Unconditional Freedom

As the rich get richer, taking more of our income, our democratic freedoms are also in danger. The elite are gaining large profits without contributing to society, hollowing out our public services and preventing the vast majority of us from living our lives fully and developing productive and reproductive projects. In Unconditional Freedom, David Casassas argues that for us to live freely, we need Universal Basic Income. In a sharp and lucid analysis of the power of ‘pre-distributing’ income, he shows that UBI would not only liberate us from the nightmare of precarious employment but also increase our bargaining power as a class, opening doors to democratizing the workplace. While it would be naïve to say that UBI would end capitalist social relations, Casassas convincingly argues that it would help to nourish the long process of abolishing the working class.

Makes the radical case for a basic income

David Casassas is a lecturer in social and political theory, social movements, and economic sociology at the University of Barcelona. He was the Secretary of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and he is now a member of its International Advisory Board. He has widely published on republicanism, socialism and basic income and is the author of the highly praised Spanish book The City in Flames: The validity of Adam Smith’s commercial republicanism. || Julie Wark is a translator and human rights activist. She is correspondent for Europe for CounterPunch and author of The Human Rights Manifesto and Against Charity (with Daniel Raventós).

Acknowledgments Introduction: Cap and Life 1. Cartographies of social (dis)order: why do we need something like basic income? 2. Holding the gaze: republicanism and democracy 3. Flexible and multi-active lives: the dimensions of social power 4. The dream is over: post-neoliberalism Epilogue: unconditional freedom at the frontiers of capitalism References Index