More than a Free Lunch: A Content Analysis of the Controversies Surrounding Universal Basic Income on Dutch Twitter

Abstract

Universal Basic Income (UBI) reached political agendas as a proposal to radically reform welfare systems, followed by scholarly interest in its public legitimacy. While surveys find UBI support to be mostly redistribution-driven, the discussion in science and media suggests a more nuanced understanding. To comprehensively grasp the public response to UBI policy, this article explores the controversies surrounding UBI policy through a content analysis of Dutch tweets. In addition to identifying established controversies, our analysis points to two avenues for the study of UBI legitimacy. First, a multidimensional measure of UBI support should include redistributive, conditionality, and efficiency aspects. Second, dissatisfaction with targeted activation policy and ‘post-productivist’ attitudes should receive greater attention as drivers of UBI support. Overall, we find the pressure to reform welfare is more than the promise of a ‘free lunch’: it is anchored in fundamental critiques of economic and welfare institutions.

A Struggle for Framing and Interpretation: The Impact of the ‘Basic Income Experiments’ on Social Policy Reform in the Netherlands

“…The article by Bregman and the Tegenlicht documentaries landed in a public debate that was already quite familiar with UBI as a concept. Possibly, this is why this part of the debate swiftly focused on a demand for experiments instead of a debate about the pros and cons of the idea itself (Gielens et al, 2021). The article and documentary (and its spin-off) inspired several initiatives throughout the country to propose an experiment with types of UBI.…”

“…This article led to three documentaries on UBI by the popular television programme Tegenlicht between February 2014 and April 2015 (Tegenlicht, 2014a(Tegenlicht, , 2014b(Tegenlicht, , 2015. This programme also actively organised discussions about the achievability of the proposal and experimenting with UBI, both offline in debate centres across the country and online on Twitter (Gielens et al, 2021). The article by Bregman and the Tegenlicht documentaries landed in a public debate that was already quite familiar with UBI as a concept.…”

Between left and right: A discourse network analysis of Universal Basic Income on Dutch Twitter

“…Based on the work of publicist Rutger Bregman (2013Bregman ( , 2014, the future affairs program Tegenlicht (2014Tegenlicht ( , 2015 aired three documentaries on Dutch national broadcast television, two of which became trending topics on Dutch Twitter. These documentaries proposed UBI policy because it would (a) provide income security in the face of automation, (b) allow the working poor to invest in education, childcare, and basic goods, while (c) increasing happiness, social trust, and reducing poverty stress (for an extensive discussion see Gielens et al, 2022).…”

“…Friedman, 2013; see also Perkiö, 2020). A content analysis of tweets (Gielens et al, 2022) shows that these three frames are also central controversies in the Dutch UBI debate. From the 'beyond left and right' perspective, the applications of these strands of ideology to UBI policy implies "support across the political spectrum, from right and left, from pro-marketeers as well as social democratic interventionists" (Reed and Lansley, 2016; see also Barry, 1996:3;Torry, 2016:168;Purdy, 2013:483).…”

“…Framing studies already show that frames regarding security, freedom and efficiency are employed in newspaper articles (e.g. Perkiö, 2020;Perkiö et al, 2019;Steensland, 2008) and even in the debate at hand (Gielens et al, 2022). However, the focus on individual frames ignores the relation between frames, i.e.…”