This piece argues that Basic Income is, and has never been, a simple “common sense” or “spontaneous” idea for those who want to struggle against poverty. In fact, it but the product of a profound shift in how we thought about the social question since the late 19th century. A shift that, by the mid-sixties, made cash transfers and the price system the main tool when thinking about redistribution against collective provision or more state-centered approaches.
Articles by Anton Jäger
Anton Jäger is a researcher at Cambridge University. His current doctoral project focuses on intellectual history of the Populist movement in the late nineteenth-century United States, spanning questions of political theory, economic democracy and sovereignty. He has written for several online outlets (Jacobin Magazine, De Groene Amsterdammer, The Guardian) and regularly writes on film for the Belgian website Sabzian.be.