Reclaiming Basic Income: A Republican-Socialist Path to Freedom

Abstract

This article offers a republican-socialist reading of unconditional basic income, arguing that its political significance and emancipatory potential are not inherent but contingent on the broader sociopolitical project in which it is embedded. Challenging claims of ideological neutrality, we differentiate between right- and left-wing unconditional basic income proposals, focusing on fiscal design, institutional frameworks and implications for labour relations. Drawing on a republican conception of freedom – understood as inseparable from the material conditions that sustain it – we conceptualise unconditional basic income as an intervention against market dependency and economic coercion. When implemented within a framework of economic democracy, unconditional basic income can serve not merely as income support but as a lever for redistributing power, enhancing autonomy and challenging systemic inequalities. Rather than a technocratic fix, it may constitute a cornerstone for democratising economic life – provided it is shielded from neoliberal co-optation. Conversely, when financed and framed as a substitute for public guarantees, unconditional basic income risks entrenching market logics and private domination.

Introduction

The debate on unconditional basic income (UBI) has gained particular relevance in recent years, generating a diversity of interpretations and proposals. This plurality of perspectives has resulted in considerable debate regarding the political feasibility, economic sustainability and ideological underpinnings of UBI (Van Parijs and Vanderborght, 2017). Such diversity, however, complicates the task of precisely delineating its implications, as some scholars have noted (Hogg, 2023), stating that ‘what makes the implications of UBI so challenging to assess is the difficulty in pinning down what it actually entails’. This assertion underscores the necessity of establishing a clear conceptual framework to differentiate UBI from related but distinct policies. To avoid ambiguities, we will therefore explicitly define what we mean by UBI: a universal and unconditional public monetary allocation (Ghatak and Maniquet, 2019).

At the same time, we acknowledge that UBI has long been embedded in political debates – not only as a technical innovation, but also as a contested symbol within different ideological traditions. From Van Parijs’ liberal-egalitarian arguments to Widerquist’s freedom-as-the-power-to-say-no, the literature has already highlighted UBI’s critical potential. What remains underdeveloped, however, is a framework that integrates republican theories of non-domination with a socialist emphasis on property, class, and institutional design. Moreover, while Van Parijs’ conception of real freedom for all and Widerquist’s power-to-say-no highlight important dimensions of economic security, they often remain bounded within liberal or individualistic frameworks (see, for example, Van Parijs, 2004; Widerquist, 2013). Our aim is to deepen and politicise this terrain by recovering a collective, historically grounded theory of freedom tied to material redistribution and democratic control.

Before addressing the several compelling topics related to UBI that recent contributions to the debate have brought, it is essential to distinguish between the normative foundations and the technical aspects, as in many studies these are often intermingled (Bell, 2020; Jäger and Zamora, 2023; McDowell, 2023). While the normative dimension focuses on the ethical and philosophical justifications for UBI – such as fairness, freedom and justice – the technical dimension concerns its practical implementation, including funding mechanisms, economic effects and institutional design. Yet rather than treat these dimensions separately, our approach insists that funding mechanisms and institutional configurations are themselves expressions of deeper political commitments. The technical is not neutral; it accompanies a theory of society.

One frequent argument in the literature is the following: ‘On the surface, basic income does indeed appear radical [. . .]. But there are also dangers posed by its implementation, which is evident from the bourgeois support for UBI both historically and today’ (Hogg, 2023). Indeed, there are UBI proposals that are politically right-wing and others that are left-wing (Calnitsky, 2017; Haagh, 2019). However, distinguishing between right- and left-wing support for UBI requires careful analysis, as these perspectives differ significantly in their motivations and proposed designs. It is therefore essential to clarify the most evident distinguishing aspects to avoid misunderstandings. For instance, the claim that UBI’s contradictions mean it appeals to both the right and the left overlooks key ideological and structural distinctions. The assumption that both right- and left-wing proposals for UBI share common objectives misrepresents the fundamental ideological and structural differences between them.

Far from seeing this diversity as a weakness, we foreground at the outset our analytic lens – a republican-socialist perspective that links non-domination to material independence and institutional design. This immediately clarifies that what is at stake is not a single ‘UBI idea’ but competing political projects embedded in different institutional and ideological contexts. In doing so, we do not assume that UBI is the only or even the primary policy instrument for republican-socialist politics; instead, we argue that it offers a particularly sharp vantage point from which to examine how different coalitions conceive of freedom, property and the role of the state.

This article seeks to unpack the ideological, normative, and structural dimensions of UBI by examining the contrasting political projects that underpin its different proposals. Rather than treating UBI as a politically neutral or technocratic measure, we explore how its design, financing, and institutional embedding reflect broader struggles over economic power and social justice. In doing so, we aim to move beyond existing accounts that rehearse the now-familiar idea that UBI disrupts traditional welfare paradigms. Instead, we ask: under what political and institutional conditions can UBI become a tool of real emancipation? What kind of freedom does it enable, and for whom? This article contributes to political theory by bridging republican and socialist traditions to reconceptualise UBI as a tool of economic democratisation and non-domination.

