The author seems to be solidly in the 'work == virtue' camp and argues that UBI decreases the incentive to work. While partly true, the REAL work we want done is not menial, but innovative, and leads to the next big breakthroughs that increase productivity and eliminate even MORE jobs. This is capitalism, no? UBI is there so everyone still survives to have a crack at it, if they want to.
This becomes an ethical question quite quickly: does being born make you worthy of survival?
Does the world owe you a living? Most would answer "no".
Civilization is often in direct opposition to nature, which is cruel and unforgiving. A civilization in collapse will revert to natural selection, in which the fittest survive and reproduce.
I believe that we are witnessing the breakdown of the social contract as the atomic unit of society shifts from the family to the individual. Atomized individuals are much more vulnerable, and replacing the family with the state will further alienate people. Entire novels have expounded on this idea.
Civilization does owe me a living, in exchange for my good conduct. If civilization cannot or will not provide me with my survival needs, I will instead break its laws and prey upon its people and systems to get not just what I need, but also what I want. If your system cannot reasonably accommodate everyone, you will have outlaws fighting it.
You can build walls or commit genocides, but they are not going to play any game by the rules when the rules guarantee that they will lose it.
"Nothing to see here. We've had these shifts before and more jobs will be created than lost and people will transition to new jobs etc..."
To which the response is, yes that's true, however never have we seen it at such a pace. Shifts are now likely to happen multiple times in a single working lifetime, as opposed to once a generation (1960-2000 - Solid State & industrial automation) or once every third generation (1800-1920 - Industrialization).
From years 0-1800 you could expect that your children would probably do the same job you and your grandfather did (more than likely farming). From 1950's on, children would likely go into a different line of work than their parents were in. Now it's common for a parent to have multiple careers with completely different skill sets and so on for their children.
This would be all well and good if one of these options were true:
1. People could adapt as quickly as advances in machine processes are changing (the outcome of which obviates machine efficiencies)
2. There was flexibility in the system which would allow people the time to adapt
The only other way to keep people around and not in poverty conditions would be to decouple human needs from business processes - which is effectively what UBI is trying to do in a roundabout way. I think has interesting long term outcomes, namely that a few dominant machine organizations would feed, clothe, house and train the population.
This would change your figures to around 2 generations for the current automation revolution, and industrialization to between 4-6 generations.
You couldn't get the new deal passed during the roaring 20's. Society has to actually realize that the old way no longer works. Radical change never happens without a great need already being present.
And we can't even really begin to guess how our society would be altered by this. Trying to predict the issue and fix them seems folly.
If this were the case, wages would be rising. Supply and demand is what kept unions around in the 60s, there was enough demand for labor that they could demand higher wages and better treatment. Now due to globalization and other things, the return on labor is incredibly low and still declining.
Did the offshoring of manufacture jobs create joblessness?
Actually I'm not sure what the answer to that is. According to statistics the US is running at full employment. According to pretty much every other source of information, regions where manufacturing used to happen are devastated by joblessness, drug addiction, and violence...
I don't know why there is such a disconnect.
If it was a lie you'd expect suppression of the further data.
"It’s called “history.” Since humans first controlled fire and carved arrows, history is a long tale of the invention and use of labor-saving techniques and devices. Domestication of oxen and horses. Pulleys. Levers. Irrigation channels. Metal saws. The printing press. Concrete. The wheel. All save labor, yet none has led to permanent increases in unemployment.
"It’s true that the pace of introducing new labor-saving techniques has magnificently quickened in the past two hundred years. This fast pace continues today. Yet still we encounter no evidence that labor-saving techniques permanently increase unemployment.
"You’ll reply “This time is different!” Perhaps, but I doubt it"
When jobs are lost because technology, the new jobs are created in fields where technology can't compete. Until now that was intellectual work.
There are several ways we can deal with it.
1. We can set up a social safety net to transition displaced workers to a new trade/career.
2. Protectionism.
3. We do nothing.
4. basic income
---
Doing nothing is silly.
Basic income isn't going to pass in USA, universal healthcare haven't even pass yet.
Protectionism goes against capitalism and it doesn't help in the long run. It just extend a dying market like coals. We chose to become specialized a long time ago and not specializing is crazy.
So the most sensible thing is a safety net.
I don't think we are going to arrive nowhere in the discussion until we face that question.
The claim is prima facie false, so I looked at the source provided ("this essay" is [1]) and it doesn't support that claim AT ALL.
[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601499/basic-income-a-sel...
If you give 100k people each 10k$ each month, chances are that some of them stop working because they consider it enough.
The same holds for 1k$ but to a lesser extent.
Still, UBI reduces the incentive to work.
I get lost somewhere in the reasoning.
I understand these articles are still needed/useful for people not yet aware about this issue so it's not a criticism of the article but of myself.
We're already seeing this split occur in USA. The middle class is basically gone at this point, and the majority of people are either upper-middle class or lower class. This is not a just or equal society at all right now.
This is only true if you have some bizarre definitions that you're using. The decline of the middle class has been a few percentage points. It's certainly not "gone".
More than 50% of households in America make $25-100k. That's solidly middle-class.
Even the Earth might not go out of orbit instantaneously if the Sun were to suddenly disappear.
In about 2009 I went to Europe's largest craft fair, held near Aylesbury just outside of London. There were many people there practicing woodwork with traditional hand tools (some of which they had made themselves), metalwork with traditional hand tools, pottery with hands. It was very quaint. I bought nothing but thought the people and processes were very interesting.
I think that's basically how manually building anything will look in the future - quaint, perhaps a sign of eccentricity and questionable priorities, but respectable in its own right as a pursuit - if you have the luxury of time to follow it up.
Pixar's WALL-E is the Marxist utopia we'll soon be living in.
No one wants for anything.
Believe it or not, the future is gonna be much different and you either accept it, or get crushed by the power of The Machine.
The article does hint at the possible need for control though.
EDIT - seems I could have done a better job with the satire here. There have been several reports that Donald Trump's Mexican wall is misguided and that the major driver of job losses these days is increased effeciency due to automation.
