Abstract
This volume concludes Section V of the series by synthesizing the theoretical implications of the Emergence Economy developed in the preceding contributions.
The section has shown that modern economies systematically misrecognize forms of work whose effects unfold over long temporal horizons, through relationships, or through the stabilization of complex social and epistemic fields. By introducing the concepts of the Value Threshold, Diversity Threshold, Unfolding Gap, and Eigenzeit, it outlines a framework for understanding the growing disjunction between real world-forming work and its economic recognition.
From this perspective, poverty appears not merely as a lack of resources, but as a structural loss of world-binding capacity.
The volume therefore situates the concept of Universal Care Income within a broader theoretical context: not primarily as a redistributive policy, but as an infrastructural condition that protects the possibility of world-forming work in complex societies.
Keywords
Universal Care Income, emergence economy, ontology of work, world-forming work, care economy, relational labour, primary economy, secondary economy, value threshold, diversity threshold, unfolding gap, Eigenzeit, ontology of poverty, structural poverty, world-binding capacity, institutional conditions of work, post-growth economy, non-market labour, care work, social reproduction, ecological regeneration, epistemic labour, artistic research, neurodivergent work, autistic epistemology, relational agency, systemic invisibility of work, economic recognition, threshold theory of value, infrastructure of work, temporal conditions of labour, complexity and economy, post-capitalist economic theory
Citation
Speed, Timothy. Universal Care Income – Infrastructure Before Value (Studies in World-Formation, Vol. 13). Zenodo, 2026. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19000221.
Direct access to the full text: Speed_2026_World-Binding-Vol_13_en.pdf