Why Stakeholding?

Abstract

Professors Ackerman and Alstott contrast their proposal for stakeholding with Philippe Van Parijs’s proposal for a universal basic income. InThe Stakeholder Society (1999), Ackerman and Alstott proposed that the federal government give all U.S. citizens an $80,000 grant as they reach adulthood. The program’s revenue cost is to be funded by an annual wealth tax of 2 percent and a “payback” requirement at death. Although stakeholding and basic income share common foundations in liberal political theory, Ackerman and Alstott discuss the principled and practical advantages of stakeholding and introduce Tony Blair’sU.K. proposal forChildren’s Savings Accounts (“baby bonds”), which shares important features with stakeholding.