När AI tar över allt fler arbetsuppgifter har idén om basinkomst väckts till liv. Det finns experiment som visar att en ovillkorad grundinkomst från staten får människor att må bättre – och jobba mer, skriver statsvetaren Simon Birnbaum.

Arguments based on free-market ideals have come to play an increasing role for energy politics and transitions in the Baltic Sea Region. In this chapter, we explore the values and notions of justice that these arguments appeal to. The chapter shows how free-market arguments were used to legitimise energy policy proposals in the context of the latest comprehensive energy policy framework that was made in Sweden, the 2016 bipartisan energy agreement. We compare how two stakeholder coalitions in Swedish energy governance both made use of market-oriented ideals to legitimise diametrically opposed policies: pro-nuclear advocates on the one hand and supporters of a renewable energy transition on the other. The main part of the chapter takes the form of a thematic, inductive analysis of how patterns of meaning unfolded in the market-related arguments advanced by key stakeholders. We also explore and problematise these arguments further by unpacking central assumptions and premises, spelling out how they relate to key rationales for market-based arrangements in contemporary theories of justice. In light of this, we identify key questions that tend to remain unanswered, thereby highlighting major limitations of market-based approaches for articulating and responding to the values at stake in the energy trilemma.

Welfare states differ greatly in the extent to which they provide social protection for various age-related social risks and set different priorities between needs associated with childhood, maturity, and old age. This chapter aims to explore and defend an ideal of age universalism in social insurance, according to which the degree of income replacement should be similar across age-related social risks. The argument suggests pragmatic advantages of age-balanced social insurance, showing that it tends to provide higher levels of income replacement for age-related risks throughout the life cycle and achieve more favourable social outcomes in all age groups, including poverty rates, trust, and subjective well-being.

Is religious faith necessarily a barrier to the achievement of a just society? In This Life, Martin Hägglund answers ‘yes’, defending a form of political atheism based on the claim that a wholehearted commitment to social justice presupposes the recognition of humans as altogether finite, mortal beings. Hägglund’s thorough contribution offers a useful entry point for exploring widely perceived—but seldom articulated—obstacles to more conciliatory approaches for seeking radical social change. In this article I unpack and reject what I call Hägglund’s incompatibility thesis on religious faith and social justice. I argue that it ultimately rests on false oppositions that present no insurmountable obstacles to firm coalitions for social activism across secular and religious worldviews. While Hägglund’s arguments raise relevant questions and challenges for some theological views, his global rejection of theistic faith from coalitions for social justice turns out to be (1) unnecessary, (2) illiberal, and (3) counterproductive. Considering the possibilities and hindrances for stable alliances for liberal equality across groups, I contend that political philosophy and social justice activism cannot afford to cut off or alienate theistic believers from egalitarian political struggles.

An increasingly influential claim is that exit-based empowerment through an unconditional basic income offers the cornerstone of an effective strategy for supporting precarious workers in contemporary labor markets. However, it is plausible to assume that supporting the ‘power to say no’—to avoid or leave unattractive jobs—will empower precarious workers only to the extent that it offers the basis of a credible exit threat. In this article, we argue that a basic income-induced exit strategy amounts to a hollow threat. In light of a realistic understanding of how labor markets operate and how the opportunities of disadvantaged workers are presently structured, we show that the basic income-centered exit option can easily become an exit trap rather than an empowered fallback position.

A central task in efforts to identify pathways to ecologically and socially sustainable economies is to reduce inequality and poverty while reducing material consumption, which has recently inspired future post-growth scenarios. We build a model to explore the potential of a universal basic income (UBI) to serve these objectives. Starting from the observation that post-growth trajectories can take very different forms we analyze UBI in two scenarios advanced in the literature. Comparing UBI in a "local self-sufficiency" economy to a UBI in an "automation" economy, we show that although both scenarios satisfy central sustainability criteria, the impact of a UBI would differ greatly between these contexts. Our analysis shows that a UBI is less compatible with a labor-intensive local self-sufficiency economy than a capital-intensive, high tech economy. We conclude that the feasibility and attractiveness of a UBI in a post-growth scenario depends greatly on the specific characteristics of the economy.

Tanken på en villkorslös grundersättning för samhällets alla medlemmar har diskuterats av och till sedan 1700-talet men under senare år har förslag om basinkomst fått en spridning som aldrig tidigare i historien. 2020 års pandemi och lamslagning av världsekonomin har dessutom gett basinkomst förnyad aktualitet. Ett viktigt inslag i denna nya våg av intresse är en rad experiment i olika delar av världen med sikte på att sprida ljus över några av de konfliktfyllda frågorna kring basinkomst. I den här rapporten analyserar ledande basinkomstforskare medborgarlönsexperiment i Finland och Nederländerna och undersöker vad dessa kan säga oss om vilka konsekvenser en basinkomst skulle få i avancerade välfärdsstater. Rapporten tecknar en bild av de politiska processer som ledde fram till experimenten och belyser i vilken mån dessa och liknande experiment kan klargöra hur en basinkomst skulle påverka samhället. Varför har dessa experiment genom-förts? Vilka vetenskapliga och politiska lärdomar finns att dra? Och vad – om något – kan de säga oss om basinkomstens önskvärdhet och genomförbarhet?