Amartya Sen, Karl Polanyi, and Universal Basic Income

ABSTRACTThis paper develops a Polanyian capabilitarian framework to understand and justify the universal basic income. I combine Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach with Karl Polanyi’s substantive view of economy to mount a normative case for basic income. Using this approach, I also ground the basic income debate in a relational ontology, the idea that the self and society are mutually constituted. By doing so, I problematise hegemonic assumptions underlying much of the basic income discourse and call for ontological and epistemic diversity. The paper both provides a critique of individualist ontology and offers an affirmative modification centred on relationality and interdependence.KEYWORDS: Universal basic incomeAmartya SenKarl Polanyicapabilities approachembeddednessrelational ontology AcknowledgementsThis is a revised version of the paper presented on the 30th of September 2022 at the German Historical institute workshop “Beyond Work for Pay? Basic-Income Concepts in Global Debates on Automation, Poverty, and Unemployment (1920–2020)” in Washington, DC. I thank the organisers and participants for their insightful comments and feedback. I also thank two anonymous reviewers for the generous comments that helped refine my argument.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The normative literature on UBI is vast, the taxonomies are many, and the history of arguments is rich. Widerquist et al. (Citation2013) map out usefully the right-libertarian, left-libertarian, social egalitarian, republican, Marxist, communitarian, feminist, and post-productivist approaches. A comprehensive overview is also given by Bidadanure (Citation2019), Gentilini et al. (Citation2020), and Henderson (Citation2017), among others.2 This resonates with Anderson’s (Citation2000) argument that we need to focus on concrete freedoms that allow people to avoid oppression; hence universal basic income must be part of larger justification, ethically, and part of welfare package, politically.3 Lain (Citation2018) insists that there are shared affinities between the republican tradition and Karl Polanyi’s political economy (see the following sections on Polanyi). However, while he argues that both traditions share epistemological and methodological assumptions, the intersubjective character of Polanyi’s ontology is glossed over. I thank Bru Lain for highlighting the links between republicanism and Polanyi’s work during our personal communication.4 On intersubjective ontology of Amartya Sen, see also Yamamori (Citation2018).5 This call has been also voiced by scholars of post-development (Escobar Citation1995; Ferguson Citation1990; Teo Citation2010) and coloniality critique (Escobar Citation2018; Quijano Citation2000; Spivak Citation1988). To simplify, the former camp highlights how mainstream development theory and practice overlook diverse ontologies of the “non-developed” world; objectify those who need development; and produce “epistemological violence” through unequal relations of power. The latter group interrogates the Western hegemonic rationalities embedded in prescriptions from the Global North, pointing to the diversity of worldviews and indigenous systems of knowledge.6 To be sure, political theorists have developed capabilitarian approaches to universal basic income as, for instance, in Widerquist (Citation2013). In contrast and by extension, I shall approach the basic income debate from a combined Polanyian capabilitarian perspective.7 As Charles Taylor reminds us: “Taking an ontological position does not amount to advocating something; but at the same time, the ontological does help to define the options which it is meaningful to support by advocacy” (Taylor Citation1989, 161).8 This overlaps with the Aristotelian tradition of “flourishing,” as highlighted by Sayer (Citation2011), for instance. For example, if someone lacks proper nourishment or shelter (capabilities), she is not able to achieve several functionings, such as a decent lifestyle or engagement with a community. Capability deprivation prevents human flourishing.9 I follow Andrew Milner in defining utilitarianism as “a view of the social world as consisting, ideally or factually, in a plurality of discrete, separate, rational individuals, each of whom is motivated, to all intents and purposes exclusively, by the pursuit of pleasure (or utility) and the avoidance of pain” (Milner Citation1994, 8). As a system of ethics underpinned by the principle of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people,” utilitarianism was developed in the mid-nineteenth century by the modern liberal philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism underlies many of the mainstream economics” assumptions and has been commonly linked to capitalism as its hegemonic culture.10 Political philosopher Martha Nussbaum developed a list of ten allegedly universal human capabilities (Nussbaum Citation2011), although Sen insisted that capabilities are necessarily context-specific. On Nussbaum’s account, the central capabilities