We begin by analysing how divergent approaches to funding and implementation determine whether UBI functions as a tool for reinforcing the welfare state and redistributing wealth – or, conversely, as a means of dismantling public protections and entrenching market logics. We then develop a republican-socialist reading of UBI that moves beyond income support to consider its potential as a structural intervention against economic domination. This includes a critical assessment of wage labour, the role of coercion in the labour market and the ways in which UBI might enhance autonomy, bargaining power and collective agency. Finally, we situate UBI within contemporary transformations such as automation, precarisation and financialisation, asking whether and how it can contribute to the democratisation of economic life. Crucially, our argument is not that UBI is emancipatory in itself, but that its political meaning depends on the ecosystem of institutions, social forces and normative commitments within which it is implemented.

In short, our contribution is threefold: (1) to sharpen the left/right distinction by anchoring it in fiscal design and the fate of universal services, (2) to articulate a republican-socialist conception of UBI as a means of securing freedom as material non-dependence and (3) to identify the actors and structural pressures that could plausibly bring such a UBI onto the political agenda. In doing so, we argue that UBI can be a distinctive lever for republican-socialist reform only when it is designed and embedded in ways that structurally curtail domination, rather than when it is introduced as an isolated anti-poverty scheme.

Competing political projects: UBI between Left and Right?

While UBI is often described as a singular idea, its political content is far from homogeneous. The right and the left differ in various aspects when it comes to UBI, but one distinction is particularly crucial: how it is financed. A UBI can be funded in multiple ways, and the fundamental difference between left-wing and right-wing proposals becomes evident when asking who benefits and who bears the financial burden (Standing, 2017). More precisely, it depends on which social sectors benefit and which ones bear the cost. This is determined by the method of financing. A left-wing proposal requires a progressive tax reform, leading to significant redistribution from the wealthiest citizens to the rest of society. ¹ Various studies conducted across different geographical areas have explored this in detail (Bollain, 2024; Bollain et al., 2024; Danson et al., 2021; Ghatak and Jaravel, 2020; McDowell, 2023; Ter-Minassian, 2020). Rather than assuming that all UBI proposals share a core essence, this section shows how fiscal design serves as a crystallisation point for deeper ideological cleavages. Indeed, taxation is not merely a funding mechanism but a political act that reveals priorities, alliances and normative orientations. To improve clarity, we present the two projects separately.

Any UBI proposal that seeks to dismantle the welfare state is a right-wing proposal. In contrast, advocating for UBI while simultaneously defending and strengthening the welfare state is the left-wing position (Standing, 2017). A substantial body of literature (see, for example, Standing, 2019) has underscored that a UBI aligned with progressive goals must complement and reinforce public services such as healthcare, education and housing assistance rather than serving as a justification for their reduction. In welfare-state terms, this is a decommodifying strategy (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Offe, 1992; Polanyi, 2001; Wright, 2006) as it partially detaches life’s basic needs from market dependency and individual bargaining weakness. In Polanyian terms, a left-wing UBI would form part of the protective countermovement against the fictitious commodification of labour, while for Esping-Andersen, Offe and Wright decommodification is often taken to denote a shift from securing livelihood primarily through individual market performance to recognising income guarantees and core social services as collectively ensured rights. Seen from a republican-socialist perspective, UBI is decommodifying not merely because it raises incomes of the non-rich majority, but because it loosens the structural compulsion to sell one’s workforce under almost any terms by relocating part of the means of subsistence outside the wage relation.

Left-wing proponents of UBI also emphasise that it would significantly strengthen workers’ bargaining power. In an economic system where employment relationships are deeply asymmetrical – where contracts between a multinational corporation or a large company and an individual worker are legally treated as ‘equal’ – it is clear that a left-wing UBI proposal would improve the position of the more vulnerable party (Bidadanure, 2019). At the very least, it would provide an income above the poverty threshold as a safety net. Calnitsky (2017) poses a critical question related to this: ‘do we wish, for example, to block a Walmart worker from quitting her job if she so desires? If we are in favour of basic human autonomy, the answer is no’. Following this perspective, by reducing the dependency of workers on precarious employment, UBI would act as a mechanism for increasing individual autonomy and collective labour organisation, further challenging exploitative labour practices. This emphasis on bargaining power moves beyond welfare and into the terrain of structural change in labour relations – an aspect often neglected in liberal readings of UBI.

