In Our Hands

A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, Revised and Updated Edition

Charles Murray

Imagine that the United States were to scrap all its income transfer programs—including Social Security, Medicare, and all forms of welfare—and give every American age twenty-one and older $10,000 a year for life.This is the Plan, a radical new approach to social policy that defies any partisan label. First laid out by Charles Murray a decade ago, the updated edition reflects economic developments since that time. Murray, who previous books include Losing Ground and The Bell Curve, demonstrates that the Plan is financially feasible and the uses detailed analysis to argue that many goals of the welfare state—elimination of poverty, comfortable retirement for everyone, universal access to healthcare—would be better served under the Plan than under the current system. Murray’s goal, shared by Left and Right, is a society in which everyone, including the unluckiest among us, has the opportunity and means to construct a satisfying life. In Our Hands offers a rich and startling new way to think about how that goal might be achieved.

AEI Press

Pages: 152 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4422-6071-9 • Paperback • June 2016 • $16.95 • (£12.99)

978-1-4422-6072-6 • eBook • June 2016 • $15.99 • (£11.99)

Subjects: Political Science / Public Policy / Social Services & Welfare, Political Science / General, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / Public Policy / Economic Policy, Business & Economics / U.S. Economy

In Our Hands

A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, Revised and Updated Edition

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Imagine that the United States were to scrap all its income transfer programs—including Social Security, Medicare, and all forms of welfare—and give every American age twenty-one and older $10,000 a year for life.This is the Plan, a radical new approach to social policy that defies any partisan label. First laid out by Charles Murray a decade ago, the updated edition reflects economic developments since that time. Murray, who previous books include Losing Ground and The Bell Curve, demonstrates that the Plan is financially feasible and the uses detailed analysis to argue that many goals of the welfare state—elimination of poverty, comfortable retirement for everyone, universal access to healthcare—would be better served under the Plan than under the current system. Murray’s goal, shared by Left and Right, is a society in which everyone, including the unluckiest among us, has the opportunity and means to construct a satisfying life. In Our Hands offers a rich and startling new way to think about how that goal might be achieved.

Details

AEI Press

Pages: 152 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4422-6071-9 • Paperback • June 2016 • $16.95 • (£12.99)

978-1-4422-6072-6 • eBook • June 2016 • $15.99 • (£11.99)

Subjects: Political Science / Public Policy / Social Services & Welfare, Political Science / General, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / Public Policy / Economic Policy, Business & Economics / U.S. Economy

Author

Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar in Culture and Freedom at the American Enterprise Institute. His previous books include Losing Ground (1984), In Pursuit (1988), The Bell Curve (1994, with Richard J. Hernstein), What It Means to Be a Libertarian (1997), and Human Accomplishment (2003). He lives in Burkittsville, Maryland.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Ground Rules
Preface to the 2016 Edition
Introduction

Part I. Framework
1. The Plan
2. Basic Finances

Part II. Immediate Effects
3. Health Care
4. Retirement
5. Poverty
6. The Underclass
7. Work Disincentives

Part III . The Larger Purpose
8. The Pursuit of Happiness in Advanced Societies
9. Work
10. Family
11. Community
12. Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Appendixes
Bibliography
Notes
Index
About the Author

Reviews

[Charles Murray] has done more to provoke serious debate on subjects ranging from welfare to IQ than any of the million or so members of American academe, and more to produce changes in America's welfare state than any of the army of professional politicians.
— The Economist

What causes poverty in America? Lack of money. It’s that simple. And Charles Murray is simple-minded. All geniuses are. Let King Gordius of Phygia stand for Congress, the courts, and the executive branch. The yoke of social welfare programs has been tied to the chariot of politics with a not so ingenious that no one can unite it. Now read In Our Hands and watch the sword of Alexander the Great—or, rather, the pen of Murray the Brilliant—sever policy’s tangled skein.
— P.J. O'Rourke

In a world of timid prevaricators and world-weary complacency, thank God for Charles Murray. In this brief, but profound tract, he restates the obvious: that government is in the way of longer, safer, happier lives for all of us, and that we have the power to remove it. . . . We need his voice now more than ever, and in this book, it is as piercing, honest, and rigorous as ever.
— Andrew Sullivan

In Our Hands

A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, Revised and Updated Edition

Charles Murray

In Our Hands

A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, Revised and Updated Edition

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