Alternatives to Welfare

Abstract

Almost everyone agree that the present welfare system (TANF) is an inferior program and should be replaced. There are various proposals for an alternative to the current welfare system. First, I examine the philosophy that all able adult citizens have a responsibility to do socially useful work, but they should also have the right to an adequate income. The French social philosopher and journalist André Gorz and the Brandeis University social welfare professor David Gil, who have put forward visionary proposals for an ideal society based on the philosophy, hold this philosophy. Gorz maintains that automation and the electronic revolution have resulted in widespread unemployment and a flexible labor force, with few jobs remaining secure. As industrial jobs have shrunk and service jobs have increased, Gorz predicts that “more than 80 percent of us will earn our living by offering services to others.”¹ Therefore, Gorz says,

If we wish to maintain order, we may no longer reserve the right to an income to those citizens only who have jobs, nor even make the level of income dependent on the number of hours worked. Hence the idea of an income that would be guaranteed to every man and woman independently of work done…. The right to an income can no longer be the same thing as the right to a wage.²