Where and when did the idea of Citizens Income come from?
Thomas Paine recommended that every citizen should receive an income from the state, in compensation for the inequitable division of land, which he regarded as belonging to every citizen. In 1920, Major C.H. Douglas proposed Social Credit or National Dividend as a remedy for unemployment. Variations of this idea entered the economic and social policy debates of the inter-war period and were advocated by several leading economists associated with John Maynard Keynes. And then Beveridge’s report and the subsequent legislation for the welfare state as we know it included a provision for Family Allowances: an allowance for every child except the first in each family ( – Child Benefit later extended the benefit to all children). Beveridge’s system of contributory benefits backed up by a means-tested safety-net soon became a means-tested safety net to which contributory benefits contributed, because the means-tested benefit-levels were set too close to those for contributory benefits, and me
