Guaranteed income would not only establish freedom as a reality rather than a slogan, it would also establish a principle deeply rooted in Western religious and humanist tradition: man has the right to live, regardless!

The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be a wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a necessary part of the Great Society in which the individual no longer has specific claims on the members of the particular small group into which he was born.

A certain small income, sufficient for necessities, should be secured for all, whether they work or not.

I am now convinced that the simplest solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a new widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.