Yes, it is a leftist idea. Definition of left is that they care about social and economic equality. (The understanding - IMHO wrong - of left as proposing big s

Yes, it is a leftist idea. Definition of left is that they care about social and economic equality. (The understanding - IMHO wrong - of left as proposing big state ultimately comes from Communist Manifesto, where Marx used "the State" in a certain sense as a shorthand.) Basic income would mean that part of GDP is redistributed in purely democratic manner - everybody gets the same piece of pie, whether they deserve it or not. It's very similar to democracy, but on economic level. And democracy is in fact very leftist idea (if you look at history of the left), because again, it proposes that all people should the exact same political power (one person, one vote), regardless what they are or what they do or contribute. The fact that today's right (at least partially) accepts some of these ideas, such as democracy or UBI, is actually a success of left, or manifestation of the reality having a liberal bias. :-)