Questioning full employment and mandatory participation in the economy

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Jun

25

2:00pm

Questioning full employment and mandatory participation in the economy

By The BIG Conference

Paper 1: This paper describes an alternative way to reason about labor allocation that does away with the unhelpful concept of full employment. Instead of asking how to achieve full employment, we can explore how best to allocate people's time for the maximum benefit of society.
Paper 2: The central ethical question about UBI is: should we have a voluntary- or a mandatory-participation economy? I argue throughout that the mandatory-participation economy has never lived up to its promise. Mandatory participation requirements are costly, inefficient, harmful to the people in most need of help, and fundamental tools of oppression.
Papers to be presented
The Mistake of Full Employment by Alex Howlett
Mandatory Participation on Trial: Arguing for and addressing arguments against UBI by Karl Widerquist
Speakers
Alex Howlett, Project Greshm
Alex has been studying basic income for over a decade, with an emphasis on monetary economics. He believes that we can't understand basic without understanding money.
Karl Widerquist, Georgetown University-Qatar
Karl Widerquist, of Georgetown University-Qatar, is a researcher, writer, and advocate for Universal Basic Income. He is the confounder of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, cofounder the academic journal Basic Income Studies, and former co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network. He has published ten books, including Universal Basic Income: Essential Knowledge (MIT Press, forthcoming). He has appeared in many media outlets including the New York Times, the Guardian, and The Atlantic Monthly, which called him “a leader of the worldwide basic income movement.”
Moderator
Jason Burke Murphy, US Basic Income Guarantee Network
Jason Burke Murphy is a Professor of Philosophy at Elms College. He started and curated the social media accounts for US Basic Income Guarantee Network and Basic Income Earth Network for years. He has published in Basic Income Studies. He also has written about sports as well on "the meaning of life."
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