opinion, and because of the unemployment crisis, basic income had been put on the agenda by new political networks and minority groups.However, at the same time a new labour market policy called `activation´ was introduced, and slowly, at the rhetorical level, the question of basic income was excluded. In public political debates and within the political parties, a workfare discourse was created, and basic income came to be considered a heretical political discourse and was made a target of negative political stereotyping.This anthology about the basic income debate in Denmark offers a discourse-analytical perspective on Denmark´s development from a universal welfare state to a workfare state. With its analysis of metaphors, narratives and key concepts in the debate, it unveils how the basic income discourse ended up being both heretical and excluded.Lastly, it provides a global ecological argument for a basic income and discusses the conditions for bringing back the basic income question on the political agenda.