Reciprocity and the guaranteed income

Politics and Society

Volumn 27, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 387-402

  Widerquist, Karl ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0033444637     PISSN: 00323292     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0032329299027003004     Document Type: Review

References (41)

1. Frederick C. Thayer, "The Holy War on Surplus Americans: Soviet Dogma, Old-Time Religion and Classical Economics," Social Policy 28, no. 1 (1997).
2. Ibid.
3. Perhaps work is more clearly defined as time spent making money to emphasize that it includes self-employment.
4. Here this paper holds "government policy" responsible for the social structure it makes possible, but one could as easily define reciprocity to state that society should not favor one group over another.
5. Few actually starve in the United States, but many face poverty and homelessness, which are sufficient to cause the reciprocity problems discussed in this paper.
6. Some conditional plans require work in the sense of employment. Others define work more broadly to include some valued nonmarket activity such as raising children or searching for work. An unconditional plan, rather than defining work more broadly, drops the work requirement altogether.
7. For the specifics, see Charles M. A. Clark and John Healy, Pathways to a Basic Income (Dublin: The Justice Commission, Conference of the Religious of Ireland, 1997); Brigid Reynolds and Sean Healy, An Adequate Income Guarantee for All (Dublin: The Justice Commission, Conference of the Religious of Ireland, 1995); Philippe van Parijs, "Basic Income Capitalism," Ethics 102 (1992): 465-84; Philippe van Parijs, Real Freedom for All: What (if Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Karl Widerquist and Michael A. Lewis, "An Efficiency Argument for the Guaranteed Income," Jerome Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No. 212, 1997.
8. For the specifics, see Charles M. A. Clark and John Healy, Pathways to a Basic Income (Dublin: The Justice Commission, Conference of the Religious of Ireland, 1997); Brigid Reynolds and Sean Healy, An Adequate Income Guarantee for All (Dublin: The Justice Commission, Conference of the Religious of Ireland, 1995); Philippe van Parijs, "Basic Income Capitalism," Ethics 102 (1992): 465-84; Philippe van Parijs, Real Freedom for All: What (if Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Karl Widerquist and Michael A. Lewis, "An Efficiency Argument for the Guaranteed Income," Jerome Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No. 212, 1997.
9. For the specifics, see Charles M. A. Clark and John Healy, Pathways to a Basic Income (Dublin: The Justice Commission, Conference of the Religious of Ireland, 1997); Brigid Reynolds and Sean Healy, An Adequate Income Guarantee for All (Dublin: The Justice Commission, Conference of the Religious of Ireland, 1995); Philippe van Parijs, "Basic Income Capitalism," Ethics 102 (1992): 465-84; Philippe van Parijs, Real Freedom for All: What (if Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Karl Widerquist and Michael A. Lewis, "An Efficiency Argument for the Guaranteed Income," Jerome Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No. 212, 1997.
10. For the specifics, see Charles M. A. Clark and John Healy, Pathways to a Basic Income (Dublin: The Justice Commission, Conference of the Religious of Ireland, 1997); Brigid Reynolds and Sean Healy, An Adequate Income Guarantee for All (Dublin: The Justice Commission, Conference of the Religious of Ireland, 1995); Philippe van Parijs, "Basic Income Capitalism," Ethics 102 (1992): 465-84; Philippe van Parijs, Real Freedom for All: What (if Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Karl Widerquist and Michael A. Lewis, "An Efficiency Argument for the Guaranteed Income," Jerome Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No. 212, 1997.
11. For the specifics, see Charles M. A. Clark and John Healy, Pathways to a Basic Income (Dublin: The Justice Commission, Conference of the Religious of Ireland, 1997); Brigid Reynolds and Sean Healy, An Adequate Income Guarantee for All (Dublin: The Justice Commission, Conference of the Religious of Ireland, 1995); Philippe van Parijs, "Basic Income Capitalism," Ethics 102 (1992): 465-84; Philippe van Parijs, Real Freedom for All: What (if Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Karl Widerquist and Michael A. Lewis, "An Efficiency Argument for the Guaranteed Income," Jerome Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No. 212, 1997.
