He'll not thank me for saying so, but I agree with Sam Bowman's call for a basic income (or, as he calls it, negative income tax). This raises a question: how can a Marxist so warmly agree with a right(ish)-libertarian?

In part, it is because Marxism is a form of libertarianism. But there's two other sources of agreement between us.

One is that I agree with Sam that alternatives to a basic income, such as a living wage, are inferior to the extent that they would price some people out of work. And I also agree that capitalism cannot provide full employment. We differ on how we express this: Sam would emphasize some people having a low marginal product and the effects of automation whilst I'd stress more systemic defects of capitalism. But our perspective is much the same.

Secondly, I suspect we agree in rejecting the idea that the welfare state should have a moralistic purpose. From the "less eligibility" principle of the Poor Law, through Beveridge's plan to "make and keep men fit for service", to New Labour's use of tax credits to "make work pay", the Welfare State has always tried to encourage work. Libertarians and Marxists are, or should be, sceptical of this. Libertarians because the state in a free society should be neutral between ways of life. And Marxists because we don't think the state should be capitalism's human resources department. And in a world where full employment is improbable, encouraging work is a counterproductive atavism. As Philippe van Parijs - who first converted me to its merits - has argued, a basic income is a response to the fact of persistent mass unemployment.

Where, then, might we differ? The answer, I think, lies in the level of basic income.

A lowish basic income satisfies the right's desire that there be only limited redistribution. But it would compel people to find low-paid and unpleasant work. We Marxists would find this doubly objectionable. It means basic income would fail to achieve the objective of real freedom for all. And it would remove employers' incentives to attract workers by offering them better conditions.

In this sense, there is a big difference between left and right.

The right might object that a high basic income would be unaffordable, in the sense of requiring high taxes and dampening work incentives - both for those burdened by the taxes and for those enjoying a high out-of-work income.

To which I'd reply: let's find out.