Comment by Philip L. Harvey

It is hardly surprising in this environment that many progressives find the BI idea attractive. It promises important benefits that market economies rarely have been able to deliver. But if the right to work and income support proclaimed in the Universal Declaration can be secured at lower cost than a BI guarantee, the BI idea loses much of its luster. A society that used direct job creation to secure the right to work and conventional income transfer s to secure the right to income security could eliminate poverty with a much smaller allocation of public resources than a BI guarantee would require. The JI strategy also could secure most of the other benefits associated with a BI guarantee at lower cost . That being the case, the extra benefits uniquely attributable to a BI guarantee would be hard to justify.