Unconditional basic income and a degrowth transition: Adding empirical rigour to radical visions

Abstract

Unconditional basic income (UBI) is one of the most discussed policy options for a degrowth transition. Advocates highlight UBI’s theoretical potential to reduce unnecessary material consumption, alleviate poverty and redistribute social wealth, achieve wellbeing within ecological limits, shift activity from wage-labour to meaningful work, and facilitate increased social participation. However, UBI’s radical potential remains under-examined within the empirical research, which focuses more on the policy’s potential to increase the supply of wage-labour and stimulate economic growth. This paper aims to push back against this limiting trend. It begins by outlining some of the characteristics of more sustainable and just societies, based on post-growth perspectives, and outlines the arguments put forward to support UBI’s compatibility with a degrowth transition. It then demonstrates that, despite support from UBI and many post-growth scholars, such arguments are not mainstreamed in the contemporary empirical UBI research. The paper argues that this increases the risk of UBI being captured by capitalist interests. To avoid this outcome, the paper proposes an alternative research agenda to help assess and advance UBI’s radical potential in line with post-growth visions.