Towards a general theory of income in Marx: a study of basic income

Abstract

The division between value and form of participation in value is the general feature to the three forms of capital income – profit, interest and ground rent – ​​and to the wage form. This paper proposes that basic income can be conceived in series with other forms of income as long as we take it as a new form of participation in value. Beyond the interpretations of basic income as a response to technological unemployment or as a form of citizenship through consumption, we seek to frame it as a result of what we call the primitive accumulation of our time: the separation of workers from their ability to organize.