ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on opposition from the political left, including egalitarian liberals, Marxists and socialists. It argues that liberal neutrality favors basic income (BI). The neutrality of the theory is not a mere truce among warring parties; rather, it is the result of incorporating into conflicting traditions a principle of toleration as central to those traditions themselves. The chapter also argues that BI is not incompatible with socialism or Marxism, and should not be opposed to, but rather combined with, strategies for full employment. Marxists are also less likely to accept current labor market trends—seeing socialism as affording more opportunity for guaranteeing everyone a right to decent work. Socialist freedom is at least partly a freedom of groups—collectives of workers, communities, or whole societies—to determine their joint destiny collectively through democratic processes. A genuine socialist alternative should begin by acknowledging the ambivalent moral significance of work.
