How might that potential be realized? Could a social apparatus that
has proven admirably effective in delivering cash payments to the poorest
be repurposed into something more transformative than a depoliticizing
device for ameliorating poverty and helping the needy? Perhaps at least
some significant part of an answer to these questions might start with
a rethinking of the meaning of such payments—Â�in parÂ�ticÂ�uÂ�lar, the idea
that a social payment might be understood not as aid, assistance, gift,
or charity but instead as a kind of share. The next section develops this
conception, and the following one makes the argument more than hypo