Histories of Citizens Basic Income

Chapter 3 studies the history of history-writing, from political history, through social history, to economic history, and decides that history-writing is the construction of narratives influenced by contemporary agendas and backed up by evidence. Questions are then set: Is the history of Citizen’s Basic Income a subdiscipline of history, or of social history, or of economic history? What are the agendas that historians bring to their history-writing? What are the data that they seek to back up their arguments? Should the history be of the idea of a Citizen’s Basic Income, of policy debates, or of practical experiments? To what extent should the history be located in the broader history of existing tax and benefits systems? To what extent should ‘close cousins’, such as Negative Income Tax, be included? Five histories of Citizen’s Basic Income are then evaluated against these questions, and conclusions are drawn.