A merely national ‘universal’ basic income and global justice

In this article, I raise a justice problem for a universal basic income (UBI) if implemented in one or a few nations, but not globally. I raise this objection from the perspective of someone who is ultimately sympathetic to a UBI, even a merely national one. My argument specifically problematizes the unconditionality of a UBI and the unprecedented benefits for those who receive it. UBI advocates themselves often draw attention to this unconditionality in order to justify the greater moral appeal of a UBI over other schemes. Thus, my argument has particular relevance for those sympathetic to a UBI. I argue that, in response to the justice problem I raise, a merely national UBI should be accompanied by compensation for non-UBI-recipients who contribute to what I will call the UBI's ‘effectiveness’.

In Section I, I explain what I mean by a merely national UBI, and in Section II, I develop a justice or exploitation problem that a merely national UBI faces. In Section III, I argue for a compensation scheme for non-recipient contributors. In Section IV, I clarify the scope of my argument, and in Section V, I discuss how my argument relates to a potential global UBI.

A UBI is income paid irrespective of willingness to work, of wealth, of other sources of income, and of personal circumstances. If a UBI is pitched at a sufficiently high level, it realizes a number of goods for its recipients: it frees them from the most basic forms of economic insecurity without conditions such as a work requirement,1 affords so-called ‘real freedom’, the freedom to choose the way recipients want to live,2 and allows recipients to exit unattractive jobs and even the job market altogether.3 If a UBI realizes these goods for a recipient, I will say that the UBI is effective. In the next section, I will argue that it is unjust if a merely national UBI is made more effective by the exploitative labour of those who do not receive a UBI and thus cannot opt out of their unattractive jobs, lack the freedom to live as they want, and are subject to basic economic insecurity.

A UBI is currently often presented as a radical yet feasible solution to pressing political and social problems, such as poverty,4 the demeaning nature of conditional welfare schemes,5 costly and overly bureaucratic welfare-state regulations,6 the drive for ever more growth and the resulting environmental destruction,7 the fact that much necessary care work is currently not financially rewarded,8 and that workers are increasingly being replaced by robots and computers.9

For my purpose, two things are especially significant. Firstly, a UBI is frequently presented as a non-utopian proposal that, from an economic perspective, could be implemented in some countries now or in the near future.10 Secondly, a global UBI, by contrast, would require major political, economic, and social changes worldwide. This is currently rather utopian, though perhaps ‘no longer a mere pipe dream’.11 A UBI, insofar as it is intended as a solution to some of the most pressing issues of our time and one that is financially and politically feasible now or in the near future, will be one implemented in only a few and, most likely, relatively wealthy countries.12 This raises the question of how a merely national UBI would be impacted by and, in turn, affect the current unequal und unjust global order.

The problem I raise in this section is a more pressing version of the already well-known exploitation or free-rider objection to UBI. My problem is concerned with the exploitation specifically of non-nationals or non-residents, who contribute to but do not benefit from a merely national UBI. The literature pays surprisingly little attention to injustices between different nations that a merely national UBI might amplify. In fact, discussions of exploitation and unfairness within the UBI literature take place almost exclusively on an intra-national level.13

The original exploitation objection is inspired by Rawls's claim that Malibu surfers are not entitled to public funds.14 The (in)famous surfer is someone who could contribute to society either via paid work or in other socially beneficial ways, but, instead, spends all his time surfing. While the surfer potentially poses a problem for all government schemes founded on cooperation between citizens, the objection is particularly pressing for a UBI, as here benefits are explicitly not conditional upon willingness to cooperate, for example by seeking paid employment. UBI advocates see this unconditionality as a feature, not a bug.15 Nonetheless, in the case of the surfer, a UBI seems to clash with ‘a widely accepted notion of justice: it is unfair for able bodied people to live off the labour of others’.16 This objection is sometimes phrased in terms of unfairness, sometimes in terms of exploitation or parasitism, since the surfer lives off the labour of others who (supposedly) do not receive adequate compensation for the services they perform. I take it that the underlying intuition is that it is unjust if one person's lifestyle is subsidized by the labour of other persons and there is no reciprocity in this subsidy, even though the first person could reciprocate.

