Basic Income as Ideology from Below

Abstract

Most Left critiques of basic income assume a model of “false consciousness” on the part of basic income advocates. These critiques do not account for how desires for a basic income may also come from the material inversion of social relations that occurs under capitalism. Considered from the vantage point of fetishism and common sense, basic income demands appear rational rather than the product of false consciousness, which in turn informs how the left should organize “good sense” to build a hegemonic bloc.

Keywords

• common sense
• fetishism
• ideology
• surplus
• universal basic income