ABSTRACT
The article tells about the travel made in 1988 by the Nobel laureate economist James Edward Meade to the island of Utopia, a Perfect Place to live in. After much effort, he could find the island Nowhere. However, on his way home, he found the island of Agathotopia, a Good Place for people who made no claim for perfection to live in. After studying the social arrangements of Agathotopia, Meade returned to his country convinced that those arrangements were the best to attain the objectives of Liberty, Equality and Efficiency. In Agathotopia there is much flexibility of prices and wages, a great deal of interaction and partnership between capital and labor and a social dividend or a guaranteed minimum income for all citizens. Meade has been proposing the social dividend since 1935, after interacting with many other economists who have contributing to the idea of a guaranteed minimum income or different forms of a negative income tax. The proposal is now being discussed by the Brazilian National Congress.
KEYWORDS:
Universal basic income; income distribution; inequality