Their turn ev assumes different background conditions. Adovcating for basic income in higher inequality makes it oligarhic

Having conditions in view also enables a broader view of opposition to and endorsement of Basic Income under changing conditions, such as liberalisation processes today, which deepen informality and threaten equality. In conditions of higher social equality, opposition is more likely to be ‘constructive’. ‘Constructive’ critique is characterised by being in principle more convertible, under certain conditions. An example of convertibility in the context of more universal systems is Svallfors’ (2011) fnding that groups (self-employed) in Sweden previously resistant to universalism were converted to it after the 2008 crisis. Universalism had to be in place and effective for conversion to occur. Conversely, in conditions of higher informality, support for Basic Income among elites is more likely to be ‘oligarchic’, that is, preservative of systems of high inequality. Finally, in conditions of liberalisation, advocacy for Basic Income is, as said at the outset, prone to an Opportunity Paradox. Where opportunity coincides with liberalisation, advocacy is more likely to become opportunistic. In all, both populism and oligarchy are more likely in conditions of high informality and inequality, which generate a convergence of forces pushing for compensation and seeking legitimation.

In sum, against the background of global economic changes, and of public visibility, Basic Income narrative changed. Political opportunity in a constrained environment exposed a discourse and a debate linked by self-contained ideals and projects to new discursive risks. Below I discuss the emergence of a diferently accented form of advocacy for Basic Income, linked more explicitly with improving anti-poverty policy, as a redistributive focus within development accompanied the attempt to give a ‘human face’ (World Bank 2000) to economic liberalisation programmes pursued frst, and with the deepest efect, in developing countries. The focus on Basis Income as a right to economic security emerged as a discourse contesting the remnants of punitive Victorian paternalism, thus resonating with a wider liberal humanist discourse. However, the dismantling of proactive development policy further isolated Basic Income advocacy from more broad-based and proactive visions of development, public provision of welfare, and the role of the state, as I examine next, for frst developing and then developed countries.