Universal basic income in Viennese Late Enlightenment: rediscovering Josef Popper-Lynkeus and his in-kind social program

Linsbichler, Alexander; and Vianna Franco, Marco P.. 2025. Universal basic income in Viennese Late Enlightenment: rediscovering Josef Popper-Lynkeus and his in-kind social program. European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 32(3), pp. 363-390. ISSN 0967-2567 [Article]

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Austrian engineer, philosopher, and political economist Josef Popper-Lynkeus (1838–1921) was a renowned public intellectual of Viennese Late Enlightenment. In this article, we unearth and explore Popper-Lynkeus’s social program. It sought to implement social conscription to unconditionally guarantee a basic level of goods and services for every human individual. We appraise the economic and ethical justifications provided by Popper-Lynkeus for his allegedly “rational” proposals and the intended consequences for the discipline of economics. Finally, and based on our disambiguation of different notions of “unconditionality”, we clarify similarities and differences between Popper-Lynkeus’s social program and contemporary proposals for a universal basic income, characterising both as alternatives to traditional welfare states.

Item Type	Article
Additional Information	JEL Classification: B19; B31; P41; P46 Funding: The authors disclose receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Austrian Academy of Sciences and by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [grant number ESP 10.55776/ESP206]. It was also supported by the EUTOPIA Science and Innovation Fellowship Programme and funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 945380. This article reflects only the authors’ views and funding agencies are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. For the purpose of open access, the corresponding author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Keywords	Josef Popper-Lynkeus; universal basic income; Viennese Late Enlightenment; Otto Neurath; calculation in kind; rationality; welfare state
Departments, Centres and Research Units	Institute of Management Studies
Date Deposited	10 Jan 2025 11:25
Last Modified	12 Jun 2025 09:34