There is a straightforward response to the surfer problem. Take Lazy (the surfer) and Crazy, who works hard and whose income and other taxes help fund a UBI that allows Lazy to spend all of his time surfing. Crazy cannot reasonably complain about this, since, if he finds the lifestyle of Lazy more appealing than his own, he could give up his job and become a surfer himself. After all, an effective UBI affords him the real freedom to live this way. If Crazy does not give up his job, then this is because he chooses the life of work and higher income—in which case both Lazy and Crazy live the life they chose, and the UBI is working out well for both. Thus, Lazy is not exploiting Crazy, since Crazy can withdraw his labour and is afforded the same economic security and freedom to live the life of his choosing as Lazy.

I find this response to the original surfer problem persuasive.17 Things would be different, however, if someone in Crazy's position could not choose to give up their job and become a (financially adequately supported) surfer, because they (I'll call them ‘Exploited’) are neither citizen nor resident18 of a country that pays a UBI. Given the globalized world that we live in, Exploited might well perform work that benefits Lazy as well as Crazy. Such work can be a subsidy of their lifestyles if Exploited's labour is cheaper than the labour of those in the same strong bargaining position as Lazy and Crazy to demand higher pay or better working conditions. After all, Lazy and Crazy have the freedom and security to opt out of work altogether. If it is unjust that someone's lifestyle is subsidized by the labour of another person and there is no adequate reciprocity in this subsidy, then a merely national UBI suffers from a justice problem with regard to the subsidies Lazy and Crazy receive from Exploited and the lack of reciprocity.

In the debate about the fairness of a UBI there is much concern about non-contributors, such as the Malibu surfer, receiving benefits. There is much less concern about people who do contribute, but do not receive benefits because they are of a different nationality or live in a different country.19 The latter, it seems to me, constitutes the most pressing justice problem.

Let me spell this out in more detail. A merely national UBI excludes certain people as recipients, even if they contribute to the effectiveness of the UBI in that country. They can make such a contribution by subsidizing UBI recipients with their cheap labour, which increases the relative value of the UBI for recipients, as it makes products and services more affordable than they would be if everyone received a UBI. This impacts what and how much those living off a UBI can afford, the opportunities open to them, and how attractive it is for them to exit jobs (or to reduce hours), and thus whether the UBI realizes the goods that it promises, and to what extent it does so.

These subsidies for UBI recipients would be, in one sense, not dissimilar from currently existing conditions. After all, the citizens of developed countries already benefit from global inequalities, poor working conditions, and low pay in developing countries where people are forced to work to meet their basic needs. However, there currently exists a work requirement even in wealthy countries, whereas there would be no such requirement for those enjoying an effective UBI. It is reasonable to assume that if non-recipient contributors were not forced to work for their subsistence, because they also enjoyed a UBI that frees them of the need to work for their subsistence, then some services and goods that are currently offered or produced cheaply would become more expensive. The subsidies would likely (at least in part) disappear, and the UBI thus become less effective for recipients.

A prime example for exploitation, that subsidizes the citizens of wealthy countries and that many individuals in developing countries would be unlikely to put up with if they were in a position to opt out, is so-called sweatshop labour.20 I take it that sweatshop labour is a relatively uncontroversial example of exploitation.21 The low pay and bad conditions in sweatshops are (part of) the reason why this work is profitable for their owners and why this mode of production can benefit end-consumers. Even after the introduction of a global UBI (or a merely national UBI in countries with sweatshops), there may be people willing to manufacture the type of products formerly produced in sweatshops, but they would presumably need stronger financial incentives and would be able to demand better working conditions that would make these products more expensive.

Now, imagine that Exploited works in a factory that builds surf equipment and, due to poor working conditions and low pay for her and her colleagues, this equipment is significantly cheaper than equipment produced by Lazy's fellow citizens who enjoy a UBI and lack strong financial incentives to work in a surfboard factory for low pay. In an extreme case, the only surf equipment Lazy can afford from his UBI is equipment produced by Exploited. Without this cheap supply of equipment, it would not be possible for Lazy to live the pure lifestyle of a surfer and he would have to take up (part-time) employment to afford his equipment. A UBI then allows Lazy to live the way he wants only because of the labour of Exploited, who, unlike Crazy, does not have the option to withdraw her labour and live off a UBI.