From a feminist perspective, UBI has also been recognised as a powerful tool for autonomy and protection. While a perpetrator of gender-based violence is empowered by his partner’s financial dependence, the autonomy of a woman who is victimised is diminished by her abuser’s ability to control her through financial means (Christy-McMullin, 2002; Conner, 2013). Access to UBI would provide victimised women with the financial independence they urgently need. Furthermore, gendered divisions of unpaid labour could also be mitigated, as stated by Pateman (2004), as financial security would enable individuals, particularly women, to make choices regarding work and caregiving without economic coercion. UBI also holds emancipatory potential for young people, the most vulnerable workers, and marginalised communities – groups that often face systemic labour discrimination and precarious employment conditions. This perspective has been recognised by organisations advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, cultural sector collectives, youth organisations and mental health advocacy groups (Elías, 2021), many of which have published manifestos in favour of UBI, viewing it as a tool for autonomy, freedom, and reducing inequalities. The right, on the other hand, remains largely detached from these social struggles.

To make this more concrete, it is helpful to briefly recall what existing experiments suggest. Large- and small-scale pilots – from the Mincome project in Canada and the more recent Finnish experiment to municipal schemes such as Stockton – tend to report improvements in mental health, reductions in financial stress and, in some cases, greater stability or flexibility in people’s labour market trajectories (Merrill et al., 2022; Widerquist, 2018). While these programmes were limited in scope and duration, they show that even modest unconditional transfers can weaken the hold of economic necessity over people’s choices.

Nevertheless, while UBI is an important economic policy measure, it is not an ‘economic policy’ in itself (Bollain et al., 2024). The contrast between left- and right-wing UBI proposals is also evident in the additional policies they advocate alongside it. A coherent left-wing economic strategy would integrate UBI within a broader framework of progressive fiscal policy, labour protections and wealth redistribution measures. For instance, some leftist proposals combine UBI with a maximum income cap as a means of limiting extreme wealth accumulation (Alexander, 2014; Bertomeu and Raventós, 2020; Pizzigati, 2018).

In short, the left-wing approach treats UBI as part of a package that universalises material independence – thereby supporting non-domination in the face of disproportionate economic power – and strengthens collective institutions rather than replacing them.

Turning to right-wing appropriations of UBI, the instrument is reinterpreted within a pro-market policy matrix ² that alters its distributive incidence and institutional purpose. As stated by Standing (2017), many scholars have referenced Friedman as an example of a right-wing supporter of UBI. However, Friedman does not advocate for a UBI, but for a negative income tax – a system that shares some similarities with UBI but also key differences (Tondani, 2009). The underlying logic is not emancipation but efficiency.

More explicitly neoliberal versions of UBI – such as those defended by Murray (2006) – conceive it as a means to reconfigure, or even reduce, social protection. By providing a minimal, unconditional income, the state could dismantle sectoral benefits and privatise social services, shifting responsibility for social welfare from collective institutions to individual choice. The promise of ‘freedom’ is, in these models, reframed as consumer sovereignty. Individuals are free to buy education, health or insurance on the market, not free from market dependency itself. In addition, they typically treat labour-market bargaining asymmetries as a feature rather than a problem. On this path, UBI (or NIT-like proxies) commodifies social protection and individualises risk rather than decommodifying it. A capitalist society could, in principle, implement a relatively high UBI of this kind while leaving intact the underlying structures of ownership and corporate power. In such a scenario, non-domination would remain out of reach despite the payment of a generous civic minimum.

In doing so, right-wing UBI proposals reinforce the commodification of labour and the logic of individual responsibility that underpin neoliberal capitalism. Empirically, these market-conforming approaches tend to finance UBI through regressive mechanisms – such as consumption taxes or the reallocation of existing welfare budgets – while rejecting progressive taxation or wealth redistribution (Jäger and Zamora, 2023). Their distributive outcome is therefore ambiguous, as they might alleviate extreme poverty but also entrench structural inequalities by weakening collective bargaining, reducing the scope of public services and legitimising precarious forms of employment.

Finally, right-wing appropriations of UBI often invoke automation and technological unemployment as justifications for a minimal social floor. This ‘technological determinism’ (Srnicek and Williams, 2016) conceals the political nature of distributive choices, presenting UBI as a technocratic fix to inequality rather than a democratic tool for empowerment.

Thus, while left-wing UBI proposals seek to decommodify labour and strengthen public institutions, right-wing versions tend to commodify social protection and individualise risk. That means reproducing, rather than transforming, the structural hierarchies of capitalist society. In this light, the political divergence between both projects becomes clearer. What is presented as a common instrument conceals fundamentally different understandings of freedom, justice and the role of the state. While market-oriented versions aim to streamline welfare and discipline labour through monetary compensation, republican-socialist interpretations conceive UBI as a collective guarantee against domination.

