makes public arguments for the basic income grant, for instance, he often
tells the biblical story of “the loaves and the fishes,” explaining that the
“miracle” that had enabled all to be fed was simply the act of sharing. The
state, and those who lead it, must take Christ as their example by sharing
out the national “loaves and fishes” to those in need. As with appeals to
the-�nation-�as-�family, such arguments have some commonalities with
principles of solidarity that have been at the core of many Northern welfare
states (especially in the “Christian DemoÂ�cratic” tradition, as Esping-
Andersen [1990] has pointed out). But it is noteworthy that what is called
for �here is not the horizontal, comradely solidarity of the social demo�cratic
working man (cf. chapter 2). Instead, the solidarity envisaged in explicitly
Christian arguments for the big is both distributive and reparative, invoking
specifically the asymmetrical responsibilities of the rich toward the
poor. A poster (with matching bumper sticker) distributed in support of
the Namibian big depicts a young black Namibian child holding a Namibian
$100 bill. Under the photo appear the words “Are you ready to share?”
Clearly, the appeal �here is to a certain ideal of sharing, but what is more
striking is the fact that the appeal is directed not toward those who might
benefit from receiving the grant (“Are you ready to receive your share?”)
but rather toward those who might be asked to pay for it (“Are you ready to
share?”). Duty Â�here is placed before right, and the key theme is that sharing
must be understood as both obligation and virtue.29
But there is yet another model of sharing that is at work �here. This
model is perhaps less familiar than the first two, and it is, for my purposes
�here, the one that is most interesting. That is a model of sharing
based on own�ership (own�ership precisely of a share). Here, the question
of mineral resources and the rightful distribution of the wealth that they
produce has been absolutely central. In a recent interview, for instance,
one activist insisted that the national liberation struggle in Namibia was
not yet complete, since that struggle had always been a struggle for a Namibia
“where every Namibian has a decent life, a decent living.” What is
more, the country “can afford to give every Namibian a decent living because
of the natural resources that we have been blessed with, the wealth
we are generating.” Social assistance, in the form of a basic income grant,
is thus in the first instance a matter of sharing what is properly a national
birthright. And this, he insisted, is not just a matter of sympathy, or even
of good policy; it is a matter of right. “We argue that it is not just a benefit