Even if Exploited does not manufacture the specific products that Lazy needs to live the pure lifestyle of a surfer, as long as she does manufacture products or render services that Lazy or Crazy want or need, and does so more cheaply than if she were able to opt out of work, the UBI that Lazy and Crazy enjoy goes further in terms of purchasing power than it otherwise would. Part of the value of a merely national UBI for recipients thus stems from the fact that this UBI is merely national and that it still leaves in place sources of cheap labour elsewhere.

One might respond that my empirical assumption that a global UBI would dry up sources of cheap labour and drive up prices is questionable. After all, one of the potential advantages of a UBI is that it removes financial disincentives to take up low-paid or precarious work; disincentives put in place by misjudged tax and welfare systems that leave people financially better off on welfare than in work or that effectively impose high taxes on low incomes. People might still want to work to top up their UBI and they would not need a subsistence wage in return. Thus, a UBI might even make certain products and services cheaper.

I think that intrinsically rewarding or meaningful work might become cheaper, if people enjoyed a UBI and could choose their occupations without having to earn a living. However, it is also plausible to assume that recipients of a subsistence-level UBI would be unlikely to take up a substantial amount of sweatshop-type labour, unless these jobs were paid significantly better and/or working conditions much improved (and would thus no longer qualify as sweatshop labour). After all, one of the main benefits of a UBI is that it grants recipients the freedom to decline or exit unattractive jobs and even escape ‘forced labor market participation’ altogether.22 What, if any, jobs would UBI recipients want to decline if not poorly paid, dangerous jobs, involving repetitive labour, coercion, and health risks? Thus, it is plausible to assume that many currently cheap products would become more expensive if, globally, everyone enjoyed a UBI.23 This would reduce the living standards of people in high-income countries subsisting on a fixed income in the form of a UBI, and might even reintroduce the necessity to work. The effectiveness of a UBI in providing basic financial security and allowing recipients to live as they wish depends in some measure on cheap (and exploitative) labour by those not enjoying a UBI.

My argument above notwithstanding, a merely national UBI would be an effective tool to combat many forms of injustice within that nation. After all, even in wealthy nations many citizens are in precarious and vulnerable financial positions that employers, corporations, loan sharks, and the government can exploit. A merely national UBI, if pitched at the right level and financed in the right way, would serve justice within that society, and it would therefore be premature to dismiss it.

There is a parallel case that demonstrates how defenders of a UBI can respond to the justice problem raised in the previous section: namely, the ethical debate about the harmful climate impact of Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD). Since 1982 the US state of Alaska pays an annual dividend—$1,114 in 2021—to all its residents. The PFD represents the largest example of a UBI paid over a prolonged period (albeit not at subsistence level). Moreover, the Alaska financing model, taxing natural resource appropriation, is attractive to UBI advocates, since many other financing models, such as income tax or VAT, disproportionately affect working people and/or people on low incomes.24 Steve Winter, however, argues that the ‘PFD makes participating recipients complicit with grave wrongdoing because of its connection to the oil industry, a practice responsible for 150,000 deaths per annum’.25 Winter's argument is, in short, that the oil industry involves intrinsic wrongs, and that the Alaskan PFD makes recipients complicit in intrinsic wrongs. This complicity is itself wrongful.

Winter does not think that his objection is ‘devastating’ for the Alaska model.26 He proposes ‘to combine basic income payments with sufficient funding to stop the killings’.27 Since the oil industry28 does not kill anyone directly, but rather costs lives due to indirect effects such as disease, extreme weather events, and other foreseeable effects of global warming, adequate preventive and remedial measures could be taken to remove the reason to object to the Alaska model. The Alaska model would then have two components: ‘Funding derived from natural resource appropriation would provide monies for a basic income and to prevent the deaths that would otherwise occur due to climate change’.29 This latter scheme would not have to prevent all deaths that occur from climate change, as Alaska is globally only a relatively minor source of oil. It would merely have to mitigate ‘those negative effects (we are focusing on unjustifiable deaths) that could be attributed to the industry in question’30—meaning, specifically the Alaskan oil industry. Winter calculates that averting 405 killings per year would be sufficient to ‘discharge Alaskans’ “fair share” of responsibility’ for the wrongful killings.31 He also emphasizes that this move is applicable to all models of financing a UBI based on harmful resource extraction.32 He does not, however, generalize his argument to other ethical challenges for a UBI.

