Unconditional Freedom

David Casassas is Associate Professor at the University of Barcelona, where he teaches social and political theory. 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).

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Cap and LifePart One: Cartographies Of Social (Dis)Order: Why Something Like a Basic Income?1. Psychosociology and Politics of Elitist Verticalism2. The Fallacy of Autogenous Social Orders3. The Liberal-Organicist Synthesis4. Resisting Tutelage: Fraternity for the Civilising of a Conflictive WorldPart Two: Holding the Gaze: Republicanism and Democracy5. Socioeconomic Independence and Worlds in Common6. Bargaining Power: Exit Options for Entry Doors and the Emancipatory Potential of Basic Income7. Universalisation of Citizenship and Universalisation of Property8. Unconditional Freedom: Basic Income as PredistributionPart Three: Flexible, Multi-Active Lives: The Dimensions of Social Power9. Basic Income and Democratisation of Work10. Why Do We Want Bargaining Power?11. Our Flexibility Is Our FreedomPart Four: The Dream Is Over: Post-Neoliberalism (or Why a Basic Income Now And How)12. “Wanting Everything Back”: Basic Income in Contemporary Social Movements13. Societies of the Market or Societies with Markets?14. Grappling with Customs in Common: A People’s Political Economy?15. Leaving the Proletariat and Becoming Free WorkersEpilogue: Unconditional Freedom at the Frontiers of CapitalismBibliographyIndex

'A carefully argued case for basic income as central to a democratic transformation of society. Basic income must be seen not just as an anti-poverty policy but as a means for achieving both individual socio-economic independence and collective self-government. It can become the fulcrum around which lack of freedom within employment, domestic life and throughout social life more generally can be confronted. [It] can thus be seen as vital for solving a political problem, which also demands the appropriate universalist policies and structure of rights to uphold unconditional freedom for everyone.'