Jurgen De Wispelaere
Jurgen De Wispelaere addressed “”Unconditional Basic Income: Political Obstacles and Strategies” in a talk give on Friday, March 20th, 6:30–8:30 pm at 4200 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls, MN 55407. Hosts were Kristine Osbakken and Liane Gale of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network.
Says De Wispelaere, “The idea of granting each citizen an individual and unconditional basic income is booming. Support from all corners of the political arena seems to follow suit. I want to describe two political problems we need to overcome to make basic income a policy reality. 1) Much of political support is “cheap”, and we need to find ways to make sure political supporters put their money where their mouths are. 2) Strategy: should we try and unite factions from the Left and the Right around a single proposal, or instead work towards a specific progressive basic income proposal. I will invite the audience to think through some of the ways in which a basic income movement might get around these problems.”
Jurgen De Wispelaere is a former occupational therapist turned moral philosopher. He lectures at Trinity College, Dublin and has been a fellow with both the Combat Poverty Agency Ireland and Centre for the Study of Social Justice at Oxford. He’s the founding editor of the journal “Basic Income Trust”, on the Executive Committee of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and the author of several books and many articles.