The general intuition behind Winter's idea is that those who benefit from unjust arrangements have stringent obligations to compensate victims. This principle is not limited to a merely national UBI made (more) effective by exploitation. In the next section, I will discuss whether it makes a moral difference if exploitation specifically props up a merely national UBI. For now, I will show that a plausible reply to the problem I discussed in the previous section is to take up a modified version of Winter's suggestion of providing what he calls ‘avert-funding’. I will phrase my own proposal in terms of compensation, specifically for those who contribute to a merely national UBI but do not receive a UBI. To better understand this proposal, let us look at four salient points of comparison between the problems of the Alaska model and the global justice problem from the previous section.

Firstly, Winter stresses that ‘Alaskans are not guilty of’ the deaths resulting from the oil industry.33 Mere complicity in a wrong is less severe than committing the wrong itself. This point is important, since avert-funding or compensation usually would not be an adequate response to wrongs that an agent herself commits. If I murder you, I cannot plausibly compensate for this by donating money to buy medicine that saves someone else's life. Compensation schemes are appropriate for wrongs which I am complicit in or benefit from, but of which I am not the perpetrator. The perpetrator's primary duty is to refrain from wrongdoing, not to offset the negative effects or avert harm elsewhere.

Winter suggests that complicity in the Alaska PFD is ‘equivalent in veniality with wearing sweatshop clothing’.34 This is quite a contentious claim, since being complicit in killing is commonly considered much worse than complicity in various forms of exploitation. Presumably, Winter's point is here not about the impact of killing and exploitation on victims, but about illustrating the structure of moral responsibility. The idea is that agents are not actively harming anyone themselves, but they are complicit. Importantly, this is already the case for the globally affluent who do not receive a UBI, but who are buying sweatshop products, making them complicit in exploitation. There would, however, be an important sense in which merely national UBI recipients’ complicity had an additional dimension. As I suggested in the previous section, if it were not for cheap foreign labour that benefits the citizens of wealthy nations, a merely national UBI might not be sufficient to cover the basic needs of recipients, and thus to perform some of its most beneficial functions. Moreover, even if a merely national UBI covered basic needs without cheap labour from abroad, its relative value increases due to this cheap labour. UBI recipients’ real freedom is subsidized by the labour of those forced to work for their subsistence.

Secondly, Winter thinks that mere benefiting from wrongful actions is not sufficient for complicity in an ethically relevant sense. He stresses that ‘[t]he wrongfulness exposed by the complicity argument does not depend on benefits but rather upon wrongful agency’.35 By contrast, the problem I bring up draws on both wrongful agency and benefiting. Wrongful agency, for instance, obtains in consumer choices when we knowingly buy products produced under exploitative conditions. Moreover, we benefit from wrongful structures, if we receive a UBI the effectiveness of which is enhanced by exploitation. Wrongful agency and benefiting raise several complicated issues concerning voluntariness. After all, one might argue that you are not morally responsible for benefiting from something that you have no say in—for instance, because your government transfers money to your bank account every month whether you want it or not.36

One way to address the global justice problem I brought up in the previous section would be to give potential recipients the opportunity to opt out of the UBI, an opportunity that exists for the Alaska PFD.37 However, unlike a compensation scheme, opting out of the UBI would not leave non-recipient contributors materially any better off. Moreover, it might still be a problem if certain (already privileged) people can opt in or out, an opportunity denied to non-recipient contributors. Finally, if people opted out of the UBI, then this might necessitate the reintroduction of welfare schemes that secure their subsistence if they become indigent. This would presumably leave unsatisfied those UBI advocates who emphasize the benefits of the universal coverage of a UBI.38

