Basic income
could provide the breathing space so many need
It could offer a hopeful, stabilizing force in an era of
destabilization
By Jamie Swift and Elaine
Power
Scientists say we have entered an age of global “polycrisis": food and housing insecurity; climate breakdown; stagflation; environmental degradation; war; ideological extremism; authoritarian politics and a crisis of democracy; massive economic inequality; and a general mistrust of institutions.
Each would be bad enough on its own. The polycrisis, however, signals the deep interconnections of systems — political and economic, environmental and cultural — under stress. A crisis in one system produces crises in the others.
“Will we leave each other to
sink or swim, or will we buoy strangers through life’s rough waters?” asks
Astra Taylor.