Universal basic income: the new political economy of an old idea

The idea of a universal, unconditional and regular basic income provided to all has a long history and academic lineage. In this chapter, we explore the new political economy of this old idea in the context of enduring and novel labour market challenges, most notably precarity and insecurity, arising from deindustrialisation, globalisation and automation. We show that most existing literature has focused on the normative desirability and economic feasibility of introducing a basic income. More recent studies have started to pay attention to the crucial role of politics of a basic income. We argue that the political economy of a basic income follows well-established income and labour market risks cleavages in the electorates, while cutting across traditional partisan conflict lines of both voter and interest groups. The resulting cross-cutting politics of support for basic income will crucially shape the likely future of UBI and its ability to address labour market challenges.