New Left Review I/208, November-December 1994
David Purdy
Citizenship, Basic Income and the State
Proposals for root-and-branch reform of the welfare state are not the prerogative of the radical Right. In recent years, the Left too has been rethinking its approach to social policy. One idea, in particular, has seized the imagination of radical libertarians, liberal socialists, socially minded liberals and communitarian critics of liberal individualism. Under a system of taxes and transfers which has come to be known as Citizens’ Income (ci), the state would issue recurrent cash grants to all its citizens, each in his or her own right, without imposing any means test or work requirement. The debate prompted by this proposal has been stimulating and searching, and in the belief that the issues raised deserve a wider audience, this essay surveys the state of the art.
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