ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the arguments for work-conditioned welfare and basic income. It reviews arguments about work and participation requirements which advance a definition of citizenship. A review of arguments for conditionality and the theories of citizenship they posit shows what advocates of unconditionality have yet to do in making the case for basic income. The chapter offers as a liberal alternative a radically pluralist notion of citizenship with a kind of universal economic suffrage, made possible by an unconditional basic income, at its core. It argues that the most common citizenship-based justifications for work requirements—the paternalistic and civic republican arguments—are flawed because of their selectivity, and that the only defensible citizenship-based justification for work requirements is the socialist model. Advocates of participation requirements succeed in resolving one objection to the civic republican model by expanding the definition of social contribution to include forms of socially useful activities other than paid employment.
