Mar 5, 2015

Guaranteed income from common wealth

Peter Barnes writes in Yes! magazine:

THERE’S LONG been a notion that, because money is a prerequisite for survival and security, everyone should be assured some income just for being alive.  The notion has been advanced by liberals such as James Tobin, John Kenneth Galbraith, and George McGovern, and by conser­vatives like Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Richard Nixon.  It’s embedded in the board game Monopoly, in which all players get equal payments when they pass Go.  And yet, with one exception, Americans have been unable to agree on any plan that guarantees some income to everyone.  The reasons lie mostly in the stories that surround such income.  Is it welfare?  Is it redistribution?  Does it require higher taxes and bigger government?  Americans think dimly of all these things.

But then, there’s the exception.

Read all about it here.