income Security and the “Right to Subsistence” in Japan*

Toru Yamamori and Yannick Vanderborght

A basic income (BI) “is an income paid by a political community to all its members on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement” (Van Parijs 2006: 4). This idea was first proposed in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century and gained increasing visibility during the next two centuries. In the course of the twentieth century, some British Labourites, Dutch socialists, French liberals, Catalan nationalists, Canadian greens, and many others advocated it. It was also explored by a significant number of academics, including several Nobel laureates in economics.

In Japan, BI has only started to attract more attention in the late 2000s.¹ In 2007, the Basic Income Japan Network (BIJN) was founded and was soon officially recognized by the international Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) as its Japanese affiliate. In 2009, the book Introduction to Basic Income by Toru Yamamori (2009) sold more than 20,000 copies. BI also gained significant media attention and triggered a series of publications by prominent researchers in sociology, economics, political science, and ethics.

The main aim of this volume is to provide the international audience with the very first general overview of the various aspects of this debate, which is hardly accessible because of the language barrier. Most publications are indeed available in Japanese only, and to date very few conferences were organized in English. And yet, we believe that the Japanese BI discussion is of great importance for at least three different reasons.

First, as it clearly appears throughout the volume, this discussion is relevant for those interested in welfare issues, if only because Japan is still an economic superpower—the economic turmoil of the two last decades notwithstanding. The Japanese welfare state currently faces many challenges, and the BI discussion offers great opportunities to examine these challenges in some detail. Second, this discussion also offers interesting insights into even broader social issues, as it deals with anthropological and cultural aspects of the Japanese society, regarding various norms related to work, money, individual autonomy, gender, and so on. Third, the Japanese BI discussion is relevant for those interested in the history of ideas and the sociology of knowledge. Amartya Sen famously rewrote a history of ideas on reason, liberalism, and similar concepts in political philosophy, which have usually been depicted as being originated in “the West” (see for instance Sen 2005, among many of his writings). Similarly, readers will find that the crude assumption according to which the idea of an unconditional income guarantee was simply imported from “the West” does not make much historical sense either.

This book is thus the first collective volume in English entirely devoted to the discussion of BI and related programs in Japan. It does not only gather BI supporters, but provides readers with a balanced picture of the Japanese debate about welfare reform, including pros and cons of BI, and empirical data on a cautious public opinion. From the outset, it is important to stress the fact that our purpose as editors did not consist in collecting papers in Japanese studies, or to focus on the peculiarities of Oriental societies in general. Quite the contrary, we intend to provide the international audience with food for thought about the problems faced by many other welfare states across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including growing economic insecurity, income and gender inequality, poverty, aging, and the future of universal programs. In doing so, all contributors obviously and rightly stress some specificities of the Japanese context, which needs to be taken into account. But they also show the relevance of the Japanese BI discussion for all industrialized nations.

This introductory chapter briefly focuses on some of the background conditions of the Japanese debate about the “transforming welfare state.” We insist, in particular, on the tensions between the ideal of a “right to subsistence” and the policies aimed at implementing an “obligation to work”—which obviously tend to affect the feasibility of an unconditional BI. At the end of this introduction, we also give a brief overview of the contents of this volume.

The Right to Subsistence and the Right to Work

Since the 1950s, the Article 25 of the Japanese Constitution has been the core of an intense discussion about “the right to subsistence” (生存権). According to Section 1 of Article 25, “All people shall have the right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living.” Section 2 states: “In all spheres of life, the State shall use its endeavors for the promotion and extension of social welfare and security, and of public health.” The latter section was included in the so-called MacArthur draft, made by the the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ) under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur, in 1946. Section 1, however, originates in the “Outline of the Draft of the Constitution,” also called “the Draft of the Constitution made by the Japanese Public,” written by the Japanese Constitution Study Group. Tatsuo Morito is said to be the main driver behind this social welfare section in the “Outline of the Draft.” He sought the theoretical foundations of this section in the writings of the Austrian socialist thinker Anton Menger (Endo 2002:109). Menger’s works had been translated and published in Japan, some by Morito himself, and had already influenced the discussions about the right to subsistence before the Second World War.

Anton Menger distinguished between the right to the whole produce of labor, the right to Subsistence, and the right to labor. The first is the right for the workers to obtain the whole surplus, by dividing the surplus among themselves according to their contribution. The right to subsistence is the entitlement to money and goods that are necessary to sustain an individual’s living, the distribution being done according to need. The right to labor, finally, is a right to guaranteed work. Menger argued that “the right to subsistence extends to minors and to the infirm, whereas the right to labour applies only to able-bodied citizens” (Menger 1899:16). He also argued that “such social systems . . . [that] strive for the recognition of the right to existence [or subsistence] must depend on neighbourly love and a sense of brotherhood” (Menger 1899:28). Menger acknowledged that the right to labor and the right to subsistence might be conflicting ideals.

These seemingly conflicting ideals were at the core of the discussion of the right to subsistence in postwar Japan. Sakae Wagatsuma, author of The New Constitution and the Basic Human Rights (Wagatsuma 1948), who significantly influenced this discussion, considered the right to subsistence and the right to work as almost equal norms. Indeed, according to Wagatsuma, the right to work was to be put at the center of the right to subsistence.

