As far back as 1516, Thomas More first suggested a guaranteed income as a way to reduce theft. In 1797, enlightenment thinker Thomas Paine proposed a set of radical reforms in his seminal pamphlet on Agrarian Justice . Among these proposals was the idea of a universal basic income that would be paid to everyone, unconditionally. In the intervening 220 years, polemicists and policymakers have toyed with the idea, without it ever really catching on.
What has changed?
Firstly, it is increasingly clear that our economic model is leaving more and more people behind. The polarisation in income and opportunities between […]
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