Free Money for All

Review 1:
Richard K Caputo, PhD. , Professor of Social Policy & Research
Wurzweiler School of Social Work - Yeshiva University

Dr Walker seeks to write a book justifying a basic income guarantee scheme that awards every U. S. citizen $10, 000 cash income annually. His proposal has three parts. The first, Chapters 1 and 2, introduce the concept of BIG and how it might be financed. Part II, Chapters 3-7, lays out the 'consequentialist' arguments for BIG (Chapters 3-6) and justifies BIG, somewhat convolutedly in my opinion compared to the other chapters, 'assuming a deontological conception of capitalism' (Chapter 7). Part III, Chapters 8 and 9, address the 'free-rider' problem to and utopian assertions about BIG. The proposed book is meant to appeal to students and the educated general public interested in political philosophy, ethics, and well-being. To his credit, Dr Walker writes with flair that should have popular appeal. The subject might however work better as speculative fiction than as a proposed text for undergrads also written for popular consumption. As I read Dr Walker's proposal, I was often reminded of Robert Heinlein's For Us, The Living and William Morris' News from Nowhere. In any event, I hope that the following provides a sufficient assessment to make a reasonably informed decision about publishing the book either as proposed or with some modifications.

Dr Walker makes no mention in his proposal of Charles Murray's The Plan which had a similar objective and a fair amount of public exposure by way of reviews in such national magazines as The Nation and through academic and think-tank forums, one of which I attended. For all practical purposes The Plan went nowhere, much as Murray had publically predicted. Hence, much of Chapters 1 and 2 of Dr Walker's proposal is well trodden territory that has found little traction (both political and popular), evidenced by the likes of Murray and of Al Sheahen whose work Dr Walker does cite and rely on for his figures about costs and financing of BIG. Since Palgrave publishes Sheahen's book which is also designed for popular consumption and a series on BIG geared more to academic or scholarly audiences, perhaps related sales can provide some indication about the marketability of BI books.

Dr Walker asserts that to the best of his knowledge Free Money for All will be the first primarily 'consequentialist' defence of the income guarantee. This surprised me since many of those arguing for such guarantees claim that society as a whole would be somehow better with the guarantee than without it, whether for the greater common good, for more equalized access to political influence, greater freedom, and the like. Arguing for Basic Income, published in 1992 and edited by Philippe Van Parijs, one of the founding persons of contemporary efforts advancing the idea of an unconditional basic income and whose name and work are notably absent from Dr Walker's book proposal, has plenty of examples of portended good or desirable consequences that would result from a basic income guarantee. Hence, if the primary market is for academic researchers interested in BIG and distributive justice in general, this proposal based on the 'novelty' of consequentialist arguments per se will seem like more of the same in my estimation. For undergraduate philosophy students, another targeted audience of Dr Walker's proposed book, a 'consequentialist' defence of the income guarantee would seem appropriate and novel.

Dr Walker's purported appeals to academic researches include his treatment of happiness economics, freedom, and capitalism. Chapter 3 of the proposal to argues against unbridled capitalism. Since capitalism as we know it has always existed within a legal framework with varying degrees of regulations, more fruitful arguments about justice and capitalism would go well beyond Nozick who classic work seems to be used as straw person to show that capitalism has some negative consequences. Mis