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What will happen to displaced workers? How will mass unemployment hurt
our increasingly globalized economy?
I spoke with Scott Santens, a New Orleans based writer who is studying
and championing the adoption of basic income policies and processes.
Santens ideas and opinions have been published in the Huffington Post,
TechCrunch, and the Boston Globe. He also claims to earn a basic income
for his work via the Patreon creative crowdsourcing platform.
Basic income has been shown to reduce poverty and inequality. It's been
shown to lead to improved health and reduced crime. It's been shown to
reduce debt and increase savings. It's been shown to increase
entrepreneurship and social cohesion. Unlike welfare, it reaches
everyone in need and enables people to escape lives of destitution and
insecurity. Unlike unemployment, everyone receives basic income and so
it creates the situation where everyone is always financially better off
employed than unemployed, but everyone also has the real ability to
pursue the work that's most important to them, even if unpaid. So much
of our current environment exists as it is because so many people don't
have sufficient access to money, which is the tool we use to obtain
access to resources using markets. By making sure everyone has
sufficient access to money, and therefore sufficient access to markets,
we create the foundations for a stronger economy; and with it, a better
society.
*KG: Why haven't we seen an embrace of the basic income concept globally?*
*KG: Why is basic income the "only" solution to dealing with employment?*
*SS: *Basic income isn't the only solution, but it's arguably the best
solution because it's the solution that actually does the most. Look at
education for example. It's been shown that increasing the incomes of
parents does more for educational outcomes than something like pre-K. So
why spend money on pre-K instead of parental incomes? If the reason kids
aren't doing as well in school as they would if their parents just
earned more money to improve household environments, why give money to
schools instead of parents? It's the difference between treating the
symptoms and treating the causes. Treating symptoms is wasteful and
never ends. Treat the causes. Better yet, vaccinate against diseases so
people don't get sick in the first place.
Basic income changes all of this by granting people the power to say no.
With the ability to say no to jobs no one wants to do, those employers
must pay more for people to do them, or reduce the hours, or invest in
automation. With the power to say no also comes the ability to say yes.
People can choose to do the unpaid work that is arguably more valuable.
They can choose to use their basic incomes as basic venture capital to
startup new businesses, and people with basic incomes can even afford to
work at these startups for free in exchange for something like stock
options that will reward them far more down the road if the idea is
successful than a wage would have, because they have the real ability to
work for free.
Basic income also changes the entire way we look at the growing gig
economy. Right now Uber drivers might only be driving for Uber because
they are barely getting by and need more money to meet their needs. With
basic income operating as an income floor, Uber drivers have their basic
needs covered and they are driving because they simply choose to drive
for additional money (until a self-driving Uber provides far cheaper
rides). On-demand labor with a basic income means that everyone has both
greater ability to earn additional income and a feeling of economic
security.On-demand labor without basic income means growing insecurity
as more and more people try to just scrape by and monthly incomes vary
so much that people are constantly falling behind and ceaselessly living
on the edge.
And finally basic income changes the automation discussion from will
robots take our jobs to let's give our jobs to robots. I think it's
extremely odd that we've developed our technology to the point it can
not only do our muscle work for us, but also a great deal of our mind
work, and we're all worried it will do our work for us. That makes no
sense to me. The fact anyone is even worried at all that machines might
actually do our jobs for us is a big bright signal that we're doing
something wrong, and what we're doing wrong is that we require
employment in order to live. If we break that connection and allow
people to live without employment, then we dissolve our fear of
technological unemployment.
*KG: What holes do you see in the argument to support a basic income?
What needs to be addressed?*
*SS:* The real holes in the basic income discussion are in the arguments
of those afraid of the idea. Basic income is not unaffordable. It will
save us far more than its net cost. Basic income will not lead to people
doing nothing. It will enable people to do far more work that they are
currently prevented from doing, and far more valuable work at that.
Basic income will not lead to rampant inflation. It will stimulate
economic growth and investment in automation and create a far stronger
consumer base. Basic income will not lead to rampant illegal
immigration. It will incentivize immigrants to pursue legal immigration
since basic income will only be received by citizens or legal residents.
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