The tension between these projects can also be traced in how each side interprets conditionality and social deservingness. Unlike means-tested benefits, which come with high administrative costs, stigmatise recipients and create and perpetuate the poverty trap, a UBI would eliminate these issues by removing bureaucracy and surveillance mechanisms (Bollain and Raventós, 2024). More importantly, the conceptual difference is fundamental. Means-tested benefits are designed for individuals deemed ‘problematic’ – ‘losers’, people unable to find work, earn enough to live or those with serious income-related, cognitive or physical and mental health issues. Right-wing perspectives often frame poverty as a personal failure, reinforcing the idea that having a job is the only respectable path to economic security. However, this notion collapses when confronted with today’s reality, in which employment is no longer a reliable safeguard against poverty, as demonstrated by the growing number of working poor (Hick and Marx, 2023). UBI, from a left-wing perspective, challenges this punitive logic by recognising poverty as a structural outcome, not a personal flaw, and reasserts economic security as a right, not a reward.

From a left-wing perspective, UBI is founded on principles of freedom, justice, equality, and human dignity. Unlike conditional benefits, it does not treat economic insecurity as an individual moral failing but as a structural issue requiring collective solutions. By guaranteeing a material foundation for every individual simply by being a citizen or registered resident, UBI represents a radical shift in how societies define economic security and social rights. This shift, in republican-socialist terms, constitutes a move from contingent charity to guaranteed freedom, understood as non-domination and grounded in universal material security. As we shall argue, this shift is fully realised only when UBI is embedded in institutions that also constrain capital’s capacity to reassert domination through prices, indebtedness or political influence.

Ultimately, the question is not merely whether UBI is politically ambiguous, but rather: Who is designing it, for what purpose and within what socioeconomic framework? An effective UBI policy requires critical engagement with its implementation, ensuring it serves as a foundation for greater social justice rather than an instrument for deepening inequalities. We argue that UBI is not inherently emancipatory, but politically plastic. Its capacity to transform depends entirely on the coalition of forces, institutions and values that shape its deployment.

The Republican-Socialist approach to UBI

Discussions about left-wing and right-wing conceptions of UBI sometimes treat them as if they were homogeneous. However, this is not the case – though with one important nuance. Right-wing conceptions of UBI tend to be more uniform, whereas within the left, there are significantly different proposals. This internal diversity within left-wing UBI advocacy, as stated by Standing (2017), stems from differing historical traditions, theoretical frameworks and strategic objectives, which shape distinct approaches to its implementation and broader socioeconomic implications. Naming things is always problematic, but we believe referring to our perspective as republican-socialist is justified. We use this term not to combine two traditions arbitrarily, but to recover a coherent framework that links freedom from domination with democratic control over the material conditions of life. In other words, our concern is not simply with redistribution or poverty alleviation, but with the institutional conditions under which people cease to live at the mercy of private and public powers. This framework also differentiates our view from social-democratic approaches, which defend progressive redistribution and universal services without necessarily transforming ownership or workplace power relations.

Material conditions of existence are inseparable from republican freedom (Domènech, 2004; Gourevitch, 2013; Pettit, 2002). Those who lack these material conditions are not truly free, as their very existence depends on the arbitrary will of others. Republican freedom is rooted in the notion, structure and institutionalisation of property and the correlations of social forces (Domènech, 2004). For oligarchic republican theorists, only those who own enough property to sustain themselves independently are considered subjects of freedom. These are the sui iuris, those who are masters of themselves, not subject to arbitrary interference by others. This conception renders the structural role of property central, not secondary, to freedom (see also Dagger (2006) on the civic minimum as a material basis for republican participation).

The key difference between oligarchic and democratic republicanism is not their definition of freedom but rather who should have access to it (Casassas, 2024). Should freedom be reserved for the few – the wealthy, the honoratiores, the gens de bien, the patrons, the gentiluomini, the lords – or should it be guaranteed for all? This fundamental distinction has significant implications for UBI, as a republican-socialist perspective demands that the right to material security be a universal entitlement rather than a privilege contingent on market participation. Robespierre (1792) expressed this idea clearly: ‘The right to exist, which entails guaranteeing the means of existence to all members of society, is the fundamental right to which all others are subordinate’. UBI, under this lens, becomes a way of universalising the condition of non-domination, making the status of the sui iuris a democratic norm rather than an aristocratic exception. This normative shift, nevertheless, has institutional consequences. Guaranteeing this universal status presupposes stable, collectively governed sources of revenue – such as social wealth funds, natural resource dividends or progressive capital taxation – that anchor UBI in a broader project of democratising economic power.

A person is republicanly dominated when someone – whether an individual or a group – can interfere in their material conditions of existence at will, with no other constraint than their own volition. Even if this position of dominance is never exercised, the mere fact that it can be enacted at any moment, without limitations beyond the will of the dominator, constitutes domination (Pettit, 2002). UBI, in this framework, represents an institutional mechanism to reduce such dependence by ensuring that all individuals possess an economic base that is not subject to the arbitrary will of employers, landlords, or private financial institutions.

