BASIC INCOME AND THE LEFT: A EUROPEAN DEBATE

What, if anything, can be said to have characterised the left ever since the word gained currency in the context of industrial societies? Probably the conviction that capitalist exploitation is unjust and therefore must be abolished, or at least reduced. But why is it unjust? Some say: because it enables some people to appropriate part of the product without contributing any of the labour required to produce it. Others say: because it stems from the proletarians’ unfreedom, because it derives from the fact that many, despite being formally free, have no other real option than to sell their labour power to the owners of capital.

For most issues, the difference between these two answers to the question of what makes capitalist exploitation unjust is of little interest. But for the basic income issue it is of paramount importance, and it explains why the proposal is the object of such heated debate within both the radical and the moderate left, in both affluent and less affluent countries. For those who hold the first view, an unconditional basic income is an abomination. It consists in extending to all the possibility of earning without contributing, a possibility fortunately restricted under present conditions to a minority of capitalists. For those who hold the second view, instead, an unconditional basic income is a godsend. It liberates all men and women of the compulsion to work for a capitalist.

If there is a fundamental divide on basic income within the left, it is this: between what might be called the labourist left and the libertarian left. Which does not mean that the controversy is purely philosophical. The first camp will be keen to bring up practical difficulties and possible perverse effects, while the second camp will try hard to enumerate welcome side effects. Moreover, the first camp may include some pragmatists willing to consider a modest basic income as a plausible second best, while some members of the second camp may be tempted to give priority to high-quality and free public services over cash benefits.

A Necessary Debate

Consequently, the debate within the left is unavoidably complex. It is also often uncomfortable, as neither the pro-basic-income nor the anti-basic- income camp can be blind to the fact that many of their arguments are sometimes uttered by people from the right, with whom they would not ordinarily associate. But such a debate has become unavoidable, as basic income has moved centre stage as a result of a number of events in which the left was closely involved: the 2016 Swiss referendum, where all political support for the Yes vote came from the socialists and the greens; the socialist primaries for the 2017 French presidential election, where basic income was the most salient proposal of the victorious candidate; and a whole bunch of experiments, most of them still at the planning stage and many of them in response to demands from the left.

This collection of short essays aims to give a glimpse of the central nature but also of the complexity of the basic income debate within the Left, broadly defined. All essays were previously published in Social Europe, between July 2013 and December 2017. They are ordered in a broadly chronological sequence. This will enable the reader to follow more easily the development of the debate, in particular how some of the contributors react to each other. It will also make more transparent the way in which some of the essays relate to current events.

Basic income is only one of the countless ideas that Social Europe has helped spread and subject to discussion in Europe and beyond. But it is one that has triggered a particularly fierce controversy. Whether or not one ends up endorsing some version of basic income, it has by now become hard to deny that giving serious thought to it is essential home‐ work for anyone trying to figure out what social democracy and, more broadly, the left, might mean in the 21st century. The ambition of this little volume is to provide some easily digestible food for such serious thought.