Political Theory Commons^™

A Reciprocal Welfare Program, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines how social welfare programs should be structured to comport with the principle of conditional reciprocity. A previous paper, Rethinking Welfare Rights, 63 Law & Contemporary Problems 257 (Winter/Spring 2000), drew upon voter survey data to suggest that a powerful cluster of attitudes governs citizens' views on social redistribution. Most people accept collective responsibility for the poor but adhere to a moralistic distinction between deserving and undeserving recipients of public aid. They view entitlement to group resources as conditional on each person's reasonable effort, consistent with ability, to support himself and his family. It was speculated that the …