Abstract
This article argues that demands and movements for universal basic income (UBI) are important components of a “transitional program,” comprised of transitional demands, suitable for the twenty-first century. Transitional demands do two things: (1) they genuinely improve the lives of working people (and of the poor and otherwise oppressed peoples) in the short-term; and (2) they operate rhetorically and ideologically to convince people that the movements that achieve such a transitional demand can actually accomplish what they set out to do, thus hastening the development of a more comprehensive societal metamorphosis. Furthermore, this article focuses on the relationship between material progress and ideological rupture central to the radical theoretical justification for transitional demands and the transitional program, in the process of exploring the limitations of various contemporary (primarily left) criticisms of UBI.”
