By Toni Pickard

In the media these days, conservative policy analysts are repeatedly defining basic income in its neoliberal guise, as if that's what any basic income program must be.

We've known for a long time that austerity policies don't work. Even the IMF, which has a lot to answer for in promoting/imposing them, has finally acknowledged this. 

Yet austerity thinking continues to influence our governments and many fellow citizens. If it comes to dominate basic income models, it will destroy all hopes for humane and effective designs, and kibosh positive outcomes for a basic income program.