In this article the issue of basic income is analyzed along five main research vectors: A putative "Italian delay" concerning both the reception of the international debate on basic income and the original elaboration of its constitutive elements; Labor transformations in late capitalism; The role played by nation-states in the European space; The new functions performed the realm of social reproduction in contemporary value-producing activities; The supposed existence of an ecologically harmful productivist nexus at the very core of the (different versions of the) Fordist welfare state.