A basic income empowers a new vanguard class for communism – knowledge workers. A basic income empowers them through leisure time and by giving an incentive to maintain information as a global commons.

A new vanguard? 12All of these changes hinge on the fact that a new class has emerged since Marx’s time, a class that is neither quite worker nor capitalist, but shares features of both: professional knowledge workers. Like capitalists, they capture some of the social surplus for themselves through the salaries they are able to command for their education and professional skills— undeserved employment rents, in Van Parijs’ terms. As Van Parijs argues in Real Freedom for All, regular, paid employment has become a scare resource whose benefits ought to be subject to redistribution (Van Parijs 1995: 89-132). In fact, the most significant class distinction today is not between workers and capitalists, as in Marx’s time, but between the regularly employed and the chronically un- or underemployed. For the educated and professional class of knowledge workers in Western nations, it may not be too much to say that employment rents already constitute a form of basic income that allows knowledge workers to overcome the imprisoning division of labor and to have multiple identities and play multiple roles, only some of which are for pay. They can take time for education, for parenting, for social relations and civic activities, and also for unpaid activities that may be little different from their paid employment—blogging, contributing to open source projects, and buying, selling, or trading services or products directly with others, with little or no mediation by traditional for-profit firms. Knowledge workers are able to invest their portion of the social surplus in traditional ways, in their and their family’s education and well-being, but also in ways that are disruptive of traditional economic models. 13Despite the leading role these knowledge workers play in the modern capitalist economy, they nevertheless share a degree of economic precariousness with the chronically unemployed. In the end, they remain workers, and globalization and the rise of educated workforces in the developing world have stripped knowledge workers in the West of their monopoly on knowledge-based professions, while retrenchment in the realm of social safety nets and defined pensions leaves even these privileged workers more exposed to economic downturns. Furthermore, the disruption of traditional business models by digital technologies affects the job security of professionals in many fields: it may be easier to become a ”published” author than ever before, for example, but harder to be paid a living wage for it. 14Knowledge workers may not conform to Marx’s idea of the proletariat as the vanguard of the communist revolution—rather, the thought no doubt has him rolling over in his grave—but their experience does provide a roadmap for how a basic income, at this particular stage of economic development, could not only resolve the economic precariousness of all workers, but also abolish the division of labor, class divisions, and private property in the means of production, while not only maintaining but potentially further increasing productivity. 15The salaried knowledge worker with sufficient leisure time to engage in voluntary creative production with like-minded collaborators across the globe has already escaped the imprisoning division of labor Marx described as an essential feature of capitalism, even if she still spends part of her day working for her wages. This is not only because her skills allow her more choice in her waged labor than low-skilled workers, nor only because she has sufficient leisure time to develop her productive capacities as she chooses. She has escaped the division of labor because she owns some of the means of production—her knowledge and skills—and has easy access to other means of production—the global communications network. As long as the advantages enjoyed by knowledge workers are limited to this class alone, the full potential for economic transformation brought about by new technologies will be unrealized. How could the interests of this class align with those of all workers? 16The common resource on which knowledge workers depend for their emancipation is access to the global communications network, and the critical importance of this resource remaining part of the commons is not lost on them. They are likely to resist—and because of their socio-economic standing and networked advantages, likely to successfully resist—privatization of this commons more than of those already lost, such as land, water, clean air, minerals, oil, and gas. Can this class be convinced to advocate for a universal resource dividend in return for the commercial development of the airwaves—and other common resources too? As speculative as that may be, a universal dividend financed by rents on common resources is more likely to win the support of this privileged class of workers than one financed by taxes on resources experienced by them as individual, such as income, employment rents, and personally accumulated wealth. Not only can a resource dividend financed from rents on resources they recognize as common help to preserve those commons for public benefit, it can also serve as a hedge against their own economic precariousness as economic cycles take their inevitable toll, and business plans based on new technologies and models of collaboration succeed or fail in turn. Moreover, a resource-financed dividend avoids the exploitation objection often leveled against an income tax-financed basic income, allowing the interests of this class to align with those of the chronically un or underemployed. Furthermore, the successful capture as a dividend of the rents from this commons might also lead to a new look at previously privatized commons. Is it time, then, for the basic income movement to declare its allegiance to the financing of a basic income via resource dividends, rather than income taxes? Is this the key to mobilizing this new vanguard in support of a basic income for all? Are we there yet?