Guardian Columnist, Sonia Sodha, wrote a Guardian Op-Ed on the 18th of December attacking the basic income and its left-wing proponents.

Here’s my response:

Sonia Sodha sees mutual exclusivity where none needs exist. She argues that the left’s fight for a basic income is a dereliction of its responsibilities on such fronts as labour rights, tax evasion and wealth inequality. But the campaign for the basic income is part and parcel of these other campaigns, not their culmination. Surely, it is not difficult to conceive of the possibility that access to a basic level of subsistence, which a basic income would assure, could afford workers a relatively stronger bargaining position than they have today. They could have, for once, a meaningful option to say No to horrid working conditions. Ms. Sodha is right, past visions of a workless world were shortsighted. But surely it is not shortsighted to observe that, were it not for bold government policy (e.g. NHS post-WW2), even more of the profits from the advances those visions were predicated on could have accrued to few people at the top. Many have argued that the basic income is just such bold policy for these times. Finally, why would proponents of a basic income turn a blind-eye to tax evasion and avoidance, when they surely recognize that, absent those very contributions, funding a basic income would be next to impossible? It is no coincidence that the leading proponents of the basic income on the left (John McDonnell, Caroline Lucas, some of the Unions) have been among the fiercest stalwarts of the fights for worker’s rights, and against wealth inequality, for decades in this country.