Reddito di base e diseguaglianze sociali. Una questione di chances di vita

In this article the Basic Income is analyzed as a social policy tool aimed at reducing social inequality which is referred to life chances and not merely to the distribution of wealth. Two key questions arise: the first concerns the definition of social inequality itself, which also conditions the way of thinking about the policies to contain it. Since the BI configures a relationship between the individual, the market and the community, there are different implications if we assume as a reference a concept of equality based on the mere distribution of an amount of resources (equality of what?) or if, to this quantitative dimension, we connect the question of recognition between individual and collective subjects who have rights and between whom there are relations of power (equality of who?). Equally important is the concept of the individual which is assumed as a reference: whether the individual is isolated from an institutional and relational context, or socially embedded, not moved only by a personal interest, taking into account the importance of the social bond in the configuration of the individual social positions.