Neuroliberalism in Action: The Finnish Experiment with Basic Income

This article considers the entanglements of neuroscience, economics and behaviourism in a two-year experiment (2017–18) with basic income in Finland. The participants in this mandatory, state-led experiment are unemployed individuals (25–58 years old) recruited by the National Social Insurance Institution. The experiment is a randomised controlled trial intended to provide useful information about the impacts of basic income on employment and well-being. Focusing on the epistemological foundations of the experiment, this analysis suggests that the Finnish trial with basic income should be considered to be an example of the neuroliberal movement in policy-making as it uses behavioural economics and popularised neuroscience to optimise the cognitive abilities of the unemployed. The primary contribution of this paper is to raise concerns about how neuroliberalism reconfigures citizenship by obscuring the limits between freedom and control and how societies of control use neuroliberal models such as nudging to organise the disorganised and control the uncontrolled