Relations of domination manifest in both private domains (dominium) and the political sphere (imperium) (Casassas and De Wispelaere, 2016; Domènech, 2025). Indeed, public power has historically been, and continues to be, a significant source of domination. That is why freedom also requires vigilance against those in power. As the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (National Convention of France, 1793) put it, ‘the law ought to protect public and personal liberty against the oppression of those who govern’. Republican freedom, therefore, demands the eradication of both forms of domination: dominium and imperium. ³

This dual structure of domination also shapes how different traditions understand the role of the state and, in particular, the meaning of neutrality. For liberalism, neutrality means that the state should not intervene in negotiations and disputes between different social actors and sectors. It should not favour any particular conception of the good life among the diverse citizens of a given society. Republicanism, however, sees the real problem not in the trivial assertion that the state should not privilege one way of life over another, but rather in the question of whether the material existence of an individual – or an entire segment of the population – should depend on the investment decisions of a multinational corporation (Raventós, 2007). Or whether the energy resources of entire nations should be placed at the disposal of a handful of corporate boardrooms. In these all-too-common cases, entire ways of life – visions of the good life – are not only eroded but sometimes entirely obliterated through the destruction of the material foundations that would have made them possible. This critique aligns closely with republican-socialist defences of UBI, which argue that providing an unconditional income floor is a direct intervention to counterbalance the coercive power of private economic actors over individuals’ lives. This highlights a core feature of our argument: UBI is not just about income, but about safeguarding the social preconditions of democratic life.

From a republican perspective, state neutrality is understood as an active intervention to prevent powerful private actors – such as big multinational corporations, whose very existence in its current unregulated form is republicanly unacceptable – from imposing their private will upon states and, by extension, upon the majority of non-wealthy citizens. A republican state must intervene actively to ensure that neutrality is a reality, not a superficial slogan of ‘equidistance between different life projects’ (Domènech, 2004). In this regard, UBI is not merely a redistributive policy but a structural reform that challenges the economic foundations of systemic inequality. For republicanism, neutrality does not mean the trivial notion of abstaining from intervening or interfering in the diverse and conflicting personal conceptions of the good life held by individual citizens (something already self-evident). Rather, it means ‘actively intervening in social life to dismantle, at its economic and institutional roots, the major spheres of private power’ (Domènech, 2004).

Thus, republican theory assumes that the state should be equidistant in relation to different conceptions of the good life. However, when powerful private actors possess the ability to impose their own private vision of the good upon society – when the oligopolistic structure of markets enables the hijacking of the state by vast private empires – republican neutrality means intervention, not passive tolerance that allows the strongest to prevail. To fight against dominium and imperium is precisely that. UBI, in this sense, is a policy that enables genuine political equality by decoupling individuals’ economic security from private control, ensuring that economic resources are not exclusively distributed according to market logic.

The addition of ‘socialist’ to republicanism is justified by the historical evolution of property structures (O’Shea, 2020). With the emergence and consolidation of capitalism from the nineteenth century onwards, the structure of property made the classical republican project of universalising individual ownership increasingly implausible. Thus, the primary contribution of socialism to democratic republicanism is an update ‘to the conditions of a world in which the structure of property had been profoundly transformed’ (Casassas et al., 2021). This transformation entails a reconceptualisation of economic rights, recognising that contemporary capitalist structures create systemic dependencies that impede genuine autonomy. Socialism also brings to democratic republicanism an updated analysis of the new social structure that generates the forms of domination preventing republican freedom for all citizens. These are dominations that can be described as impersonal and structural (Casassas et al., 2021; Gourevitch, 2013; Leipold et al., 2020). As Leipold, Nabulsi and White (2020) explain,

[T]he domination of workers does not simply consist of the personal domination of an individual employer, but in the fact that they are subjected to the structural domination of employers, whose control over the means of production ensures that, even though workers do not have to work for a particular employer, they do have to work for an employer.

UBI constitutes a mechanism for reducing structural domination by ensuring that economic security is not contingent upon submission to exploitative labour conditions. It reclaims economic agency for individuals, reinforcing the principle that true freedom requires material independence from arbitrary forces – whether state or corporate. By detaching economic security from private control, UBI strengthens democratic participation, curbing the power imbalances that undermine collective decision-making and social cohesion. This reframing repositions UBI not at the margins of political theory, but at the heart of debates on freedom, equality and democracy.

It is sometimes presumed that structural questions of domination are subsidiary to distributive outcomes and can be handled ex post through tax-and-transfer schemes. Yet, as Claassen and Herzog (2019) argue, this view underestimates both the instrumental and intrinsic importance of economic agency. Welfare-based redistribution may fail to provide sufficient autonomy, and it cannot substitute for the capacity to exercise ‘voice’ within economic life. A republican-socialist vision of UBI, therefore, treats agency not as a derivative concern but as a constitutive element of freedom. UBI is not merely a mechanism of exit from exploitation, but a tool to enhance voice and reshape the terms of participation in the economic sphere.

