The Philosophy and Political Economy of Basic Income Revisited

Rethinking Democratic Theories of Justice in the Economy after COVID-19

“…Financial and institutional capacities linked with this embedding, and the supportive tier of income assistance, enabled resilience in the COVID-19 crisis. Citizens' registers and a more scrutinous culture with regards to avoiding sanctions of health-vulnerable groups (Haagh 2019b) contributed to the way behavior conditions on income support were suspended in conjunction with lock-down in Denmark on March 11 (Danish Labour Ministry 2020).…”

“…On the other hand, fears that even short absences from school will deepen the divides that test-led learning creates (Sweeney 2020) tells us something about the depth of the governance challenges we face in terms of contesting the competition paradigm as it affects social relations. The same economic reasons and failures of governance that make a basic income urgent also make it less effective (Haagh 2019b). What needs to be explained are the reasons we need stability and publicness of justice across levels of government and in support of developmental institutions as a way to build and make a democratic state more effective for freedom in society.…”

Introduction: Basic Income in European Welfare States: Opportunities and Constraints

“…A key feature is the effect of austerity politics following the 2008 financial crisis, which has had a major impact across Europe albeit with considerable variation between different countries. Whilst the debate about the basic income proposal as an alternative to means-tested income assistance has a long history, a rise in economic insecurity in post-austerity Europe is an important factor on both the demand for a basic income and on countries’ capabilities to institute such a major reform (De Wispelaere, 2017; Standing, 2017; Haagh, 2019).…”

“…Understanding basic income as an integral part of ongoing and multifaceted reform of welfare state policies and institutions requires paying attention to how altered global conditions operate as common pressures to intercede in both constraining and reshaping the welfare state foundations for basic income reform. For instance, developments in global capitalism in the form of marketisation of development governance – including, in varying degrees, the deregulation of public services and occupational regimes – along with a slump in demand and financialisation present a constrained policy scenario (Haagh, 2011, 2019) that will impact not only on the political feasibility of introducing a basic income in a given polity but also on the precise design this basic income will take and what objectives it can be expected to deliver (De Wispelaere and Martinelli, 2017).…”

“…The view that basic income experiments have opened a robust policy window is premature (De Wispelaere et al ., 2018). Much depends on how basic income trajectories are understood in relation to wider seminal challenges posed by long-standing unresolved tensions in the construction of economic security within the modern welfare state (Haagh, 2017, 2019). In this context, the review article (by Haagh) looks at how conceptualising basic income as a ‘policy problem’ makes it possible to both draw on and contribute to literatures on institutional change in the context of comparative literatures on capitalist and welfare state varieties.…”