Comment by Vida Panitch

Where a welfare state responds to needs through the in-kind provision of specific goods or social services, rather than with a cash benefit, it liberates the recipients of these benefits from market dependency (at least to some degree) and thus arguably furthers the realization of their humanity. On this score, the liberal welfare state seems to do rather better than a basic income scheme would. In a great many instances, the liberal welfare state favors the in-kind provision of needed goods and services over cash transfers. For example, it provides such things as public housing, temporary shelter, food stamps, school means, education and health care. These provisions can quite seriously be said to lessen their recipients’ dependence on market mechanisms by meeting needs as directly as possible. Of course, the liberal welfare state also provides cash subsidies in the form of pen- sions, disability insurance and unemployment insurance.