Basically unaffordable

WITH cash-strapped governments around the world looking for ways to cut welfare bills and reduce deficits, it might seem an odd time to consider a generous new universal benefit. Yet the basic income—a guaranteed government payment to all citizens, whatever their private wealth—is creeping onto the policy agenda. The Swiss will soon vote on a proposal for a basic income of 2,500 francs ($2,700) per month, following the success of a national petition. Amid turmoil in Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, its finance minister, has hinted that he is a fan. Britain’s Green Party has adopted a version of the policy. Turning it into a substitute for all welfare payments would be prohibitively expensive. But it might work as one element of the safety net.

The idea has a long intellectual heritage. In 1797 Thomas Paine, one of America’s founders, penned a pamphlet arguing that every person is entitled to share in the returns on the common property of humanity: the earth’s land and natural resources (today, you might include radio spectrum or the profits of central banks). Paine suggested paying citizens the equivalent of around $2,000 in today’s money—which was then over half the annual income of a labourer—on their 21st birthday, in lieu of their share of the planet. The benefit would be granted to all, to avoid creating “invidious distinctions” between rich and poor. Since Paine’s proposal, the idea of universal payouts—whether one-off or recurring—has periodically attracted support from both sides of the political aisle.