The Cato Institute, a US-based libertarian think tank, is hosting a “Two-Book Forum” on basic income on Tuesday, October 4.
The forum will feature two well-known authors on basic income: Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute (another right-leaning think tank based in Washington DC) and Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union (now at Columbia University).
Both Murray and Stern have published books about basic income in 2016. Stern’s book, Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream (Public Affairs), has received much media attention in the US and beyond. Stern sees UBI as needed primarily as a safeguard against disruptions in the labor market that will caused by new technologies. Murray’s In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State (AEI Press) is a new edition of a book first published 10 years ago, which has been influential among conservative and libertarian supporters of basic income. On Murray’s view, a UBI should be adopted as a way to simplify the current welfare system.
According to Cato Institute’s description of the event, Murray and Stern “will discuss whether a UBI is a practical and affordable approach to poverty in a new economy and whether or not there really is an opportunity to build a cross-partisan consensus for a new approach to social welfare.”
Michael Tanner, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, will moderate the discussion.
The event is open to the public and free-of-charge. It will also be streamed live at www.cato.org/live.
For more information, or to register (by 12 PM EST on Monday, October 3), see the event webpage on the Cato Institute’s website.
Image: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 BeyondDC
