Locke on Basic Income
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Daniel Layman
Perhaps the strongest attempts to derive support for basic income policy from John Locke’s political philosophy hinge on Locke’s view that the world and its resources were originally owned in common by all persons. This world ownership, many have supposed, gives all persons a natural right to equal shares of resources and thus a right to an equal basic income under conditions (like our own) in which nearly all resources have been appropriated. This reasoning betrays a misunderstanding of Locke’s conception of original world ownership and, once this understanding is corrected, it becomes clear that there is no natural right to equal shares of resources, although there is a natural right to sufficient shares. Consequently, although governments must guarantee sufficiency for their citizens, there is no Lockean reason why this guarantee must take the form of a basic income or a scheme of equal and unconditional payments.
©2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Front Matter
- List of Contributors
- Content
- Book Review
- Review of Gijs van Donselaar, The Right to Exploit: Parasitism, Scarcity, Basic Income
- Review of Doris Schroeder, Work Incentives and Welfare Provision: The "Pathological" Theory of Unemployment
- Introduction: What is Libertarianism?
- A Lockean Argument for Basic Income
- Locke on Basic Income
- Taking the "G" out of BIG: A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on Basic Income
- Classical Liberalism and the Basic Income
- Basic Income Is Not an Obligation, But It Might Be a Legitimate Choice
- Two Libertarian Arguments for Basic Income Proposals
- Libertarianism and the Justice of a Basic Income
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Front Matter
- List of Contributors
- Content
- Book Review
- Review of Gijs van Donselaar, The Right to Exploit: Parasitism, Scarcity, Basic Income
- Review of Doris Schroeder, Work Incentives and Welfare Provision: The "Pathological" Theory of Unemployment
- Introduction: What is Libertarianism?
- A Lockean Argument for Basic Income
- Locke on Basic Income
- Taking the "G" out of BIG: A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on Basic Income
- Classical Liberalism and the Basic Income
- Basic Income Is Not an Obligation, But It Might Be a Legitimate Choice
- Two Libertarian Arguments for Basic Income Proposals
- Libertarianism and the Justice of a Basic Income
