He is best known as an advocate of basic income, but is also an interdisciplinary academic writer who has published in journals in fields as diverse as economics, politics, philosophy, and anthropology.
He is a consistent critic of propertarianism, right-libertarianism, social contract theory, and the belief that modern societies fulfill the Lockean proviso.
Before entering academia, he was a musician, including a stint as bass player for Michael McDermott, and the indie bands, Remember Alice?
[11][10] Widerquist has been a supporter of some form of basic income guarantee since he heard the topic discussed on an episode of Milton Friedman's television show Free to Choose at the age of 15 in 1980.
Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network along with Michael A. Lewis, Fred Block, Erik Olin Wright, Charles M. A. Clark, and Pamela Donovan.
[14] He and Michael Howard co-edited two books on Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend, addressing it as a working model of a small basic income.
Widerquist further argues that basic income, so conceived, does not exploit workers because it does not matter how one gets control of resources (through work, inheritance, or any other means).
[20] The absence of propertylessness is important not only to ensure that the privatization of resources is consistent with reciprocity but also to protect all workers from vulnerability to exploitation by their employers.
[25] Widerquist instead argues that disadvantaged might be entitled to greater redistribution larger than what would be required to equalize the income generated by natural resources.
[28] Updating Peter Kropotkin's empirical analysis and criticizing the right-libertarian theory of the state, Widerquist argues alongside Grant S. McCall argue that contemporary societies fail to fulfill the Lockean proviso, equality and freedom are compatible, stateless egalitarian societies promote negative freedom better than capitalism, the appropriation principle supports small-scale community property and the private-property right system associated with right-libertarian capitalism was established not by appropriation but by a long history of state-sponsored violence.
He also argues that basic income is more effective in protecting vulnerable individuals from exploitation and other forms of economic distress than traditional conditional welfare state policies.
[34][35][36] Karl Widerquist has collaborated with anthropologist Grant S. McCall to use anthropological evidence to debunk claims in contemporary political theory.
To do so they present a great deal of evidence about the types of land-holding institutions indigenous people have created throughout history and prehistory and about the government-sponsored violence that was necessary to establish the capitalist private property system.
[49] In addition to arguing for a basic income, the book suggests that taxation and regulation should be considered part of the purchase price of property.