It is not based on means testing: A hedge fund manager and a homeless person receive the same amount. It has no strings attached, meaning it carries no requirements to work, attend school, receive vaccines, register for military service or vote. It is not paid in kind – housing, food – or in vouchers. It is a floor below which no one's cash income can fall.
In a strict sense, the intellectual history of universal basic income is around half a century old.
But the idea that the government should somehow prop up everyone's earnings has cropped up repeatedly over the past two centuries: as a citizen's dividend, a social credit, a national dividend, a demogrant, a negative income tax, and a guaranteed minimum income (or "mincome"), among other concepts.
Few of these proposals fit the usual definition of a basic income, and they differ from each other significantly. But they share a common thread.
For much of human history, it was assumed that society would provide a basic standard of living for those who could not provide for themselves.
Agriculture and urbanization whittled such networks down to the nuclear family or even the individual.
The larger institutions that took their place – church, state – left gaps.
These shifts occurred over centuries, so few noticed, except when cultures on either side of the change collided.
Today the idea of a basic income has again entered the mainstream.
Given its scattered lineage, boosters make different arguments from diverse ideological vantage points. Broadly speaking, proponents on the left see it as an antidote to poverty and inequality.
On the right its appeal has more to do with increasing the efficiency of the welfare state.
Another distinction, which cross-cuts left and right, is between reformers who want to rationalize policy in light of current issues and futurists who aim to radically overhaul society – or save it from radical overhaul due to automation.
In practice, any given basic income proponent is likely to employ several of these arguments, without regard for political taxonomies.
Floyd, David. "Is It Time for a Universal Basic Income?" Investopedia. June 22, 2017. https://www.investopedia.com/news/history-of-universal-basic-income/.