No strings attached

When German aid workers proposed a basic income support program in Otjivero, an impoverished, disease-ridden, hard-drinking village in Namibia, critics scoffed.  "They'll just drink more," one predicted. But a year into the program, which distributes $100 Namibian (roughly $14.15 Canadian) per month to each of Otjivero's 961 residents, school attendance has soared, public health improved, and crime dropped. Spiegel Online International reports: The basic income scheme doesn't work like charity, but like a constitutional right. Under the plan, every citizen, rich or poor, would be entitled to it starting at birth. There would be no poverty test, no conditions and, therefore,...