Welfare for Markets - A Global History of Basic Income

A sweeping intellectual history of the welfare state's policy-in-waiting.

The idea of a government paying its citizens to keep them out of poverty-now known as basic income-is hardly new. Often dated as far back as ancient Rome, basic income's modern conception truly emerged in the late nineteenth century. Yet as one of today's most controversial proposals, it draws supporters from across the political spectrum.
In this eye-opening work, Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas trace basic income from its rise in American and British policy debates following periods of economic tumult to its modern relationship with technopopulist figures in Silicon Valley. They chronicle how the idea first arose in the United States and Europe as a market-friendly alternative to the postwar welfare state and how interest in the policy has grown in the wake of the 2008 credit crisis and COVID-19 crash.
An incisive, comprehensive history, Welfare for Markets tells the story of how a fringe idea conceived in economics seminars went global, revealing the most significant shift in political culture since the end of the Cold War.

About the author

Anton Jäger is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Catholic University of Leuven. He has published widely on populism, basic income, and the contemporary crisis of democracy.

Product details

• Authors: Anton Jager, Anton Zamora Vargas Jager, Anton Jäger, Daniel Zamora Vargas
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.11.2024
• EAN: 9780226836720
• ISBN: 978-0-226-83672-0
• No. of pages: 264
• Series: The Life of Ideas
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Education > Social education, social work; USA, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Economic Policy, Poverty & unemployment, Economic history, Political science & theory, United Kingdom, Great Britain, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Social Classes & Economic Disparity, Political science and theory, North America (USA and Canada), Poverty and precarity, welfare;economics;global history