[Ideas] Philippe van Parijs: Belgium, A Utopia For Our Times?

Join Full Circle at the launch event for our 2018/19 season, and hear Philippe Van Parijs tell us about the uncertain future facing Belgium. He explains how the rise of identity politics has exposed the faultlines between Belgium’s two regions as never before, with calls for separation in both Flanders and Wallonia getting louder. Both are convinced of their ability to survive without the other – but both want Brussels. Will they split, with the capital torn down the middle? Van Parijs explores the possible separatist scenarios for Belgium, ultimately ending up at the conclusion that Belgium will stay united – because it has to. He sets out his vision for how a future Belgium can work, and why he believes Belgians will ultimately come together to form a genuine European utopia.

ABOUT

Philippe Van Parijs is a leading Belgian philosopher and political economist. He directs the Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics at the Catholic University of Louvain. He is one of the founders of the (now) Basic Income Earth Network. In 2011 Philippe was awarded the Ark Prize of the Free Word for actively promoting the freedom of expression, and in 2001 the Francqui Prize, Belgium’s most generous scientific prize.

GOOD READS

Universal Basic Income (forthcoming)

Just Democracy. The Rawls-Machiavelli programme (2011)

L’Allocation universelle (2005) 

Redesigning Distribution. Basic Income and Stakeholder Grants as Conerstones for an Egalitarian Capitalism (2005)

Cultural Diversity versus Economic Solidarity (2004)

Real Freedom For All. What (if anything) can justify capitalism? (1995).

KEY LINKS

Philippe Van Parijs, UCL

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