IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eujhet/v32y2025i3p363-390.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander Linsbichler
  • Marco P. Vianna Franco

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Linsbichler & Marco P. Vianna Franco, 2025. "Universal basic income in Viennese Late Enlightenment: rediscovering Josef Popper-Lynkeus and his in-kind social program," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 363-390, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:32:y:2025:i:3:p:363-390
    DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2024.2444921
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09672567.2024.2444921
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09672567.2024.2444921?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:32:y:2025:i:3:p:363-390. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REJH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.