Karl Widerquist is Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University in Qatar. His research focuses on distributive justice—the ethics of who has what.
Professor Widerquist is the author, co-author or editor of 11 books, including Universal Basic Income: Essential Knowledge (MIT Press, 2024), The Problem of Property: Taking the Freedom of Nonowners Seriously (Springer Nature, 2023), The Prehistory of Private Property: Implications for Modern Political Theory (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), A Critical Analysis of Basic Income Experiments (Palgrave Pivot, 2018), Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining Its Suitability as a Model (Springer, 2012), Exporting the Alaska Model (Springer, 2012), The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee (Routledge, 2005), and Economics for Social Workers (Columbia University Press, 2002). He is currently working on a book titled “Universal Basic Income: The Janus Debates.” He has also published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and contributed chapters to books.
A pioneer in his field, Professor Widerquist was co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (2010-2017), co-founding its news website in 2011 and serving as principal editor until 2015. He was a founding editor of the journal Basic Income Studies, and a co-founder of the US Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG), where he coordinated and edited NewsFlashes for its first ten years (2000-2010). The Atlantic called him, “a leader of the worldwide basic income movement.”
Professor Widerquist received his Ph.D. in political theory from the University of Oxford and his Ph.D. in economics from the City University of New York.