In light of this, UBI is not simply a redistributive mechanism but a reconfiguration of economic power, challenging the concentration of wealth and the structural conditions that perpetuate economic dependency. A republican-socialist vision of UBI is not about compensating for the failures of capitalism but about reshaping the economic order to align with principles of freedom, equality and democratic participation. If the goal is to move beyond a model of society where the majority remain structurally dominated by economic elites, then UBI must be implemented alongside progressive fiscal policies, labour protections and democratic control over key economic resources. Only then can it serve as a vehicle for genuine emancipation rather than as a neoliberal palliative.

From servitude to autonomy: Rethinking work through UBI

Authors such as Hogg (2023) have expressed concern about wage labour and its relationship with UBI, addressing it both in general terms and in relation to new technologies. Indeed, this is a crucial issue, and it is worth examining it from the perspective of republican freedom. The debate on wage labour and its inherent asymmetries of power has long been central to political economy (Dean, 2015; Harvey, 2005; Ó Rálaigh, 2025), yet its intersection with UBI remains insufficiently explored in many contemporary discussions. From a republican-socialist perspective, this intersection is precisely where UBI becomes distinctive compared to more conventional labour-market or welfare reforms, because it targets the very dependence that structures the wage relation. This section aims to bridge that gap by demonstrating how UBI can serve as a structural intervention against economic dependency and coercion, spelling out the specific mechanisms through which a guaranteed income alters labour-market power relations rather than merely reiterating its anti-poverty credentials.

Classical and modern authors have long recognised the affinity between wage labour and unfreedom. Aristotle, an oligarchic republican, had already described wage labour as a kind of limited slavery (Aristotle and Lord, 2013), ⁴ and Marx echoed this idea, drawing parallels between wage labour and slavery. From a different angle but with a similar perspective, he defined the ‘double freedom’ that all workers have under capitalism (Marx, 1990): the freedom to be exploited by the employer they choose and the freedom to starve if they choose none. Rather than treating these classical references as antiquarian curiosities, we use them to highlight a long-standing intuition that economic dependence corrodes civic standing – a theme that reappears today in debates on precarious, low-paid work.

Thus, a labour contract, in essence, entails selling oneself into servitude. Therefore, it is essential to understand UBI as a tool for partially decommodifying the labour market, as it expands people’s real freedom and erodes the fundamental condition of market dependence (Calnitsky, 2017). This aligns with the views of the Marxist economist of the twentieth century, Ernest Mandel, who argued that one of the reasons why workers would no longer be forced to sell their labour power is that the state guarantees all citizens an existence income (Mandel, 1971). In Polanyian terms, UBI introduces a counter-movement that loosens the ‘fictitious commodification’ of labour, not by abolishing markets altogether but by ensuring that access to basic means of life does not hinge on accepting any job at almost any wage. On a republican-socialist reading, this income is not a mere top-up but a civic minimum that underwrites the status of workers as non-subordinates even before they enter any employment relationship.

However, the implications of UBI for labour markets go beyond individual autonomy. The provision of a UBI enhances workers’ bargaining position by introducing a collective dynamic rooted in economic security. This security frees up quality time, enabling workers and collective actors, such as trade unions, to engage in more strategic forms of bargaining, advocate effectively for higher wages, participate in political struggles aimed at progressive reforms and freely choose activities aligned with their preferences (Manjarin and Szlinder, 2016). Different pilot projects have provided preliminary evidence that individuals receiving an unconditional income are more likely to pursue education, switch to better jobs or engage in self-employment, suggesting the potential of UBI to shift the power balance in labour markets (Widerquist, 2018).

It is worth linking this point to our previous discussion on republican freedom. Consider a business owner operating in a place entirely devoid of labour legislation, free to set any terms of employment. Workers may technically refuse to accept the contract, but in practice, the fact that many others are waiting in line, desperate for employment, severely limits that freedom. As a result, the conditions for those who do accept the job are dictated entirely by the employer’s will. Now, let us further imagine that this employer is a man of great kindness, with no particular inclination towards profit accumulation. Under these conditions, the employer treats his workforce exceptionally well and grants them wages above the regional average. For some – particularly those who adhere to liberalism – these workers would be seen as enjoying an enviable situation, since their employment appears both voluntary and materially advantageous. However, from the perspective of those who align with the historical tradition of republican freedom, this workforce is not free (Raventós, 2007).

