The Federal District of Mexico, i.e. Mexico City, has been in a political transformation toward greater autonomy from the federal government and perhaps full statehood. The next step in this process might be the creation of a constitution for the city. On Tuesday, July 13th a broad group of civil and social organizations drafted a set of proposals for the statehood movement. It is called “Carta de la Ciudad de México por el Derecho a la Ciudad” (which translates approximately into, “Proposed Charter of Right for Mexico City”). This proposal might become the basis of a future constitution of the city. It was signed by hundreds of the civic leaders including the head of the city government, Jefe de Gobierno. Among the many points in the proposal, one is “promoting the establishment of basic income.” Although the inclusion of basic income in this proposal is a long way from the establishment of basic income in the city, its inclusion is extremely important for basic income movement in Mexico. This is the first time in Mexico that a proposal for basic income appears on a document of such relevance. According to Pablo Yanes, General Director of the Social Development Evaluation Council for Mexico City and president of the Mexican chapter of BIEN, “It is a good and important start for transforming basic income from an academic musing and public opinion issue into a programmatic and political demand.” For more information contact: Pablo Yanes pyanes2007@gmail.com.
About Karl Widerquist
Karl Widerquist has written 949 articles.
Karl Widerquist is an Associate Professor of political philosophy at SFS-Qatar, Georgetown University, specializing in distributive justice—the ethics of who has what. Much of his work involves Universal Basic Income (UBI). He is a co-founder of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG). He served as co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) for 7 years, and now serves as vice-chair. He was the Editor of the USBIG NewsFlash for 15 years and of the BIEN NewsFlash for 4 years. He is a cofounder of BIEN’s news website, Basic Income News, the main source of just-the-facts reporting on UBI worldwide. He is a cofounder and editor of the journal Basic Income Studies, the only academic journal devoted to research on UBI.
Widerquist has published several books and many articles on UBI both in academic journals and in the popular media. He has appeared on or been quoted by many major media outlets, such as NPR’s On Point, NPR’s Marketplace, PRI’s the World, CNBC, Al-Jazeera, 538, Vice, Dissent, the New York Times, Forbes, the Financial Times, and the Atlantic Monthly, which called him “a leader of the worldwide basic income movement.”
Widerquist holds two doctorates—one in Political Theory form Oxford University (2006) and one in Economics from the City University of New York (1996). He has published seven books, including Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press 2017, coauthored by Grant S. McCall) and Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No (Palgrave Macmillan 2013). He has published more than a twenty scholarly articles and book chapters.
Most Karl Widerquist’s writing is available on his “Selected Works” website (works.bepress.com/widerquist/). More information about him is available on his BIEN profile and on Wikipedia. He writes the blog "the Indepentarian" for Basic Income News.
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