ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a tradition of liberalism that more directly challenges the New Right on its definitions of property and independence. Many arguments about the right to welfare draw on political language in order to address the economic standing of the poor; these arguments amount to nothing more than a justification for the "alleviation of destitution." Charles Reich advances the argument about the right to welfare by arguing that welfare provision constitutes a form of property itself as well as a source of citizenship. In contrast to a human right, a right of citizenship is directed against a specific government. In conventional liberal language, Reich argues that property "performs the function of maintaining independence, dignity and pluralism in society by creating zones within which the majority has to yield to the owner". The implication for a revised theory of citizenship in light of actual sociological possibilities sounds promising.