Their lack of freedom does not stem from their relatively favourable working conditions compared to other nearby workforces in the same lawless zone, where less benevolent employers impose harsher terms. Rather, it stems from the fact that their well-being is entirely dependent on the arbitrary will of their employer. That will, in turn, could be swayed by something as trivial as a bad mood caused by romantic disappointment, his favourite football team’s defeat, or even indigestion. This is not an arbitrary claim, as Kahneman et al. (2022) have shown, demonstrating that juvenile court judges issue harsher sentences on Mondays when their favourite football team has lost the day before, while other judges grant more parole requests after eating than just before. This should neither be surprising nor taken lightly. Mood is significantly influenced by the regularity and satisfaction of certain physiological and psychological needs. In the example previously stated, a change in the employer’s mood could lead to a shift in his management style and treatment of employees. Under the imagined scenario, the only constraint on this change is the employer’s own will. These workers live at the mercy of their employer’s whims. From a republican standpoint, then, the problem is not primarily the level of wages, but the fact that the livelihood of workers hinges on a power relation that is structurally arbitrary.

It is also important to note that the arbitrariness of this imagined benevolent employer affects workers’ lives far beyond working hours. Their entire existence is shaped by their salary, the duration of their vacations, and their access to medical leave. From a republican perspective, those who depend on the will of another for their material conditions of existence are not free (Pettit, 2002). It is impossible to overlook the fact that individuals living under such conditions may feel compelled to modify their behaviour to appear pleasant, servile, submissive and obedient to their employer, hoping that he will continue treating them favourably. Acting submissively in the hope of securing a contract renewal is not a free decision; volunteering to work extra hours without pay to gain favour and ensure continued employment is not a free decision. And this dynamic can be observed on a large scale in today’s labour markets.

The transformation of labour markets in the context of automation and the rise of the gig economy further underscores the need for a republican-socialist approach to UBI. Over the past decades, labour protections have been systematically weakened, with an increasing number of workers engaged in precarious, platform-based or informal employment with little bargaining power. As stated by Hickson (2024), there has been an erosion of traditional labour protections and a reinforcement of asymmetric power relations between workers and employers. In this environment, UBI functions not merely as a safety net but as a structural intervention to counteract these trends, ensuring that individuals are not forced to accept exploitative conditions due to economic necessity. By providing an unconditional financial base, UBI expands the range of options available to workers, reinforcing their ability to negotiate better wages and working conditions, or even pursue self-employment and cooperative economic models.

There was a version of Marx deeply engaged with this line of reasoning – what Domènech (1989) calls the republican Marx. This should not be confused with another Marx, the liberal one (to borrow Domènech’s playful terminology), who was preoccupied with determining which form of property was the most productive. That Marx is dead. The living Marx, the republican one, posed a very different question: what kind of property produces the best citizens? The wage relationship under the various forms of capitalism we have known – though it would be rude not to distinguish, for instance, between the capitalism of much of Europe in the 1960s and the counter-reform known as neoliberalism, initiated in the 1970s and 1980s (Saez and Zucman, 2019) – is a property relation that can hardly be imagined as the best one for fostering good citizens.

At this point, a natural question arises: why should a republican-socialist project prioritise UBI, rather than, or in addition to, other measures such as one-off asset grants or public employment schemes? Our answer is that a permanent, unconditional income floor restructures the temporal and relational dimensions of economic power in a way that these other instruments do not. Because it is regular, non-securitisable and independent of labour-market participation, a well-designed UBI undercuts the leverage that employers, landlords and creditors derive from workers’ monthly dependence on them. Asset-distribution measures can and should complement this by widening ownership, but without a guaranteed income stream, assets alone are easily re-concentrated through debt, precarious sell-offs or unequal bargaining. Conversely, if UBI payments could be fully collateralised for private borrowing, they would risk being captured by financial institutions and turned into new chains of indebtedness. A republican-socialist design would therefore restrict such collateralisation and combine UBI with tighter regulation of consumer credit and rentier income.

What is at stake, then, is not merely whether wage labour is productive, but whether it is compatible with a democratic society based on republican freedom. If the principle that individuals should not be subject to arbitrary domination is to be taken seriously, then it must be acknowledged that wage dependency cannot serve as the foundation of a truly free and equal citizenry. Some might object, however, that such structural concerns are secondary to questions of distributive outcomes and can be addressed through taxation and welfare entitlements. Yet if redistribution leaves untouched the basic structure of dependence on employers and creditors, it may alleviate hardship without dismantling domination. As even a liberal-egalitarian theorist such as Rawls clearly noted, ‘the state tries to correct the distribution of wealth and income ex post by transfers; but the underlying inequalities in economic power remain’ (Rawls, 2001).

This speaks to a broader concern about economic agency not merely as a means to an end, but as a constitutive element of freedom itself. Beyond ensuring an ‘exit’ from exploitative relations, UBI must enable individuals to reshape the conditions of their participation in economic life. In this sense, securing ‘voice’ – the ability to influence and co-determine economic structures – is as crucial as ensuring material security. As Birnbaum (2017) cautions, unless UBI is embedded within broader institutional arrangements that democratise the economy, it risks reinforcing rather than overcoming people’s subordination. UBI is therefore best understood not as a self-sufficient panacea but as a hinge institution that only realises its republican promise when combined with strong unions, workplace democracy and constraints on capital’s political power.

