This paper argues that a guaranteed income is not only consistent with the principle of reciprocity but is required for reciprocity. This conclusion follows from a three-part argument. First, if a guaranteed income is in place, all individuals have the same opportunity to live without working....

One person's public good is another's public bad and so, perhaps, the public goods problem could be more generally described as the public commodities problem, in which disagreement about the basic goal of a spending program complicates the decision of how much to spend to achieve that goal....