Libertarianism covers a wide range of political stances, from
left-libertarianism through to anarcho-capitalism. The thing they
have in common is that they promote freedom (although in
completely different ways).
In this article I'm going to consider Universal Basic Income (UBI) from a libertarian perspective, focusing mainly on analysis of the labour market, rather than the much more common libertarian "
small state" argument in favour of UBI.
The crux of the articleThe current labour market is terribly unfree as it is because it relies on coercion, workfare, sanctions, draconian anti-labour legislation etc.
The introduction of
Universal Basic Income would would create a much freer labour market (no more threat of destitution, sanctions or forced labour schemes, and much freer labour contracts between employers and employees), but this increased freedom for the majority would come at the expense of necessary measures in order to control inflation (which would rapidly destroy the project if left unchecked).
The reduction in aggression against the majority of workers would outweigh the infringements on the current rights that rentiers have to exploit access to basic commodities in order to extract profit for themselves (which it can be argued is another form of aggression against the majority anyway).
