IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/polsoc/v41y2013i2p171-182.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Universal Basic Income

Author

Listed:
  • Philippe Van Parijs

Abstract

Utopian thinking consists of formulating proposals for radical reforms, justifying them on the basis of normative principles combined with the best possible scientific analysis of the root causes of the problems the proposals are meant to address, and subjecting these proposals to unindulgent critical scrutiny. Such utopian thinking is indispensable, and contributing to it is part of sociology’s core business. This article illustrates these claims by considering one particular utopian proposal: an unconditional basic income paid to every member of society on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. It summarizes the main arguments that support this proposal, mentions a number of contexts in which it is being taken seriously, and sketches a number of ways in which sociological insights and research are crucially relevant to the discussion of the economic and political sustainability of an unconditional basic income.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe Van Parijs, 2013. "The Universal Basic Income," Politics & Society, , vol. 41(2), pages 171-182, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:41:y:2013:i:2:p:171-182
    DOI: 10.1177/0032329213483106
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032329213483106
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0032329213483106?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Major Aaron, 2016. "Affording Utopia: The Economic Viability of “A Capitalist Road to Communism”," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 75-95, December.
    2. Bernadeta Baran, 2015. "Welfare State Challenges And The Concept Of Basic Income," Economy & Business Journal, International Scientific Publications, Bulgaria, vol. 9(1), pages 275-289.
    3. Martin Josh, 2016. "Universal Credit to Basic Income: A Politically Feasible Transition?," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 97-131, December.
    4. Katharina Bohnenberger, 2020. "Money, Vouchers, Public Infrastructures? A Framework for Sustainable Welfare Benefits," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-30, January.
    5. Luke Haywood, 2014. "Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen: eine ökonomische Perspektive," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 33, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Mohammad Rasoolinejad, 2019. "Universal Basic Income: The Last Bullet in the Darkness," Papers 1910.05658, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2021.
    7. Meixing Dai & Nicolas Mazuy, 2017. "La faisabilité et les périls du financement du revenu universel," Bulletin de l'Observatoire des politiques économiques en Europe, Observatoire des Politiques Économiques en Europe (OPEE), vol. 36(1), pages 3-8, June.
    8. Susan L. Prescott & Alan C. Logan, 2018. "Larger Than Life: Injecting Hope into the Planetary Health Paradigm," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-27, March.
    9. Alexandra Lenis Escobar & Ramón Rueda López & Jorge E. García Guerrero & Enrique Salinas Cuadrado, 2020. "Design of Strategies for the Implementation and Management of a Complementary Monetary System Using the SWOT-AHP Methodology," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-23, August.
    10. Benjamin Heslop & Antony Drew & Elizabeth Stojanovski & Kylie Bailey & Jonathan Paul, 2018. "Collaboration Vouchers: A Policy to Increase Population Wellbeing," Societies, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-19, June.
    11. Andrew F. Johnson & Katherine J. Roberto, 2020. "The COVID‐19 pandemic: Time for a universal basic income?," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(4), pages 232-235, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:41:y:2013:i:2:p:171-182. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.