The affirmative rhetoric is more productive than the kritik’s discourse – A UBI offers a positive vision which changes economic subjectivities more effectively, while the negative dystopian imagery mimics the scaremongering of the right wing.

Beyond this, a UBI contributes to the creation of new subjectivities through the political centring of distribution and the provision of economic security. While not a panacea, and necessarily but a supplement to wider political ecological approaches and imaginaries, a UBI provides economic security and creates the conditions of possibility for people to cultivate alternative relations. This security, while never fully provided in practice, has been shown to have significant impacts on the experiences and subjectivities of participants of UBI trials. While a UBI is a redistributive mechanism and not directly an environmental initiative, it enables a further and more radical reimagination of what a community, economy, and democracy might be. This can help nurture and sustain a constituency for other green initiatives, such as reorienting economies away from extractive to renewable resources, expanding public services, transitioning away from a growth economy, and revaluing sustainable community relationships. Finally, UBI presents an affirmative vision of a liveable future, countering the increasing fearful politics proliferating on both the left and right. Where radical environmental politics mobilise a dystopian imaginary of an unliveable future and a melancholic longing for a more sustainable past, and conservative forces continually invoke the fear of further job losses to rationalise the continued erosion of environmental and worker protections, UBI calls forth a new optimism. Rather than calling for a return to dreary labour, UBI points us towards a more auspicious future of material satisfaction and expanded leisure, community and democratic participation.