Viewed through this lens, UBI should not be a mere economic policy but a structural intervention to realign power in favour of the many, not the few. It should be understood as part of a broader political project that challenges the very foundations of economic subordination and redistributes power in ways that extend beyond wages and labour relations. As automation and the financialisation of the economy further erode traditional employment structures, UBI will become not just a policy option, but a key instrument for maintaining democratic agency and social stability. Concrete agents of such a transformation are not hypothetical: trade unions, feminist and youth movements, platform-worker organisations, more radical currents within social-democratic and socialist parties, as well as climate and housing movements, are already articulating demands that link UBI, shorter working hours and forms of economic democracy. Under conditions of recurrent crises – whether of overaccumulation, under-consumption, technological unemployment or welfare-state legitimation – these actors could converge around a republican-socialist UBI as one of the few instruments capable of simultaneously addressing insecurity, inequality and democratic erosion.

The republican-socialist perspective recognises that economic freedom cannot exist in isolation from broader structures of redistribution. True republican neutrality requires actively dismantling systems of extreme wealth accumulation and corporate monopolisation, ensuring that no citizen’s material security is contingent on market volatility or employer discretion. If we truly seek to build a free society, economic security cannot be left to the whims of private interests. Without UBI and a fundamental reconfiguration of economic power, the promise of democratic equality will remain an illusion – an empty rhetoric masking the continued domination of the many by the few.

Conclusion

This article has sought to reclaim the debate on UBI by providing a republican-socialist reading that addresses both ideological tensions and structural dynamics. We reject the view of UBI as ideologically neutral or universally progressive, arguing instead that its meaning emerges from the political and institutional context in which it is implemented. In contrast to viewpoints that frame UBI as a politically ambiguous or inherently contradictory policy, we argue that its political meaning is not fixed but rather shaped by the institutional design, fiscal framework and broader policy environment in which it is embedded. Rather than asking whether UBI is ‘in itself’ left or right, we contend that the decisive questions concern the distributional structure, the institutional alliances and the political project it serves.

Framing UBI through the lens of a republican-socialist perspective allows us to reconnect questions of freedom with questions of property, power and economic structure. From this perspective, UBI is not merely a compensatory income transfer but a structural intervention aimed at reducing both dominium and imperium – the twin forms of domination that undermine freedom. Freedom, in this framework, is not simply the absence of interference, but the institutionalisation of non-dependence. By guaranteeing material security independent of market participation or wage dependency, UBI, if financed through progressive and wealth-based taxation and combined with robust public services, has the potential to enhance individual autonomy, rebalance labour relations and democratise economic life.

This perspective also clarifies how a republican-socialist UBI differs from liberal and neoliberal interpretations. Whereas liberal theories often focus on fairness within market exchange, and neoliberal variants use UBI or UBI-like instruments to streamline welfare and commodify social protection, our account treats UBI as part of a decommodifying package. It is distinctive not because it replaces other instruments but because, when designed as a non-collateralised civic minimum, it directly undercuts the leverage that employers, landlords and creditors derive from people’s month-to-month dependence on them. In this sense, UBI is not only about alleviating poverty; it is about securing the material basis for both exit from and voice within economic relations.

The central question, in short, is not whether UBI is inherently left or right, but for whom it is designed, what kind of citizenship it envisions and which forms of power it seeks to entrench or dismantle. Whose interests does it serve and under what sociopolitical conditions? A republican-socialist design treats UBI as a hinge institution within a wider strategy of economic democratisation, where it should be accompanied by progressive taxation, strong unions, workplace co-determination, regulation of rentier and financial income, and the defence and expansion of universal public services. Absent such a framework, even a generous UBI risks functioning as a neoliberal fix or a substitute for collective guarantees, consolidating market rule behind a façade of inclusion.

The republican-socialist vision of UBI, therefore, is not simply about guaranteeing an income; it is about reclaiming the economy as a terrain of democratic contestation. It is about redistributing power and reimagining the terms of freedom in a democratic society. It does not merely seek to protect individuals from poverty, but to secure the material and institutional conditions for non-domination, equal citizenship and meaningful political agency. This implies a redefinition of freedom, not as the privilege of independence for the few, but as a shared infrastructure of autonomy for all.

Future research and policy debates must thus focus not only on the technical feasibility of UBI, but also on the political transformations required to realise its full emancipatory potential. This includes confronting dominant property regimes, rethinking fiscal sovereignty and advancing collective capacities to shape the economy democratically. Without such a broader vision, UBI risks becoming a palliative gesture in a structurally unjust world. With it, UBI may serve as a cornerstone for a society grounded in freedom, equality and solidarity.