The key question, then, consisted in asking whether the right to subsistence should or should not be a legally enforceable right (Ogata 2010: 251). Wagatsuma argued that although the state has the moral obligation to proactively enforce the right to subsistence, there are no direct legal means to sanction its failure to do so (Ogata 2010:242). In fact, until now the Case Law remains unclear as to how exactly a legislation that follows the aims of Article 25 should be designed. In other words, this issue is left to the wide judgment of the legislative body (Ogata 2011: 6).

More concretely, when welfare benefits are discussed within the framework of the right to subsistence in today’s Japan, two main issues have to be raised. First, there is the issue of whether the standard level of social assistance can ensure the “minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living,” as provided for in Article 25. Second, one should pay specific attention to the people who have to live below that standard. Japan’s take-up rate of social assistance is significantly low compared with other welfare states, but this is hardly taken into account in the public discourse.

According to a 2010 official estimate, the take-up rate for social assistance was 15.3 percent in 2007 (Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare, Social Welfare and War Victims’ Relief Bureau, 2010). This estimate is consistent with the previous estimates made by researchers. Tachibanaki and Urakawa (2006), for instance, showed a downward trend in take-up rates, estimating it at 19.7 percent for 1995 and 16.3 percent for 2001. This low take-up rate forces us to be skeptical about the fact that a “the right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living” is effectively guaranteed in Japan.

From the Right to Work to the Obligation to Work

As is made clear by the case of social assistance, despite the provisions of Article 25 of the Constitution the right to subsistence is not really guaranteed by the Japanese welfare state. In fact, until now the right to work model has taken precedence over the right to subsistence model. Hiroshi Sasanuma, a scholar in constitutional law who is known for his support for homeless people, even argues that in Japan the very idea of a right to subsistence is actually limited by the prominence of a strict interpretation of the right to work, which translates into an obligation to work (Sasanuma 2008). This point refers to Article 27 of the Constitution, which states that “All people shall have the right and the obligation to work.” Sasanuma paid specific attention to a commentary of this article by Miyazawa and Ashibe (1978):

The Constitution states that the nation has the obligation to work. That means, “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”

The life with unearned income, the choice to live without working, is not prohibited because the private ownership system is approved and the right to choose one’s own occupation is guaranteed. Still, those who neglect to take full advantage of their property, capability, and every other means to sustain the minimum level of their lives are those who neglected their Obligation to Work. Thus, the state has no responsibility to guarantee their Right to Subsistence. (Miyazawa and Ashibe: 278–279)

However, if one assumes that the vast majority of people in poverty are not lazy, namely that their situation is not due to their own choices but to unfortunate circumstances, this obligation to work and the related denial of a right to subsistence is highly disputable. Miyazawa and Ashibe, in their comment of Article 27 of the Japanese Constitution, acknowledge this fact as they write that “[t]his article does not apply to those who cannot work because of the lack of opportunity or old age or illness” (Miyazawa and Ashibe 1978: 279).

In the real world of Japanese welfare, however, the obligation to work model has far-reaching consequences on the least well off. The case of homeless people, who are often denied access to social protection, is particularly illustrative.² In Japan, many homeless people used to work in industries such as the construction industry, but became unable to work because of injuries or illness during work. At least until the late 1990s, when they visited welfare offices or recovery consultation offices they were often turned down social assistance. In fact, they were considered as able to work.

Since the end of the 1990s, there have been several court decisions on this issue. In many cases, the plaintiffs could not work on the labor market due to injuries incurred in the past while working, a lack of skills, or a weakness caused by homeless life itself. However, the fact that they were denied the right to social protection was justified by the idea that they were not “activating their ability to work.” In some of the cases, doctors were even asked to diagnose their ability to work. In sum, these homeless people were considered as able to work, but blamed for not trying hard enough to find an occupation.

Thus in postwar Japan the idea that welfare policies can be justified by a true right to subsistence has very often been connected to the related idea that there must also be some obligation to work. Social rights are highly conditional upon willingness to be active on the labor market. Being active, in Japan, often means that one has to work for very long hours, which sometimes leads to the infamous karoshi, that is, death from overwork. This is in sharp contrast with another conception, more widespread in the European context, which states that social rights are a core component of modern citizenship. As famously argued by T. H. Marshall (1950), the institutionalization of citizenship in the history of the West began with the civil rights in the eighteenth century, followed by the development of political rights in the nineteenth century, and eventually social rights in the twentieth century.

Marshall regarded citizenship as “the concept of full membership of a community” (Marshall 1964:70). Considering social rights within the framework of such theory of citizenship sheds light on a crucial point, which is hardly present in the Japanese discussion since the Second World War. Depending on their policy design, welfare states can actually contribute to the exclusion of individuals from the “community.” This is what happens in today’s Japan, in the case of homeless people that was discussed above, but also in the case of women, disabled people, or migrants.

In Japan, where the welfare state is not often examined from a citizenship perspective,³ the concrete arrangement of citizenship became hierarchical and exclusionary. Almost only male, able-bodied, “full-time” employed, and ethnic Japanese residents are guaranteed full citizenship.⁴

The “Medical Model of Work Capability”

The cover of Michael Oliver’s book, The Politics of Disablement (1990), shows a wheelchair user at the bottom of the steps to the polling station, a symbol for the fact that the disabled are deprived of elemen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1   Introduction: Income Security and the “Right to Subsistence” in Japan
• Section I   Basic Income and the Welfare State: Past and Future
• Section II   Basic Income and the Labor Market: Deconstructing the Boundaries?
• Section III   Realizing Basic Income: The Potential of a Radical Reform
• Notes on Contributors
• Index