In Britain, lone mothers are being recruited to provide childcare for other lone mothers to look after old people, where previously both groups were doing the same things on an unpaid basis. People earn more, but their costs of living rise also, as they come to rely on markets for more aspects of their quality of life. The justification of these programmes is framed in terms of social inclusion. But the rationale of opportunity is balanced by one of responsibility and reciprocity. The new contract is between a citizen who wants to contribute, and a government which insists that this should be done in terms of paid work, and which organises and if necessary coerces him or her to accept its offers.
Justice is served by labour contributions for the public good.
There is something very unbalanced about the so-called reciprocity between the social rights and obligations of citizenship in this new order. For those whom the market rewards adequately, or who own productive resources, no specific duties are owed to fellow citizens. I n any year I can, by the simple expedient of adjusting the number of months I work in any one of these, choose to which I shall pay taxes, and hence with whose welfare claimants I shall show solidarity. In other words, being a British citizen implies nothing at all about how I should contribute to the national economy or the public purse. Such conditions seem to violate the basic liberal principles of self-ownership and moral autonomy.