on the Universal Basic Income.

My name is Charles Wheelan.

I'm a senior lecturer at the Rockefeller Center.

The last decade, if not longer, has obviously seen a debate

over our market-based capitalist system.

The financial crisis

brought a lot of the weaknesses to the fore.

Now, we are experiencing several political campaigns

that discuss whether moneyed interests

have co-opted the system,

whether there's sufficient competition,

particularly in high tech,

whether we should reinvestigate antitrust.

Obviously big concerns about income inequality

with San Francisco and California being an example of places

where enormous wealth are being created

even as there are 10 cities that are more familiar

in developing countries than in modern America.

Amidst all that, people are asking questions

about capitalism itself.

If you look at surveys of young people,

support for both democracy and capitalism have fallen.

People are bandying about the word socialism,

which is somebody who lived through

the Fall of the Berlin Wall was not something

we thought was going to be resurgent.

When you push on that a little bit,

what people tend to really mean

is they kind of want to rethink

the finer points of our market-based system.

So it's not necessarily throwing out the car

but maybe a redesign,

if not some serious buffing and polishing.

One idea that has emerged from that larger discussion

is the possibility of a universal basic income

and I'll define what that means in a little bit

and that's the narrow discussion that we're going to have.

But of course it touches on lots of other big issues,

income inequality, what we owe the poorest Americans,

what we ought to ask of the wealthiest Americans and so on.

That's what we're going to explore.

It's obviously important enough

that it is basically launched and sustained

the political campaign of Andrew Yang.

It's kind of a one idea that has resonance.

There are two guests who are going to be debating this issue.

On my far left, Karl Widerquist, who is associate professor

of Georgetown University at Cutter.

He is an expert in political philosophy

and distributive justice,

which is really a discussion of who has what

and is that fair?

He holds not one but two doctorates.

Around here, we're usually impressed

with people who have one PhD, but he's got two.

One in political theory from Oxford

and the second in economics

from City University of New York.

He is the author of numerous articles and books

including the book,

"Independence Propertylessness, and Basic Income:

"A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No."

To my immediate left is Oren Cass,

who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

He is the author

of "The Once and Future Worker:

"A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America."

He was the domestic policy advisor for Mitt Romney

in his presidential campaign in 2012.

Before that, he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review.

He worked at Bain and Company

he has BA from Williams and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Karl will be kicking it off with his defense

of the universal basic income and Oren will go after that.

They'll each talk for about 10 minutes

and then we'll allow them to debate

and eventually, we will open it up for questions

from all of you.

In anticipation of Karl's talk,

let me just set out the parameters

of what we mean by universal basic income

and we can debate the nuances.

But for opening purposes, it is a benefit that is cash.

So it doesn't have to actually be bills

but it's not an in kind benefit like food stamps.

It is a cash benefit that goes to all individuals

who are eligible.

So if there's a household of three, it would go to the male,

to the female, to any of the kids in trust of their parents.

It is not means tested.

So it goes to all folks in America.

We can talk about whether that's citizens,

non-citizens and so on.

But it's unlike say food stamps

where if you're below a threshold, you get them.

If you're above the threshold, you do not.

This is a universal benefit

and there is no work requirements.

So there's nothing you have to do

in exchange for that basic income.

And it is regular,

meaning that it is not a one-time payment.

It is something that can be given annually

or as we may discuss more regularly

because that's more important

for people who are struggling

at the low end of the income scale.

There are different flavors of a universal basic income.

We can get into that.

It can be additive to existing benefits.

So it can be layered on top of the social safety net

or it can also be used to replace some of those benefits

because it's simpler than some of the means-tested programs.

So with that basic explanation,

I will turn it over to Karl who will make the case

for universal basic income.

- Thank you.

I support basic income because I think it's wrong to become,

to come between people,

anyone and the resources they need to survive

and that is exactly what we've done.

