Citizens’ Capital Accounts: A Comment on Contributions

Karl Widerquist’s proposal for Citizens’ Capital Accounts (CCAs) is at once intellectually innovative and eminently practical, perhaps even more so than previous suggestions for creating universal asset-based welfare policies. At present, the most concrete divide regarding the scope and use of such a policy pits basic income proponents against their stakeholder grant counterparts. Both camps rightly demand neutrality over the terms by which citizens spend their collectively financed grants. Widerquist’s plan, however, extends the neutrality principle to when individuals may draw on the available portion of their accounts, thereby combining—if not blurring—the most critical distinguishing feature of prior proposals. Basic income plans allow for a steady stream of payments over time; Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott’s stakeholder society1 reserves benefit payments for the moment at which mature adults assume the mantle of full citizenship. Widerquist’s description of CCAs in chapter 13 not only sets out with requisite detail a feasible operational design for CCAs but also a critical evaluation acknowledging its strengths and limitations.