Thirdly, Winter maintains that ‘Oil exploitation is not wrongful in itself’, but that the production of greenhouse gas, which causes additional deaths, ‘is a normal component of the industry’.39 In the case of exploitation of people, as in sweatshop labour, early deaths, due to workplace accidents, are fairly abnormal, but other impacts, such as negative long-term health consequences for workers, lost time with family and friends due to long shifts, lost opportunities, and so on, are inextricable features of the industry. The exploitation I am concerned with is not an unintended by-product, but essential to the high profit margins of sweatshop labour. Thus, the problem I raised is, in one sense, more worrying than the rather indirect effects of the oil industry. It is, I take it, plausible that someone who benefits from exploiting people has a more stringent duty to compensate victims than someone who benefits from resource extraction that, as a normal or even necessary side-effect, is also harmful to some people. However, my proposal does not hinge on this specific intuition.

Fourthly, there is an important sense in which a merely national UBI, as well as the Alaska PFD, are both innocuous. In both cases the victims (of climate change or exploitation) are not made worse off by the redistribution of revenues in the form of a merely national UBI. The victims of climate change would die even if a private corporation pocketed Alaska's oil revenue. Analogously, whether consumers do or do not receive a UBI leaves sweatshop workers’ working conditions and pay untouched, or at least there is no immediate connection here. This might well impact the stringency of duties of compensation that those benefiting from their labour have. In fact, I think that, since a merely national UBI does not make victims of exploitation worse off, a compensation scheme is the right middle ground between, on the one hand, opposing a merely national UBI on ethical grounds and, on the other hand, leaving the exploitation problem of a merely national UBI unaddressed.

Winter proposes avert-funding that would save as many lives from the effects of climate change as the Alaska oil industry is responsible for taking, and he presents a clear number for this: namely, 405 lives. By contrast, it is very difficult to quantify how many people would have to be exploited for a merely national UBI to be effective, and this would greatly depend on the circumstances of the recipients as well as the contributors, and on overall political and economic conditions. It is therefore impossible to determine a concrete number of people that an avert mechanism must protect from exploitation. Furthermore, unlike those killed by climate change, the current victims of exploitation are still alive.40 In addition, whereas the effects of climate change are random, in the sense that we do not know which specific individuals will die or otherwise suffer from it (though we do know that some groups and regions are much more likely to be affected than others), there are concrete individuals whose work would benefit the recipients of a merely national UBI. These non-recipient contributors are owed something, and it would not be adequate to merely combat or avert exploitation somewhere, if we can at least approximately identify these contributors.

My proposed compensation scheme, therefore, is not a form of avert-funding, but rather funding that aims to benefit specifically non-recipient contributors to a merely national UBI. This can take the relatively general form of benefiting anyone from whose exploitation recipients of a UBI benefit. For instance, fair-trade practices or even higher standards could be made legally mandatory and appropriate resources could be allocated to enforce these standards.41 We can also imagine more targeted measures that specifically benefit workers in developing countries manufacturing products and providing services crucial to the citizens of the country that introduced a merely national UBI, insofar as it is possible to single out specific factories or regions where this labour is performed. One such targeted measure could be direct money transfers to workers who have worked a set number of years or who have become unable to work. Another could be to relax immigration restrictions for non-recipient contributors, so that it becomes easier for them to become residents or citizens of the country that implemented the merely national UBI, and to set up funds to help them make the journey and settle in. This, of course, should not happen only once, but for each successive generation of non-recipient contributors replacing those who have retired or migrated.

There are, admittedly, major problems of application here, since global supply and production chains are complex and often cross more than one border. Moreover, one might wonder whether our conception of who contributes to the effectiveness of a merely national UBI should include not only workers who manufacture cheap products, but also people who produce food and other necessary goods and services for these workers, or who perform unpaid reproductive labour that allows workers to produce goods and services as cheaply as they do. I cannot address these problems here. Maybe the best we could do would be to start with a few cases of exploitative labour that clearly benefit many UBI recipients and then extend the compensation scheme gradually, according to our best understanding of global supply chains.42

To clarify the scope of my scheme, I should note that my concern is not poverty and inequality—as is, for instance the focus of Thomas Pogge's Global Resource Dividend43—but exploitation that contributes to the effectiveness of a merely national UBI. Not all of the globally poor would contribute to a merely national UBI, and not all non-recipient contributors are among the world's poorest. My proposal leaves open the prospect that there are additional duties to compensate, because global poverty is due to structures put in place by the globally affluent and from which the affluent benefit regardless of whether they enjoy a UBI. In fact, I believe that my argument does not reveal an entirely new duty to compensate, but rather that it amplifies pre-existing duties to compensate for global injustices.

