Institutional Trust, the Open Society, and the Welfare State

Abstract

In his insightful book, Trust in a Polarized Age, Kevin Vallier (2021) convincingly shows that the legitimacy and sustainability of liberal democratic institutions are dependent

upon the maintenance of social and institutional trust. This motivates investigating the trustbearing attributes of the redistributive welfare state and the “principle of social insurance” that underpins it. I will focus on the case of cash transfer programs and Universal Basic Income (UBI). I show that Vallier makes a convincing public reason argument for universal social insurance but proceeds too hastily to exclude the principle of unconditionality from consideration. I show that UBI, although it remains contentious, has some features that could appeal to a diverse citizenry. The integration of these considerations into the post-Rawlsian public reason framework promises to tilt the balance of public reason justifications, at least more than Vallier concedes, towards unconditional UBI or something similar. 

Keywords: trust, institutions, social trust, public reason, liberalism, Rawls, Gaus, Murray, UBI, conservatism

JEL Classification: P14, P16, H55, D63, D74