Abstract
Green republicanism can be described as a subset of republican political theory that aims at promoting human flourishing by ensuring a non-dominating and ecologically sustainable republic. An essential aspect of green republicanism is the promotion of post-productivism while preserving or expanding republican freedom as non-domination. Post-productivism implies the promotion of personal autonomy rather than the pursuit of permanent economic growth and the promotion of labour as an intrinsically positive human activity, which for green republicans will have three positive aspects: reduced ecological impact, more time available for civic participation, and the extension of democratic decision-making and norms to the sphere of production. An important aspect in the definition of a post-productivist society is the way welfare schemes are designed. In this article, I will thus compare the existing welfare regimes with a (green) participation income and with an unconditional basic income, and analyse how they promote green republican goals. I conclude that the current systems are one of the elements of the productivist society and that would not answer the green republican conditions. A green participation income could have a positive ecological impact and contribute to a shift to post-productivism but would face serious challenges from a republican perspective, namely in terms of the non-arbitrariness of its attribution. Finally, I conclude that depending on how it is defined, an unconditional basic income could contribute to post-productivism while being non-arbitrary thus obeying the green republican conditions.
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Notes
Elsewhere Pettit links the need for a sustainable natural environment in order to protect basic liberties (2012 pp. 111–112; Cf. Pettit 2008).
Being true that at least some forms of perfectionism are compatible with republican theory, green republicanism, even with a non-neutralist approach to the common good, does not necessarily need to be perfectionist. As Lovett and Whitfield argue, perfectionist principles, on top of encouraging or discouraging certain concepts of the good, need to do so based on the objective value of those conceptions and not simply because of their instrumental use. As they put it, ‘to support Calvinism merely because it promotes economic prosperity, say, might not count as perfectionist, while doing so because it genuinely reflects the will of God obviously would’ (2016, p. 122). Similarly, defending that the state should promote ecologically sustainable conceptions of the good because they are essential to put us back into a situation of sustainability and reduce ecological-related domination can be seen as an instrumental way to ensure not only human flourishing (and the preservation of the natural world) but also a sane eco-system and, ultimately, human survival.
It should be noted that Atkinson later claimed reciprocity originating from participation criteria is ‘both intrinsically justified and more likely to garner political support’ (Atkinson 2015, p. 221, emphasis added).
Among many others, see the special editions of the Basic Income Studies on republicanism (Volume 2, Issue 2, 2007) and on sustainability and post-productivism (Volume 4, Issue 2, 2009).
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Pinto, J. Green Republicanism and the Shift to Post-productivism: A Defence of an Unconditional Basic Income. Res Publica 26, 257–274 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-019-09444-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-019-09444-1