Basic Income and Productivity in Cognitive Capitalism

In this article basic income (BI) will not be considered as a measure to raise living standards and social well-being. Rather, it will be presented as an indispensable structural policy for achieving a healthier social order governed by a more equitable compromise between capital and labour. Embracing the French Regulation School approach, we shall maintain that such a compromise is founded on the redistribution of productivity gains. Describing the dynamics of productivity will enable a better understanding of the main features and development of contemporary capitalism. In advancing our argument, we shall focus on the socio-economic transformation that has overtaken the Fordist paradigm within Western countries and propose the term Cognitive Capitalism to describe the new economic system. We shall address the relationship between the exploitation of knowledge and the accumulation of surplus, pointing out that such a process is based on the exploitation of dynamic scale economies. We shall argue that BI can be seen as a viable economic policy able to contrast the instability generated by the present form(s) of accumulation, as it increases productivity, through network and learning processes