A UBI is important to transition to post-capitalism because it creates a new vanguard by severing the link between work and labor and by emphasizing work that does not rely on commodification

A number of currents in Marxist thinking, however, have sought to integrate critiques of capitalism with critiques of environmental destruction (e.g. O’Connor 1998; Smith 1984). Combining a critique of the alienation of workers from the products of their labour with a critique of the capitalist estrangement of people from nature, various scholars have proposed ecosocialism as a project to transcend all forms of alienation. Drawing on the labour theory of value, ecosocialists such as Foster (2000:256) make the normative argument for “a world of rational ecology and human freedom with an earthly basis—the society of associated producers”. However, it remains necessary to ask how this imagined free association of workers addresses both the threat of technological disemployment and the need to revalue reproductive spheres. Marxists typically hold that the products of labour should belong to the workers who created its value. In order to bring production in line with ecological limits, ecosocialists aspire for a society in which people work less and fairly distribute the burdens and benefits of labour. However, if only a portion of the population works, how does the remainder of the population access the resources necessary to survive? If there is less work, how do displaced workers sustain themselves? Within Marxist thinking, there are longstanding efforts to rework the centrality of both labour and the labourer, demonstrating the consistency of ideas like UBI with some articulations of Marxism. Gorz (1980, 1982, 1985), in particular, challenged Marxist orthodoxy that privileged the worker as the revolutionary subject, suggesting instead that radical change would come from those who no longer identify themselves with their salaried labour (see also Ferguson and Li 2018). He urged the left to embrace the liberatory potential of automation and mobilise people’s disaffection with undesirable work. Gorz had remarkable prescience, arguing against the valorisation of dehumanising work and for a basic income to counteract the technological bifurcation of the workforce. More recently, Kovel (2007) argues that guaranteed income can serve as an important initiative in a transition beyond capitalism, enabling the revaluation of different fields of economic activity and a reordering of relationships beyond the growth to the logic of capital. As Wright (2004) has argued, a UBI increases the possibility for engaging in decommodified activity, expanding economic practices beyond capitalism, as well as creating a “permanent strike fund” that enables workers to engage on their own terms. Moreover, in redistributing wealth, a UBI provides access to capital for alternative, worker-owned facilities. Thus, a UBI is compatible with free association of producers, but means that participation in production is not the only mode through which to garner livelihoods.