It seems relatively uncontroversial that there are duties to compensate for exploitation or to try to reset (international) relationships so that they become non-exploitative. This is so regardless of whether nations have implemented a merely national UBI. This raises the question of what exactly is the role of a merely national UBI for my argument.44

At the very least, my argument functions as a prod to make global justice issues more central to the debate about the prospects and drawbacks of a merely national UBI. This is potentially already quite powerful, since some of the most persuasive arguments for a UBI are explicitly moral ones. A UBI is presented as something that individuals are owed as a matter of justice qua entitlement to the commons,45 or as a matter of social and economic justice.46 If there are significant moral reasons for adopting a UBI, then any discussion of the moral advantages of a UBI should consider how it might impact and interact with unjust global structures.

My argument also provides additional reasons for compensating exploited workers. It thus amplifies the duty that privileged Westerners already have to compensate those from whose exploitation they benefit. How strong these additional reasons are, and to what extent a pre-existing duty is intensified, depend on why one thinks that a UBI is better than other ways of distributing resources (some of which were obtained unfairly). Those who advocate for a UBI assume that it offers concomitant goods or benefits that other schemes, such as conditional welfare provision, participation income, and so on, do not provide, though a UBI may not be the only scheme that provides some of those special goods.

As I pointed out at the beginning of this article, various UBI advocates emphasize different, albeit often in practice overlapping, goods. An effective UBI frees recipients from the most basic forms of economic insecurity and does so without a work requirement, affords real freedom, and allows recipients to say no to employment. If one thinks that a UBI is to be preferred over (many or all) other schemes because it can realize special goods, then, I take it, one should be very concerned if these special goods are not available to some people who contribute to the effectiveness of the UBI. These additional goods that some enjoy at the expense of others exacerbate existing exploitation problems, since the privileged here do not merely obtain more of the same—for example, more purchasing power due to the labour of workers with already lower purchasing power. Rather, goods, exceeding what is currently provided by existing schemes, are now enjoyed by some, in part due to the work of others who lack these goods entirely.

If a wealthy nation distributes (partly) ill-gotten gains in some other way than through a merely national UBI—for example, as a work-tested minimum-income guarantee—then we could not level the specific criticism I propose, because, in this case, workers in the wealthy nation would (also) lack basic economic security no matter what, lack the freedom to opt out of paid employment, and would have less real freedom than a UBI would provide. However, in this case, the wealthy nation would still benefit to the same extent, in aggregate market-value terms, from the exploitation as in the UBI case and the workers in the poorer nation would be rendered as badly off by this exploitation as in the UBI case.

In fact, many other policies might be subject to kinds of objections structurally similar to a UBI-specific one. For example, living-wage demands in rich nations are necessarily tied to some measure of subsistence and therefore also implicated in the exploitation of workers in poorer countries, insofar as this exploitation lowers real prices in the rich nation and thereby makes the demand for a living wage easier to meet. Moreover, national welfare-state provisions that benefit the citizens of one country, such as a national health care system, frequently benefit from contributions from those who are not covered under these structures. For instance, medical equipment for the UK's NHS might be produced cheaply abroad by workers who are not covered under the NHS or any government-provided health-care system, and part of the reason why the equipment is cheap is lack of health-care provisions for workers. The justice issues I raise, it seems, would apply not only to a merely national UBI, but also to many welfare-state provisions, if their quality or viability is predicated on exploitation elsewhere.47

I am in principle open to these implications. Whether and in what sense my argument extends to policies and provisions other than a merely national UBI is beyond the scope of this article. However, let me make two remarks that will, I hope, illustrate why international exploitation raises especial problems for a merely national UBI.

