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How Seriously Should we Take Universal Basic Income?
Author(s) -
Szreter Simon
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
the political quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.373
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-923X
pISSN - 0032-3179
DOI - 10.1111/1467-923x.13169
Subject(s) - skepticism , basic income , emancipation , scholarship , poverty , inequality , positive economics , economics , law and economics , sociology , neoclassical economics , political science , philosophy , law , epistemology , economic growth , politics , market economy , mathematical analysis , mathematics
Is universal basic income (UBI) a policy idea whose time has come? Recent historical scholarship now enables us to comprehend the twentieth century evolution of this and similar ideas. UBI is intriguing in having vociferous backers drawn both from the libertarian right—such as, notably, Milton Friedman in the form of his negative income tax proposal—but also from the emancipation‐embracing left—such as Michel Foucault and Phillipe Van Parijs. In this review, scepticism is expressed about whether UBI can seriously help to address issues of inequality, as opposed to preventing the poverty that liberal market economies tend insistently to generate.