 A further preliminary point will be helpful to note first, however. When we speak of a ‘society’ enacting a social minimum, this term can be taken in different ways. We could be referring to a national society and thus to the enactment of a social minimum by a national government. Or we could be talking about a society at a transnational or the global level, and to the enactment of a transnational or global social minimum. In the discussion that follows, we will assume a national context as the baseline for discussion but many of the arguments are also relevant to a transnational or global context.