UBI fails

[Neal Harris, Department of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Critical Theory and Universal Basic Income, 3-10-2023,

This is the conundrum of UBI for the left: there is an obvious quantitative gain – which is seemingly undeniable. The poorest in society will benefit from better healthcare outcomes, may live longer and may have greater access to the market economy. However, these quantitative benefits do not signal the move to a more emancipated socialistic society. The counterpoint to these quantitative benefits is the further colonisation of social domains by capitalist forms of cognition and subjectivity. As such, in this paper, I have argued that the further dominance of pathological forms of desire and consciousness need to be factored into the discussion of whether the left should embrace UBI as a policy. As such, despite the claims made by its progressive advocates, when viewed from a critical theory perspective, it seems possible that implementing a UBI may entrench neoliberalism, rather than challenge it. Critical theory is thus of importance to this conversation, as it is through a fusion of Marxian, Weberian, neo-Hegelian, and psychoanalytic insights that reification and can be interrogated. From a critical theory perspective, one may suggest that the implementation of UBI payments could defer, rather than expedite, progressive qualitative transition.

Unlike ‘Traditional Theorists’, who proclaim a scholarly objectivity, critical theorists make no such pretensions towards ‘apolitical’, or value-free, research (Horkheimer, 2002). Critical theorists are explicit about their politics and reflexively acknowledge their research contribution sits as part of a broader political goal: socialistic transition. I have done so here: this paper is explicitly a left-wing critique of UBI. However, for critical theorists, such reflexivity is not merely limited to admitting one’s positionality and political preferences. No investigation of UBI would be complete without reflecting on the political implications of introducing a UBI. A further, obvious question must be considered in conclusion: is it a good idea in the existing political world? To this end, I offer the briefest strategic argument as an addendum to this paper, as to why the implementation of a UBI should be resisted by progressive activists to compliment my critical theoretical rejection of UBI.

Because the idea of introducing a UBI enjoys ‘support from the both the left and right’ (Murphy, 2019: 13), a la Brexit, it is possible that a coalition of populist forces could be united to rally to the call. The promise of a left UBI would appeal broadly and the power of the neoliberal media could succeed, again, in obtaining the necessary support to propel the idea. However, once initiated, the proclaimed ‘capitalist road to communism’ could echo post-Brexit developments in the United Kingdom: the policy could be pushed hard right and could actually serve to normalise right-libertarian values (see Dearden, 2020). What may start as a UBI accompanying the welfare state may slowly shift to the idea of UBI enabling expedited privatisation. As Martinelli (2017: 5) notes, for right-libertarian supporters of UBI, crucially the idea is not to supplement the welfare state, but to ‘replace it’. With a dismantled welfare state, the next logical step for the neoliberal elite would be the gradual reduction of the UBI payment. This would likely occur in two ways: one, creeping conditionality, through conduct policing – targeting activists and those who oppose neoliberal norms, and two, reducing the UBI level to the minimum needed to enable repressive desublimation. As the Bank of England sets interest rates in the United Kingdom today, UBI would be similarly adjusted to optimally inculcate public support and repress dissent, while providing only the smallest possible redistribution of wealth. When van Parijs was writing of UBI as the ‘capitalist road to communism’ in 1986, my political-strategic consideration above may rightly have been deemed deeply dystopian. However, in the populist, Trumpian world, with ever-decreasing space for critical judgement (see Thompson, 2022), such a calculated rejection of UBI on this political basis may now appear a more rational and sensible course to adopt.