Firstly, there might in fact be an important difference between the function of welfare-state provisions and a UBI. UBI advocates emphasize that the currently existing welfare state is an ‘ultimate safety net for people in need: it involves a means test, requires willingness to work’.48 Welfare-state provisions aim to distribute across society the (financial and other) burdens imposed by foreseeable and unforeseeable contingencies of life, such as unemployment, illness, disability, and old age. They are not intended to provide the freedom to live as one wants or economic security without conditions. Distributing the burdens of life is hardly unprecedented. Every society (not merely wealthy Western ones) has norms and provisions pertaining to solidarity with others (family members, colleagues, fellow citizens), helping the needy, taking care of the elderly and the sick. These provisions are often informal and considered the responsibility of the family, local community, or religious or charitable institutions, rather than the state. They afford a level of security that even most people not living under a relatively well-functioning welfare state enjoy.49

A UBI protects individuals against the contingencies of life, but it also detaches the ability to meet basic needs from any necessity to work and to endure others’ (employers’ or the state's) control. It thus creates a level of security and freedom that is, on a societal level, unparalleled.50 A UBI is intended to enable its recipients to live a self-determined life in a way that a welfare state is not.51 While many existing schemes ‘can already be called “unconditional” in a number of weaker senses’,52 a UBI is unconditional in a stronger sense: it is neither income- nor means-tested and imposes no obligation to work or seek work. This strong unconditionality has the potential ‘not just to soothe misery but to liberate us all’.53 There is thus an important difference in what a UBI is supposed to achieve versus the more moderate goals of welfare-state provisions. This, I believe, makes a difference to the compensation that non-recipient contributors are due. After all, these contributors likely benefit from certain (informal) provisions that soothe their misery (if contingency or old age strikes), but they entirely lack the additional liberation that a UBI affords. This makes a merely national UBI harder to justify than welfare-state provisions to those forced to work because they lack anything even close to a UBI.

Ultimately, the question here is whether UBI should be seen as an extension of or a departure from already existing welfare-state provisions. In the latter case, there might be a principled difference between a merely national UBI and welfare-state provisions. One of the striking features of the current philosophical debate on the merits of UBI is, I think, an ambivalent stance towards the welfare state, reflected in the rhetoric of many UBI advocates. Depending on which types of challenges for a UBI they are addressing, they tend to stress either how ‘radically distinct’ their proposal is from public assistance and social insurance models,54 or how it is, in fact, in line with, and indeed an extension of, already existing elements of the welfare state.55 The former is often supposed to present normative arguments in favour of UBI over existing welfare-state provisions, whereas the latter is typically supposed to stress the financial and political feasibility of a UBI.56 More conceptual clarity concerning the continuities and discontinuities between UBI and the welfare state is required in order to understand fully to what extent a merely national UBI would amplify duties that those who enjoy strong welfare-state provisions might already have. This greater clarity would also benefit debates about the merits and feasibility of a UBI more generally.

Secondly, there may be structural similarities between the justice problem I presented for a merely national UBI and policies such as work-tested minimum-income guarantees and a national living wage. Exploitation might lower real prices in rich nations and thereby make minimum-income guarantees and the demand for a living wage easier to meet. However, these policies do not provide all the benefits of a UBI. For example, they do not afford unconditional economic security (they only do so if you undertake a sufficient amount of paid work); they do not promote real freedom to the extent that a UBI does;57 and they certainly do not allow recipients to exit the job market. It might still be the case that implementing a national living wage would amplify existing duties, but it is not the case that a national living wage would unconditionally afford everyone within a country goods such as basic economic security. Thus, the gap between beneficiaries of a national living wage and those who contribute to its feasibility is less pronounced. The more one believes in the superiority of a UBI over policies such as a work-tested national living wage, the larger this gap will be and the more worrisome the justice concern I raise should be.

UBI advocates typically think that the ultimate goal is a global UBI.58 Thus, one might point out, as Van Parijs and Vanderborght have done,59 that a UBI in one or a few wealthy countries (or any country)60 is an important and possibly necessary step in the transition to a global UBI. While there might be a period during which a UBI grants some individuals privileges subsidized by the labour of the less privileged, this could be justified by the good that will ultimately be achieved without any need for compensation during the transitional period. After all, exploited workers (as well as the materially worst off and everyone else) anywhere on earth will ultimately benefit from a global UBI. Moreover, to achieve a successful transition to a global UBI, it might be more important to set up a financially viable and sustainable UBI in one or a few countries and diverting resources towards a compensation scheme might hinder this goal.

