Did you know that President Nixon came very close to delivering a universal basic income in the 70s? It was affordable, he'd squared his own party by cloaking the policy in dry, rightist rhetoric- but was stopped from putting it into law by the Dems. Imagine how we'd remember him if he'd succeeded! Apparently he'd been reading 19th century political history and had come to the conclusion- which he confided to Daniel Moynihan- that "Tory men and liberal policies are what have changed the world." I don't think he was so very far wrong.
I got that snippet from Rutger Bregman's Utopia for Realists- a book chock full of old ideas whose time (please God) has come....
I got that snippet from Rutger Bregman's Utopia for Realists- a book chock full of old ideas whose time (please God) has come....