The Prehistory of Private Property and the Case for Basic Income [Widerquist]
This paper debunks three false claims: 1. Inequality is natural and inevitable, or egalitarianism is unsustainable without a significant loss in freedom. 2. Capitalism is more consistent with negative freedom than any other conceivable economic system. 3. The normative principles of appropriation and voluntary transfer applied in the world we live in support a capitalist system with strong, individualist, and unequal private property rights. The presentation will connect these findings to the ethical defense of UBI.

Basic Income and Financial Instability[Howlett]
The pandemic—along with our response—is calling attention to the reality that the way we get people their money is, and always has always been, broken.  By providing direct income to consumers, basic income bypasses the financial sector, eliminates the need to over-employ people, and allows us to stabilize credit conditions.

Alex has been studying basic income since 2011.  He is the founder of Project Greshm and the originator of Consumer Monetary Theory (CMT).  He is a proponent of Perry Mehrling's "money view" perspective on the economics of money and banking.  He works with the Freiburg Institute for Basic Income Studies "Financing UBI" project.  He also co-hosts the Boston Basic Income podcast with Derek Van Gorder, which is the official podcast of USBIG. Alex lives in Boston, MA

Karl Widerquist, Georgetown University-Qatar

Karl Widerquist is a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University-Qatar. He holds two doctorates, one in Political Theory (Oxford University 2006) and one in Economics (City University of New York 1996). He specializes in distributive justice: the ethics of who has what. He has published more than twenty scholarly articles and nine books including "the Prehistory of Private Property;" "A Critical Analysis of Basic Income Experiments;" "Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy;" and "Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No." He was a founding editor of the journal "Basic Income Studies."

Economic and Ethical Arguments for Basic income