Universal basic income is an idea usually associated with the political left. However, it also has surprising support from the Libertarian right in the form of Milton Friedman's negative income tax. Indeed, Friedman's case for NITs gets to the core of his case for free markets, freedom from coercion, and where government should intervene in our economies, writes Joshua Preiss.

After John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman is arguably the most influential economist of the 20^th Century. Like Keynes, his influence extends far beyond technical questions in economics. Friedman is known as a champion of small government who provided key talking points for Reaganomics, a political philosophy that in the public imagination is best captured by Reagan’s iconic declaration that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” It may therefore come as a surprise that Friedman proposed a massive, government policy to alleviate poverty.