12. Van Parijs, Real Freedom for All.
13. Stuart White, "Liberal Equality, Exploitation, and the Case for an Unconditional Basic Income," Political Studies 45, no. 2 (1997).
14. Work includes time spent taking care of someone else's children but not time spent raising one's own children, growing food for others but not growing one's own food, and so on.
15. Although it is not the subject of this paper, the criterion that mixing one's labor with a resource gives one a property right to it is questionable. Another criterion may be that a person obtains a property to an outside asset by paying others to give up their right to hold that asset in common. This, however, is not so different from the necessary compensation that is generated by the proviso that no one else is made worse off by appropriation.
16. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).
17. Ibid.
18. In most cases, the government assigned property rights many years if not generations ago, and most people obtain ownership of external assets by purchasing them, but no one can purchase a natural resource unless a government has previously defined that resource as someone's private property and the terms of that ownership. Capital gains on these outside assets that do not result from improvements to them can be attributed to the asset itself, whether the ownership was obtained by work, inheritance, luck, or appropriation.
19. This is the only solution that could bring complete reciprocity, but it may not be worth doing so if it hurts incentives so much that the least advantaged are worse off than they would be under another system.
20. To ensure that no one is worse off in this society than anyone could be in a society without appropriated land and natural resources, allowing the opportunity for subsistence farming would not be enough. Recipients would have to be given land on which they could live with a minimum of toil, such as a stretch of tropical beach. This would make such a proposal even more prohibitively expensive.
21. For example, see White, "Liberal Equality," and Oren Levin-Waldman, Reconceiving Liberslism: Dilemmas of Contemporary Public Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996).
22. For example, see White, "Liberal Equality," and Oren Levin-Waldman, Reconceiving Liberslism: Dilemmas of Contemporary Public Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996).
23. Michael Hudson, personal correspondenc, 1997.
24. Fred Block and Jeff Monza, "Could We End Poverty in a Post-Ondustrial Society?" Politics & Society 25, no. 4 (1997).
25. Van Parijs, Real Freedom for All.
26. D. K. Foley, "Resource Allocation and the Public Sector," Yale Economic Essays 7 (1967): 45-198.
27. Ownership of outside assets does not conform to equality before the law because in any generation, it favors those with preexisting ownership rights
28. White, "Liberal Equality."
29. Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2d ed. (New York: Norton, 1978).
30. Adam Smith, An inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Random House, 1776).
31. Marlene Kim, "The Working Poor: Lousy Jobs or Lazy Workers?" Jerome Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No. 194, 1997.
32. Marlene Kim and Thanos Mergoups, "The Working Poor and Welfare Recipiency: Participation, Evidence, and Policy Directions," Journal of Economic Issues 31 no. 3 (1997).
33. Of course, there would need to be considerable discussion of how to define "adequate." Even if the criteria are as simple as food, shelter, and clothing, there are likely to be disagreements on what level of quality could be considered adequate.
34. Similarly, after-tax income of net contributors will be lower relative to their marginal product, but their marginal product is higher than it would be without a guaranteed income.
35. White, "Liberal Equality."
36. See Charles Murray, Losing Ground (New York: Basic Books, 1984) or Jason L. Saving, "'Tough Love': Implications for Redistributive Policy," Economic Review Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Third Quarter, 1997.
37. See Charles Murray, Losing Ground (New York: Basic Books, 1984) or Jason L. Saving, "'Tough Love': Implications for Redistributive Policy," Economic Review Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Third Quarter, 1997.
38. Kim and Mergoupis, "The Working Poor and Welfare Recipiency."
39. Frank Levy, Dollars and Dreams: The Changing American Income Distribution (New York: Russell Sage, 1987).
40. Van Parijs, Real Freedom for All.
41. Levin-Waldman, "Reconceiving Liberalism."