UBI is a core component of the post-capitalist transition.

The second key distinction we work to make here is that cash transfers, and particularly a durable, redistributive UBI, might well induce much greater political economic change. If cash transfers were merely ameliorative, reducing economic inequality, this might be reason enough to support them. The argument we make here, however, is that the impacts of cash transfers go beyond this, and that a redistributive UBI might well be used to underwrite postcapitalist economies. Greater economic security and improved relations with the state and each other might well increase many people’s willingness and ability to participate in political economic change. Further, progressive scholars and activists might well be able to shape practice, highlighting the benefits of using increased funds and time to underwrite radical political economic change. What might the securing of a state-provided universal, unconditional basic income do? In what ways might embracing modest statecraft, changing relationships between citizens and the state, rework how we see and interact with the state and each other? We point to four interrelated possibilities here: (i) freed time might be used to participate in democracy, (ii) increased incomes might be used to support diverse economies, (iii) reduced reliance on the capitalist economy might enable greater regulation as well as social and ecological re-embedding, and (iv) reconfigured state-citizenship relations might also transform how people collectively understand themselves and the possibilities for change. These impacts are not given, but might be created as part of a radical politics.

First, it is easy to imagine that a UBI might free up time and that this might well enable citizens to be more informed, active and engaged with politics (Fitzpatrick, 2004). Further, cash transfers – especially those with limited conditions – have not led to docile populations, but often to more politically engaged citizens who, at the very least, fight to keep these benefits. The position we develop here advances the idea that freeing up time is politically useful, building on this towards understanding the role of a UBI in enabling a different type of politics, and a different type of economy.

Leftist scholarship has suggested that a UBI might enable improved bargaining power for labour by providing a ‘permanent strike fund’; even the threat of striking may increase the overall gains for workers (Calnitsky, 2017; Stern, 2016). In this version, a UBI is seen as a tool for enabling iterative change towards a more empowered working class: change can be demanded through the threat of labour withdrawal. We see value in such a position, but also emphasize the potential of a basic income as a means for the actual withdrawal from capitalist relations and a resource to be used to build new political economic relations.

Above, we noted that most studies of cash transfers have deployed developmentalist lenses, yet there are some exceptions. Exploring the politics of Seminole gaming in which cash is transferred to community members, Cattelino (2008; see also Lewis, 2017) observes that money enables a degree of material autonomy. This economic independence has provided the conditions for indigenous cultural revitalization, freeing people from dependency on conditional government programmes. It also enables monetary supports for members to engage in activities, such as language instruction, that remain culturally meaningful although undervalued in the capitalist economy. More broadly, we can also reinterpret existing data through a critical lens. Studies of cash transfers have suggested that money is often spent locally and enables the creation of new businesses (Gertler et al., 2012; Ribas, 2020; Yang, 2018), and such practices might well shift funds away from corporations towards more embedded enterprises.

In short, people often use the money from cash transfers to do just the kinds of things that many advocates of diverse economies would want to see: end their reliance on capitalism for income, start small businesses, spend money locally, and devote more time to socially valuable practices. There is already a substantial community of practice in and, primarily, beyond the academy devoted to building postcapitalist community economies; a UBI might well underwrite these economies that have proven difficult to sustain and expand in the unequal world we have. It might make it easier both to spend time as scholars and activists working to build these alternative relations and garner increased public participation.

Further, separating incomes from local economies might well subtend particular political economic conflicts, enabling increasing regulation and embedding of markets. Elsewhere, we have argued that a UBI might enable a reworking of longstanding conflicts over environment and development by reducing the reliance of particular states and citizens on extractive developments (Lawhon & McCreary, 2020). Such reworked spatialities and dependencies might enable new pressures, a point that could be extended for other kinds of political economic conflict.

Finally, while a single policy may not substantively change the state, there is evidence from studies of cash transfers as well as wider social theory to suggest that cash transfers can change how citizens think about and interact with each other and the state. One shift that we find compelling is that cash transfers (sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly) reframe the economy as, at least in part, collective. Ferguson (2015), for example, suggests thinking of cash transfers as ‘shares’ of the economy. Others have argued for cash transfers as a recognition of common ecological inheritance (Ranalli, 2020; Standing, 2019; Van Parijs, 1992). More broadly, it has been demonstrated that recipients feel a greater sense of social trust (Kangas et al., 2019). This enriched sense of collectivism might well shape willingness to participate in social change.