The citizen's stake: Exploring the future of universal asset policies

Description

Can and should asset-based policies such as universal capital grants become a new pillar of the welfare state? Can they form the basis for a more egalitarian form of market economy? The citizen's stake throws open the debate by bringing together the ideas of leading thinkers in academia and policy to explore the future scope of asset-based policies in Britain. The book examines asset-based welfare in connection with a wide range of issues, from tax policy to childcare, and includes the results of two innovative studies of public opinion on capital grants and inheritance tax. It is the first time that public opinion work has been integrated with theory into a serious and cohesive consideration of practical options for the future of asset-based welfare. Key questions asked include: How far can an asset-based approach replace existing welfare provision? What other revenue streams might be used to help finance more generous capital grant schemes? How can and should the state promote the responsible use of universal capital grants? How might asset-based welfare serve the improvement of work/life balance? The citizen's stake is accessibly written and aimed at a broad audience of academics, students and policy-makers. Indeed, anyone interested in how this new policy field can and should develop will want to read this book. The discussions are relevant to academics, researchers and policy makers overseas, particularly in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Ireland and Sweden, where there is a high level of interest in this topic.

Stuart White is Fellow in Politics at Jesus College, Oxford University. He researches in political theory and public policy and is the author of The Civic Minimum: On the Rights and Obligations of Economic Citizenship (2003) and co-editor of The Ethics of Stakeholding (2003, with Keith Dowding and Jurgen Dewiseplaere). Will Paxton is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research. He heads the Centre for Asset-Based Welfare which helped to pioneer the Child Trust Fund.

"The growing complexities of welfare and tax systems and the inequities and injustice such complexities create have led to calls for simpler systems for dealing with just redistribution. This book critically examines the citizen's stake and citizen's income ideas to provide a genuine contribution to policy debate in this important area." Keith Dowding, Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science