for leading a decent life are: life quality; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation with others; living with other species; play; and control over one’s environment.11 In The Great Transformation, Polanyi notes that Aristotle “had taught that only gods or beasts could live outside society, and man was neither” (Polanyi, Citation2001, p. 119). On connections between Polanyi and Aristotle, see also Sayer (Citation2011) and, most recently, Gemici (Citation2023).12 Robeyns (Citation2017, 55–57) highlights two meanings of value pluralism: the “multidimensional nature of the capability approach” outlined above and “principle pluralism” that considers values beyond expansion of capabilities and functionings. See the following sections on the latter.13 See later on the distinction between ethical, or normative, and ontological individualism.14 This perspective dovetails with the human rights approach codified, most notably, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) – adopted four years after publication of The Great Transformation – and the subsequent International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). I thank an anonymous reviewer for highlighting this point. In human rights terms, the universal access to an adequate standard of living, a right to work and social protection, and freedom from want, for instance, resemble the language of capabilities and functionings. See Langford (Citation2005) for the distinction between commodity, public, community, and human rights approaches. For the discussion of the relationship between capabilities theories and human rights accounts, see Robeyns (Citation2017, 161–168).15 Amartya Sen clearly acknowledged that humans are socially embedded: “It is essentially a “people-centered” approach, which puts human agency (rather than organizations such as markets or governments) at the centre of the stage. The crucial role of social opportunities is to expand the realm of human agency and freedom, both as an end in itself and as a means of further expansion of freedom. The word “social” in the expression “social opportunity” […] is a useful reminder not to view individuals and their opportunities in isolated terms. The options that a person has depend greatly on relations with others and on what the state and other institutions do” (Drèze and Sen Citation2002, 6).16 On a related note, although development agencies like the World Bank use the capabilities approach in their justifications of basic income, they focus on individual capabilities only, circumscribing the relational foundations of the approach. In this way, they reproduce an individualist ontology underlying many of development interventions.17 According to Stout and Hartman’s (Citation2012) taxonomy, the three other ontological perspectives are differentiated individual, undifferentiated individual, and undifferentiated relational. These can be mapped onto the classical liberal, conservative, and radical political philosophical traditions, respectively.18 For example, Fred Block and Margaret Somers note “the inconsistencies in Polanyi’s concept of embeddedness” (Block and Somers Citation2014, 94), while Gareth Dale observes that Polanyi’s double movement thesis “is not free of difficulties and confusions” (Dale Citation2012, 8). Among other numerous debates, see, inter alia, the exchange between Lacher (Citation2019) and Somers and Block (Citation2021). On a general note, Jens Beckert highlights the differences between Polanyian institutional notion of embeddedness and a structural network one developed by Mark Granovetter and used by economic sociologists (Beckert Citation2009).19 Again, this reveals a tension: if economy is always embedded, as Polanyi (Citation1992) argued most notably in his essay “The Economy as Instituted Process”, how can it be re-embedded? See, inter alia, Roy, Dey, and Teasdale (Citation2021) on picking up this point.20 This is not to say that double-movement is always progressive, emancipatory, and inclusive, as recognized by Polanyi himself in The Great Transformation. Counter-movements can be reactionary, violent, and xenophobic, with people retreating into nationalism and culture as attested by the rise of authoritarian populism across the globe. See, for instance, Block and Somers (Citation2014, ch. 7) for a further discussion of this point.21 To clarify, the term “moral economics” as used in this paper does not refer exclusively to progressive views on economic justice. All major political economic traditions – classical liberal, radical, conservative, and modern liberal – have framed their arguments in the language of morality. Both redistributive justice and market justice deploy values. In a similar vein, Polanyi insists in The Great Transformation that political economy is always intertwined with morality and there can be no impartial economic science.22 I thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this objection to my attention.Additional informationNotes on contributorsOleksandr SvitychOleksandr Svitych is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University.