 The first position suggests that what we should be aiming for in enacting a social minimum is a minimum of welfare for all. “Welfare” here is understood in one of two ways. In classical Utilitarian thinking, pioneered by Jeremy Bentham, welfare refers to happiness which, in turn, is understood as the net balance of pleasure over pain that the individual experiences (Bentham 1789). On this view, in assessing how well off someone is in life, we should look at how happy they are, that is, at the net balance of pleasure over pain in their life. In more recent economic writings, welfare is identified with desire-satisfaction; people have more or less welfare, and so have better or worse lives in a fundamental sense, depending on how far they satisfy their desires.