Influential 20th Century economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek both thought that some form of guaranteed income was the best way for governments to alleviate poverty. In his book Law, Legislation and Liberty, Hayek presented it as a way to give everyone economic freedom: “The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a necessary part of the Great Society in which the individual no longer has specific claims on the members of the particular small group into which he was born.”

With social welfare coming under increasing financial and political pressure, some see basic income as an obvious solution. Providing a basic income can actually be cheaper than existing welfare systems, mainly because a uniform payment provided to all is cheaper to implement and monitor.

Yet many have returned to the idea today because they see a basic income as a way to buffer people from a global economy in flux. The shockwaves of the 2008 financial crisis still linger. But there are also growing fears about the threats posed by automation, as robotics and artificial intelligence move into workplaces. A basic income could create the space for people to rethink their relationship to the changing world of work.