| Synopsis: |
The Origins of Universal Grants collects significant historical sources on basic capital and basic income, some of which are translated into English for the first time, making them accessible to a wider academic and policy- making audience. They enhance the contemporary revival of interest about the merits and drawbacks of schemes for universal grants. The chosen extracts come from texts originally published in America, Belgium, England and France, and span the end of the eighteenth to the middle of the twentieth century. They reveal the wide geographical and temporal extent of such schemes. The editors' Introduction places the different proposals in context, and draws parallels between present and past debates. The extracts are drawn from writings on basic capital by Paine, Blatchly, Skidmore, Brownson, Voituron, De Keyser and De Potter, and on basic income by Spence, Fourier, Davenport and Carlile, Charlier, Milner and Milner, Pickard, Hattersley, Cole and Rhys-Williams. |