This line of thought is to some extent plausible. In fact, one reason why I think that a compensation scheme can be an adequate response to the justice problem I raised is because the victims of exploitation are not made worse off by a merely national UBI and might benefit from it in the long run. Moreover, the potentially positive global impact of a merely national UBI is not limited to its contribution to creating a global UBI. A merely national UBI might increase economic security in nations that have implemented it, and this might enable other measures that advance global justice—for example, lowering trade barriers, which might lead to more exports, a greater demand for labour, and higher wages, thus improving the position of workers in poorer countries. It could well be that a merely national UBI makes non-recipient contributors better off through indirect effects.

However, this is speculative. Moreover, even if non-recipient contributors did indirectly benefit from a merely national UBI, the fact remains that some people would receive a UBI (whether they make a contribution or not) and all the benefits that such a UBI grants, whereas others who do make a contribution would merely benefit in indirect ways. This should still leave us feeling uneasy, at least if we think that the added benefits of a UBI are substantial.61

Furthermore, the transitional period to a global UBI might last a very long time. After all, during the last decades several nations have created advanced and sophisticated democratic institutions and welfare provisions that are, largely, in the interests of their citizens and serve justice, albeit often imperfectly. Yet it would be hopelessly optimistic to think that all nations are necessarily moving in this direction and that they will establish the same or similar institutions and provisions any time soon. Likewise, it would be naïve to assume that just because a UBI is implemented and works well in one or a few nations, other nations would introduce it as well. As a matter of fact, given the current nature of many nations’ media and public discourse, there is a danger that a merely national UBI could even be counterproductive. It is conceivable, albeit I will not speculate how likely, that a UBI is introduced in country X and works very well there, but that, due to dishonest reporting, media biases, and vested interests, country X nonetheless becomes a largely negative example in international perception (‘We cannot possibly introduce a UBI here. They did that in X and look at the place now, what a nightmare!’). Analogous rhetoric is, for instance, sometimes found in (conservative) US reports about European universal health-care systems.

There is a real danger that some victims of exploitation will not receive the blessings of a global UBI in their lifetimes. They, not merely their offspring, are owed something for their contribution.

The first aim of my article was to raise an often-overlooked justice problem for a merely national UBI: that not everyone who contributes to the scheme's effectiveness receives a UBI. This is a more pressing version of the surfer problem. It amplifies duties to compensate victims of exploitation who contribute to the effectiveness of a merely national UBI. The second aim was to propose that a merely national UBI be accompanied by a compensation scheme for non-recipient contributors. This proposal is intended to strike the right balance between addressing exploitation and preserving the positive achievements of a merely national UBI, increasing justice within one society and moving towards a more comprehensive UBI.

For discussion, feedback, and criticism, I am grateful to Christian Barry, Chris Bertram, Joanna Burch-Brown, Robert Chapman, Max Jones, Seiriol Morgan, João Pinheiro, Felix Pinkert, Joe Saunders, Janis Schaab, Irina Schumski, Dean Shiels, Joe Slater, Philipp Stehr, Karl Widerquist, Garrath Williams, Alan Wilson, Jo Wolff, Lena Zuchowski, an anonymous referee, and students from my 2020 Universal Basic Income seminar at the University of Bochum. Versions of this article have been presented at the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress, Glasgow; the Ethics of UBI in a Changing Economy workshop, Kings College London; the 10th European Congress of Analytic Philosophy, Utrecht; the Joint Sessions of the Aristotelian and the Mind Association, Durham; the Association for Social and Political Philosophy annual conference, Newcastle; and the University of Bristol. I wish to thank the organizers and audiences of these events, and in particular Corinna Mieth, who hosted me in Bochum.

Work on this article was supported by the University of Bristol and by an Ethics–Economics, Law and Politics Guest Chair at the Ruhr-University Bochum, financed by the German Academic Exchange Service.

There are no potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

The author declares human ethics approval was not needed for this study.