We've taken the resources of the earth

that were here before anyone came along

and we've said this is government property

or this is private property

and these belong to these people.

And then we divvy them up

between the privileged people in the world,

but the rest of you didn't get a share.

And the only way you can get a share

is if you work for these people

and you can't work for yourself.

We've taken away any possibility for propertyless people

to work for themselves.

And we say the only way you can work

is the follow order for these people

who already control resources.

I think that's a really terrible thing to do to anyone.

And I think all of you in your heart of hearts

to some extent and agree with me.

And I think that's why suppose some entrepreneur

came in here right now

and he appropriated the air in this room.

He just sucked all the air out of the room and said,

and an improved mixed his or her labor with the air

to make it better air and say,

so this air is my property now.

We were sharing it.

Now it's my private property.

If you all get jobs, you can buy air from me

and you better hurry 'cause you have seven minutes.

I think all of us would be pretty upset.

We'd say, well, if you want me to work for you,

maybe I will show me what the job is,

but give me my air back first.

You can't hold me under this duress

that you're holding under by depriving me of air.

But yet we do that every day with other resources,

food and shelter and water and the resources to make them.

We hold most of the working in the middle class

and the people under this duress

of you don't get these things unless you work for somebody.

I think that the people who own stuff,

the people who own stuff really need to pay back

for what we own.

That when you take a piece of the earth

and you make it your property,

what you're doing is you're imposing a duty on everyone else

saying this part of the earth

or whatever I've made out of this part of the earth

used to be anybody could use it, now only I can use it.

So you're all under this duty.

Well, if you're going to impose a duty on other people,

you should pay for it.

So I envision is you're paying taxes on the property you own

and you're getting paid for the property

that everybody else owns.

You're simultaneously paying,

you're simultaneously getting paid.

Some of us are going to pay more than we can get.

Some of us are going to get more than we paid.

If you pay more than you get,

if you pay more than you get back in basic income,

that is your reasonable fee

for hogging a bunch of the earth's resources.

And if you're getting more than you pay,

that is your reward to spend as you wish

on the services provided by everyone else

for using less resources than everybody else.

It's only normal.

Now, it's in the sense it's really not a radical reform.

We can combine it with lots of other reforms.

But if all we do was introduced basic income tomorrow,

what we'd have is a market economy

where income doesn't start at zero.

That's not so radical, but it might have radical effects.

It might have radical effects because as I showed

in that opening illustration

about air ownership of resources

gives you not only enjoyment of those resources

but control other people.

If you control things that people need to survive,

you control not only those things, but those people.

It puts all the rest of us in this position

where we have to go to whatever privileged group

owns the resources.

And it doesn't matter if it's a capitalist group

or if a socialist group or somebody else.

If it's not you, they have control over you.

And we should not be putting people in this condition.

Now, people who oppose this idea will often say,

I think fanciful things.

They'll pretend that we actually do provide these things.

We don't.

We have most of our policies run out.

If you get disability that lasts for the rest of your life,

if you live long enough to get social security,

that will last of the rest of your life.

Food stamps don't.

And TANIF doesn't and most of the things that we do

to help poor people run out,

and most of them come with conditions.

Now, a lot of conditions are popular.

People say they want to fight poverty, but with conditions.

But often these conditions are very self serving

on the part of the privileged.

First of all, it's the privileged

who are deciding conditions.

So we've already taken all the resources

and now we're the ones who get to decide

what those who didn't get any resources,

what they have to do

to get the resources they need to survive.

Well that's kind of self-serving, and kind of cruel isn't it?

That you don't get these resources until you do what I say.

And I'll show you how self-serving it is.

What's the number one thing we always ask

of the less privileged?

To prove they're amongst the truly needy

rather than those bad, needy people

who aren't really truly needy.

Is that you must be willing to work.

Well, that sounds good, but you know what they mean by work.

They mean take a job,

go in and be a servant to your employer

in a sense of you might not be in the service industry.

You might not be a butler,