Philosophy Compass articles on Basic Income Published

Philosophy Compass articles on Basic Income Published

by | Jun 3, 2026 | Events, News


New open access publications on basic income and sustainable welfare

Two new articles in Philosophy Compass examine the role of basic income (BI) in the green transformation of advanced welfare states:

“Basic Income—A Transformative Policy for Sustainable Welfare? Part 1: Four Arguments for Basic Income as an Eco-Social Tool”


“Basic Income—A Transformative Policy for Sustainable Welfare? Part 2: Four Paradoxes in the Eco-Social Case for Basic Income”

Authored by Simon Birnbaum (Professor of Political Science, Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden), the two-part contribution offers both a systematic reconstruction and a critical assessment of the eco-social case for basic income.

Part 1 clarifies and develops four distinct lines of argument—drawn from normative theory and policy discourse—suggesting that unconditional basic income may have unique advantages over conditional welfare schemes in promoting sustainable welfare outcomes.

Part 2 complements this by identifying four structural paradoxes that reveal deep tensions between the ecological and social objectives often associated with basic income. These tensions help explain why claims about BI as a transformative green policy may be overstated, while also pointing toward more nuanced and constructive ways of specifying its potential role.

Taken together, the articles provide an analytically rigorous contribution to ongoing debates at the intersection of political philosophy, welfare state research, and environmental politics.

Basic Income for the Arts in Ireland – From Pilot to Permanent

Basic Income for the Arts in Ireland – From Pilot to Permanent

by | May 27, 2026 | News

Please join us for the eighth and final event in our special series of discussions dedicated to reflecting on what we can learn from the Irish Basic Income for the Arts Pilot and its change to Permanent.

The Government of Ireland ran a Basic Income pilot that began in September 2022 and ended in February 2026.  2000 artists and cultural workers received an unconditional income of €325 weekly for a period of three and half years. This eighth and final session will be an opportunity to check-in with some of the artists involved in the pilot scheme and learn from them about how the pilot affected them and their creative communities. What was the impact of the end of payments in February 2026? What do they think about the new permanent scheme for 2000 artists which will start in September 2026 and the conditions and criteria of application?

To read the full article, click here

AI leaders see mass job loss coming. They want government’s help solving it.

AI leaders see mass job loss coming. They want government’s help solving it.

by | May 24, 2026 | News

Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash

Elon Musk has a plan for a future where jobs are wiped out by artificial intelligence: a benevolent government will provide.

“Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI,” Musk said in an X post.

Musk has pushed government-issued checks not as a temporary stopgap, but a long-term plan for a world of “amazing abundance” he expects AI to create.“AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money supply,” he added, “so there will not be inflation.”

To red the full article, click here.

The Universality Argument for Basic Income

The Universality Argument for Basic Income

by | May 17, 2026 | News, Opinion

Imagine a room with a thousand people. You know that 999 of them need something to survive, and one of them doesn’t. You have two options. Option one: give the same thing to all 1,000 people, and when they leave through a door where everyone’s income is already being checked, take a bit more from the one person who didn’t need it. Option two: before giving anything to anyone, set up an additional checkpoint inside the room, hire people to run it, create paperwork, establish eligibility rules, and test all 1,000 people — knowing that the test will incorrectly fail dozens if not hundreds of people who actually need help — all to avoid giving something to one person for whom the amount is a rounding error.

That is the choice between universal basic income and means-tested anything. When you frame it honestly, the answer is obvious. But we don’t frame it honestly. We frame it as responsible budgeting versus reckless spending. We frame it as helping the deserving versus subsidizing the rich. We frame it in ways that serve the interests of the people who benefit most from the means-tested version. And those people, as I’ll explain, are not the poor.

To read the full article, click here.

AI, UBI, and the Threat of Extinction

AI, UBI, and the Threat of Extinction

by | May 16, 2026 | Featured, News

Photo by Steve A Johnson on Unsplash

Steven Bartlett has interviewed separately three leading experts on artificial intelligence (AI) and a business strategist as part of his podcast series, The Diary of a CEO. These fascinating in-de[th interviews all discuss UBI as a policy for mitigating the social impact of expected massive unemployment accompanying the achievement of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI — a hypothetical type of AI that can match or surpass human cognitive abilities across virtually any intellectual task) through an exponential process known as recursive self-improvement. AGI poses an existential threat to humanity if it proves impossible to solve the “alignment problem” — the challenge of ensuring that AI systems act in accordance with human goals, ethical values, and intentions.

To view the interview of Geoffrey Hinton, click here.

To view the interview of Stuart Russell, click here.

To view the interview of Tristan Harris, click here.

To view the interview of Daniel Priestly click here.

Wages, Work, and Universal Basic Income: Two conceptual articles by Jorg Drescher

Wages, Work, and Universal Basic Income: Two conceptual articles by Jorg Drescher

by | May 13, 2026 | Featured, News

Jorge Drescher of Kyiv, Ukraine has written two thought-provoking articles posing conceptual issues related to wages, work, and basic income.

The first article “Wage Negotiation — Observed by a Third Party”, raises a number of doubts concerning the process by which wages are set. “Consent is present. But is freedom?” Is it just? How would the wage negotiation have proceeded if the employee had a Universal Basic Income? Drescher sugests “Perhaps we need to rethink negotiations altogether: not as a game of asymmetric information, but as an encounter on equal footing. As a dialogue that doesn’t just ask, What are you worth? but: What do you need to be free?“

In the second article, “When Income from Work Becomes a Structural Problem”, Drescher argues that the “primary” form of work is undertaken to satisfy basic needs of existence. But when basic needs are satisfied, people undertake more meaningful activity: “cultural, symbolic, identity-forming.” Income, like work, is a socially constructed phenomenon. “Therefore, the social question is not: How do we enable someone without income to earn money through work? But rather: How do we ensure that all people can live in dignity and security, regardless of their economic utility?” The first step toward answering this question is establishing a UBI, a social dividend that enables freedom.

To read”Wage Negotiation — Observed by a Third Party” click here.

To read “When Income from Work Becomes a Structural Problem” click here.