The Basic Income Paradigm and Its Impact on Human Development Opportunities

Abstract

The actualisation of research interest in the issue of basic income is driven by growing inequalities in various aspects of people's lives and the unfair distribution of material and social goods in capitalist states. Providing a basic income opens up opportunities to enhance social guarantees and the standard of living for citizens. The article examines the ideological paradigms of the social consequences of implementing basic income. It is shown that in capitalist states, this payment, judging by numerous experiments, is being implemented in transitional forms. Its introduction serves as one of the adaptive mechanisms for capital to adapt to the modern conditions of profit extraction. The antagonistic interests of ruling classes and the majority of citizens, as well as the fragmentation of the private interests of the latter, do not allow the widespread implementation of basic income in full accordance with its fundamental criteria. The main criteria include universality – payment to all citizens, unconditionality – payment regardless of employment and other characteristics of the economic and social status of individuals, and regularity – payment throughout the entire lives of basic income recipients. The possibility of adhering to the fundamental criteria for providing basic income is justified in the implementation of a socialist paradigm for the development of modern states. It is demonstrated that in contemporary Russia, an evolutionary resolution of accumulated contradictions and a phased implementation of a new socialist development paradigm are possible. This could potentially be a chain of humanitarian transformations, conditioned by the circumstances that have emerged. The beginning of this transformation has already been initiated after February 2022 with the expansion of state ownership in key economic sectors, the introduction of state planning within them, the demand for new personnel prioritising collective and state values to address these issues. All this does not contradict the development of market sectors of the economy, oriented toward individual citizens' needs and the development of their diverse personal potential, as well as servicing state ownership in key sectors and facilitating comprehensive international economic connections. Sociological research conducted under the author's guidance has shown that potential recipients of basic income in Russia confirm their intentions to develop their human potential and consider it advisable to conduct experiments on the provision of basic income. In conclusion, it is concluded that the introduction of basic income, in conjunction with other instruments of socialist evolution of Russian society and the state, represents an opportunity for the development and realisation of human potential in our country.