Unconditional Freedom, Ecological Limits: Reassessing the Green Basic Income Through Pigouvian Funding

Abstract This article argues that funding liberty by taxing environmental harm is both a novel and necessary approach in addressing Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) and ecological conditionalities from normative and policy design frameworks. Contrary to the common belief that unconditionality and environmental limits conflict, they can be strategically combined through the design of funding mechanisms. By focusing on Pigouvian taxation as a pathway for funding the UBI, the article presents this funding as an endogenous, negative conditionality: it maintains the universal and unconditional nature of the payment while indirectly incorporating conditional ecological milestones via price inducements. Drawing from liberal and republican political theory, I suggest that ecological constraints should not be viewed as external limitations on liberty but as essential conditions for freedom. Pigouvian funding offers a less intrusive yet normatively meaningful way to embed environmental conditions into basic income schemes. The article also situates this mechanism within a transitional policy framework, emphasizing how Pigouvian revenues, as a self-defeating mechanism, can support green UBI in the short and mid-term perspective. This perspective offers new insights into the debate on unconditionality and sustainability, demonstrating that green conditionalities can enhance rather than undermine the normative republican and liberal foundations of basic income.