The UBI spurs movements that challenge the social relationship to the market – creating unconditional freedom is critical to moving away from socialism.

UBI, first of all, opposes this function of essential subordination, recognizing the possibility of existing with dignity regardless of obtaining an income within the market. Marx previously noted that the absence of other means of survival in addition to that obtained from the sale of one’s own labour was the fundamental condition for the establishment of the capitalist relationship. He states:

For the conversion of his money into capital, therefore, the owner of money must meet in the market with the free labourer, free in the double sense, that as a free man he can dispose of his labour-power as his own commodity, and that on the other hand he has no other commodity for sale, is short of everything necessary for the realisation of his labour-power. (Marx 2018, p. 120)

UBI, by rescinding this link, constitutes the essential condition for the development of an unconditional freedom, which can also expand beyond economic interests. Certainly, it is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for questioning the axiomatics of the market, which extends, as is understood, well beyond material conditioning operated at the level of an individual’s survival. However, the removal of survival from the market allows individuals to more easily challenge those power relations that affect multiple dimensions of existence.

Here, then, an immanent view of conflict is adopted which lies in the possibility of subjects self-determining within the conditions that make up their identity. Hence, we have chosen to reject the association of UBI with some pre-determined theory of justice: the imagination of a plan of “having to be”, transcendental with respect to historically determined social relationships, would have the effect of denying the individual’s freedom, by forcing him or her to conform to possibilities that they themselves have not chosen.

Certainly, it could be argued that, in this context, such a proposal for UBI is also normative in nature. However, the present work offers a normative proposal which leads to a non-normative conception of institutions and social relationships. Institutions and social relationships are intended, through the liberal-egalitarian models of UBI support referred to in the first paragraph of the paper, to be based on transcendental principles that precede – indeed, make possible – the freedom of individuals. Instead, from our theoretical perspective the existence of an a priori transcendental scheme is excluded from our understanding of the basis of freedom, which can, therefore, go as far as to question the political institutions themselves, starting with the establishment of different forms of social bonds.

Institutions do not, in short, escape this theoretical perspective on the power relationships that engage the geometry of social spaces. Within this context, UBI would simply make it possible to strengthen the individual’s decision-making, removing them from their absolute exposure to the market and allowing them to avoid alienating relationships. This function would be carried out both with respect to traditional forms of production, in which the subject fulfils a well-defined labour function, and with respect to the “widespread” production that characterizes new models of governmental management of the lives of individuals.19

On a basic level, UBI therefore makes it possible to exist independently of the recognized and remunerated possibilities within the market economy, empowering each individual to plan their own existence freely. Such a viewpoint can be identified in the work of a range of authors, albeit from different theoretical perspectives (Bauman 1999, Ferrajoli 2013, 2018, Van Parijs and Vanderborght 2017).

This function of UBI crosses an important line of neo-republican research pursued in recent years, which has considered UBI as a mechanism for freedom, understood as the absence of domination (Casassas 2007, Raventós 2007, Pettit 2007, Lovett 2010, Widerquist 2011). However, even within neo-republican reflections, the possibility for individuals to question existing institutions through conflict remains excluded; indeed, such questioning is imagined as being channelled a priori within the options made available by a code of rights (Baccelli 2003, Casadei 2005, Goldoni 2014).

Instead, the present work aims to take the “conflictual” argument that many of the authors cited above raise in support of UBI in the extreme. Following this theoretical scenario, what clearly distinguishes our approach from those previously mentioned is that freedom is not intended as being defined from a given conception of justice, but as rooted in the autonomous decision-making of individuals within the particular historical and social context in which they act. By widening the space for decision-making, UBI can encourage forms of conflict oriented towards social justice. In this context, it could become part of a broader characterizing process of claim with an objective of emancipation from the subjugation resulting from today’s neoliberal relations.

Subjective freedom, thus released from a point of greater anchorage to market control, can develop into completely unpredictable forms. This calls into question the social relationality built by the market itself which, as discussed, also involves areas that exceed the productive sphere. In this way, freedom can be expressed in the organization of new forms of social relationships that can translate into new political institutions.