Universal Basic Income and the Capitalist Production of Consciousness

Read Oshan's essay here.   This essay explores how universal basic income intervenes in the hyper-capitalist distortion of human development.    Perhaps the most neglected product of modern economies is the human being. When digital technologies enabled the conversion of attention into capital, the commodification of consciousness became the next frontier of economic development.   Universal basic income intervenes in this process by affording everyone a basis of decommodified time that makes behaviors, relations, and projects - ways of living - viable even if they don’t generate income. By remaking the logic of the everyday, basic income incites new developmental trajectories to arise from the bottom up.  ______________________________________________________________   About Oshan: I’m interested in how we might redesign economies to enrich their most neglected product: human consciousness. I received a degree in economics and spent a year studying meditation in India. To make sense of things, I write essays and produce a podcast, both bringing contemplative philosophy into dialogue with economic theory.    I’m fascinated by the dynamism of consciousness, the untold ways it can feel like to be alive. But to explore these possibilities as a collective, we require a sturdy, sane economic base. Economies of the 21st century should minimize avoidable human suffering while maximizing vitality. Musingmind.org is my digital home base, the splayed trail of my becoming as an astonished bag of flesh in an expanding (perhaps infinite!) cosmos.