Part 1
Introduction
In this week’s column I start my effort to re-address the Buxton Proposal. This re-visit is very timely, as I shall demonstrate going forward. It will last several weeks. It has been occasioned by my recent re-reading of media reports on the Proposal. In that effort I was struck, as a social scientist, at how professionals in a wide variety of disciplines could so readily resort to ludicrous exaggeration, lampooning, and even caricaturing of proposals and schemes aimed at benefiting the poor as the priority option. Two examples readily come to mind. One is quite recent and the other is from a few years back in 2018. These illustrate what I mean.